GUEST BLOG: Ian Powell – Fast-tracking wealth accumulation and the ‘war on nature’

The Fast-Track Approvals Bill currently before Parliament is up there with the most controversial decisions of the National-ACT-New Zealand First coalition government.

This coalition, elected a year ago, is one of the most right-wing governments Aotearoa New Zealand has ever had. One has to go back to the National government elected in 1990 to find a government as right-wing.

Unlike its predecessors this century, it is a coalition government that is a mix of deniers of climate change and those indifferent to its disastrous consequences for nature and humanity.

The Fast-Track Approvals Bill in summary

The official description of the bill is that it aims to provide a more efficient and certain pathway for projects to seek approvals.

This is to be done by consolidating multiple approval processes that are typically required for large or complex projects, in a one-stop-shop arrangement.

The reality is that it is that is about prioritising economic development by removing any so-called ‘red tape’ that gets in the way. This includes environmental protections and safeguards, including for clean water and preventing extinction.

The scope is broader than housing and infrastructure. But this is what the politically astute Chris Bishop has tried to shift the narrative to.

NZ First Minister Shane Jones is the most brash supporter of the bill

Unfortunately for him, Bishop has not been helped by the counter-productive in-your-face brashness of his cabinet colleague Shane Jones.

But this narrative shift is somewhat akin to foreplay. The climatic intent of the bill is the much wider ‘national and regional development.’

Existing legislation already allows fast-tracking for speeding up development while protecting the environment. The bill proposes speeding up development while overriding environmental protection.

Conflict of interest and cronyism

Unsurprisingly and understandably there has been much focus on conflict of interest and the strong risk of cronyism.

Fast-Track Approvals Bill a ‘golden goose’ (Murdoch, Stuff)

Given the design of the bill, including its purpose and application through politically appointed ‘expert panels’, cronyism is inevitable. The only thing that is unclear is how much and how pervasive will it be.

Political scientist Bryce Edwards has canvassed these matters well in his Democracy Project piece (8 October): Monitoring the Fast-Track Act.

Farah Hancock has provided insightful coverage on Radio New Zealand

Radio New Zealand data Journalist Farah Hancock has published two informative pieces. The first was in-depth (10 October): Political donations associated with fast-track projects.

The second, six days later, followed up on the selection process: Who picks fast-track panels.

Newsroom’s Marc Daalder and Laura Walters added to this helpful background information by mapping the projects (16 October): Fast-tracked projects mapped.

Enter wealth accumulation

As valuable and instructive as these and other commentaries are, however, to really understand the politics, one needs to drill much further to understand the purpose of this bill.

Wealth accumulation key driver of New Zealand’s economy

The core driver resides in the nature of New Zealand’s, and much of the planet’s, economic system which we call capitalism.

This driver is the insatiable and overriding objective of the wealth accumulation. But the bill takes this objective further down the path to the maximisation of wealth accumulation.

In this context, accumulation is the increase of capital by the addition of surplus value which is a continuous process arising out of exploitation. Capital accumulation is the growth in wealth through investments or profits.

Traditionally, under capitalism, this exploitation has been regarded as being of labour; the working class as defined by its relationship with the production process.

However, increasingly awareness has grown of another focus of exploitation – nature.

Arguably the most prolific writer on capitalism’s exploitation of nature (including its relationship with climate change) has been Jeremy Bellamy Foster, editor of the socialist publication Monthly Review: Jeremy Bellamy Foster background.

Fast-Track Approvals Bill in context

The Fast-Track Approvals legislation should be seen in this context. It is an endeavour to maximise profit extraction by enabling the intensification of the exploitation of nature. Forest & Bird have aptly described this as a “war on nature”.

Until now, while not undermining wealth accumulation as the economy’s driver, legislative protections existed to constrain its impact on nature. The Fast-Track Approvals Bill is intended to remove that constraint.

Conflict of interest and cronyism are not the drivers of the bill. Instead, they are largely inevitable consequences.

Ian Powell was Executive Director of the Association of Salaried Medical Specialists, the professional union representing senior doctors and dentists in New Zealand, for over 30 years, until December 2019. He is now a health systems, labour market, and political commentator living in the small river estuary community of Otaihanga (the place by the tide). First published at Political Bytes