Hon DAVID PARKER (Minister for the Environment): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I agree that the protection of mature and ecologically significant trees in urban areas is an important consideration and the Government is actively considering this as part of the reform of the Resource Management Act (RMA). It's also important that protections don't create excessive compliance costs for routine pruning or the removal of smaller trees. I'm advised that prior to the changes to the RMA that occurred under the last National Government, there were an estimated 4,000 to 5,000 resource consents required to prune or remove trees per year, which is around 10 percent of total resource consents issued. In addition, many people thought the rules requiring consents were sometimes absurd and ignored them, bringing the RMA into disrepute.