Dear John,
My apologies for the delay between Bishop Bulletins - it's been a very busy September so far. As you may have seen in the news over the last week or so, my father John passed away on Friday September 13. The messages of condolence and support coming into my phone and inbox (physically and online) have been truly overwhelming. A big thank you to everyone who has messaged me at this very hard time for my family and me. It really means a lot. Dad was a wonderful, funny man and an incredible father. It's going to be really hard without him.
We celebrated Dad's life with a funeral at Old St Paul's last Thursday morning. Dad left quite specific instructions about music he wanted played and the post match ("a decent bash with lots of Guinness, scotch and meat sandwiches and the like") and I think we did him proud. The Dom Post did a nice story about it which you can see here. It seemed like half of Wellington was there, which is exactly as Dad would have wanted it. Once again, thank you for your support over the last week when I've been on bereavement leave from Parliament.
Onto politics and my other activities, and it's been a busy September. I started the month at the Paralympics in Paris, which was only a couple of weeks ago but feels like a lifetime. Our Paralympic team did us proud and it was fantastic to be there. I also dropped into the OECD in Paris to talk infrastructure policy and picked up some good ideas for back home.
RMA Reform: One of my most important jobs in government is sorting out the mess that is the Resource Management Act. Since 1991 we've endured some of the fastest house price growth in the developed world, our infrastructure deficit has worsened and many of our environment metrics have gone backwards too. So the RMA has comprehensively failed to deliver a planning system that we want and need and there is now widespread consensus around that.
We've approached RMA reform in three phases. The first phase was to repeal Labour's laws passed at the tail end of the last Parliament. We did that before Christmas last year. Phase two is to make "quick win" amendments to the existing law to make it easier to build, easier to farm, and cheaper to build infrastructure. We're in the process of making those changes now.
Phase three is about replacing the RMA and that's what Simon Court (my Undersecretary from ACT) and I announced on Friday. You can read my speech here. Cabinet has established ten key principles for the new legislation and we've appointed a high quality expert advisory panel to guide us. The aim is to agree on the core legislative provisions before the end of the year and get legislation into Parliament next year. Our aim is to pass new legislation before the next election. I'm interested in your feedback on this!
Ten years as an MP: I didn't realise this until someone reminded me - but Friday the 20th marked ten years since I was elected as an MP! It's an enormous privilege to be a MP (and now a Minister) serving the people of the Hutt Valley, and New Zealand. I've been lucky enough to be supported by a huge number of people over the last ten years - thank you to everyone who has helped along the way. And of course I couldn't do it without Jenna (and now Jeremy, and soon to be another!).
That's all from me this week - it's going to be a busy week with Parliament sitting again. Have a great week and if I can lend a hand with anything, please reach out.
Chris
P.S I'm hosting a fundraising dinner with Christopher Luxon on Wednesday this week at Boulcott's Farm - would you like to come along? TIckets from here. It's our big annual fundraiser for the Hutt South National Party.
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Speaking on RMA Reform to the Resource Management Lawyers' Association in New Plymouth on Friday.
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Erica Stanford and I visited Boulcott School in the Hutt to announce that from 1 October, schools with Years 0-3 will receive between $500 and $5000 per year over the next four years to support them buying structured literacy resources.
This is part of our plan to get schools focused on teaching the basics brilliantly.
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Indian Classical Arts Festival
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A wonderful afternoon at the first Indian Classical Arts Festival at the Lower Hutt Town Hall a couple of weekends ago. Indian dance, music, drama and cultural groups from around Wellington (and NZ) came together for a massive festival.
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Really proud of this achievement!
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Ten years since I was elected!
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A photo from election night 2014 - checking out the results online. It was a close one! Lost by 709.
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Congrats to Chilton St James' Seraphim Choir, who shone at the NZCF Big Sing National Finale. Competing among 24 of New Zealand's top secondary school choirs at the Michael Fowler Centre, each performing two programmes, Seraphim were awarded Silver!
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It was awesome to be in Paris supporting both our Olympics and Paralympics team. P.S, if you've ever wondered what the food is like at the Athletes' Village, you can check out a video I made here.
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