Government’s Fast Track powers are a declaration of war on the environment and our society – it’s time to admit this Government is authoritarian and dangerous

ByMartyn Bradbury

For the love of Christ you stupid sleepy Hobbits, are you seriously going to allow this hard right racist climate denying beneficiary bashing Government the power to ignore OIAs and curtail legal challenges to their insane Fast Track Bill…

Fast-track bill could affect NZ’s reputation – Transparency International

The bill, which is before a select committee, has been criticised for potentially exposing the ministers to corruption allegations.

Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment Simon Upton said the role of ministers as decision-makers should be scrapped. And the auditor-general had urged that the bill included requirements for better managing conflicts of interest.

Transparency International – which campaigns against corruption worldwide – is most concerned about this conflict of roles, in that ministers would be both gatekeepers of fast-track referrals and the ones making the decision to green-light projects.

The organisation’s New Zealand chief executive Julie Haggie told Checkpoint that there was “just too much power” concentrated in “one aspect of that decision, in order to give trust to people that there is a fair, accountable and transparent process going on”.

The bill aimed to speed up the approval of projects and reduce the cost of consenting. At the moment, about $1.3 billion is spent each year on the consenting of projects and the time taken to get a consent has doubled within five years, according to the Infrastructure Commission.

The new regime will set up an expert panel to give recommendations – but the transport, regional development and infrastructure ministers would have final say on approving projects such as mines or dams, regardless of an expert panel’s advice and even if a court had previously denied consent.

The process as it stands was problematic because it “side-steps” the resource consent process that other organisations needed to go through, and because ministers could reject the panel’s expert advice, she said.

“Conflicts of interest are more about actual personal involvement of the minister – and we’re not saying that’s necessarily the case.

“What it sets up, though, is that people who’ve got a strong interest and power in a situation are making referrals, and decisions, and are even setting up a system within a bill that then also reduces the amount of challenge, the amount of participation and even notification of people who will be affected by those decisions.

“Those things are inherent in our laws… that right to appeal, that right to challenge, and the right to know about things, so [under this process] the power is concentrating at a point where people who are affected will have even less say.”

Checkpoint host Lisa Owen asked whether the new system might raise questions about donations to the politicians making those decisions.

Haggie said that was a broader concern. “We’ve heard there are two companies that are on the list [of those invited to apply for projects to be fast-tracked] already, which is itself quite strange because it’s already been developed before the legislation is passed.”

Transparency International believed public perception around the fast-track bill might be improved by a sunset clause, “so that it doesn’t just go on and on” and said the scope was currently “very broad”, not just involving the Resource Management Act.

“The bill seems to have exclusion clause for the OIA [Official Information Act] so it’s not clear whether people will be able to seek information and gain it, and then there are the legal challenge rights which seem to be curtailed as well.”

…and we are all going along with this because the electorate were angry that Jacinda had the temerity to save 20 000 lives!

I feel we almost deserve the horror that is coming.

TDB warned you that this new hard right racist climate denying beneficiary bashing Government were going to bend over backwards for their donor class and were focused on vast environmental damage for the Trans National Mining Industry.

Lo and fucking behold we have this egregious fast track power process where 3 of the most stupid Politicians we have, Simeon Brown, Chris Bishop and Dr Pork, Shane Jones will have the power to over ride the experts and over ride any environmental concerns whatsoever to fast track their mates projects…

Quarry connected to $55,000 donation to NZ First and Shane Jones, approached over fast-track

One of the firms approached about the Government’s new Fast-Track consenting billhas a part-owner and director whose other company has donated $55,000 to the NZ First Party and MP Shane Jones.

AJR Finance donated $50,000 to NZ First and $5000 to Shane Jones at the last election. AJR Finance’s sole director is Andrew Ritchie, who owns the company along with Mark and Elizabeth Markovina.

Ritchie is a director of Kings Quarry and, along with the Markovinas, owns 50 per cent of the company. The other 50 per cent is owned by Alexander and Stan Semenoff. Stan Semenoff donated to Jones’ campaign in 2008 and is a distant relative of Jones.

…the Auditor-General is scathing of the damage this will cause…

Auditor-General concerned about fast-track bill’s lack of transparency, protections for conflicts of interest

The Auditor-General John Ryan is concerned the Government’s fast-track consenting bill, which will give three ministers broad powers to consent certain developments, lacks transparency and effective ways of dealing with real or perceived conflicts of interest.

The bill allows three ministers to consent a range of nationally significant projects, with an expert panel having the ability to impose certain conditions on those consents.

Ryan wrote that the bill needed a stronger mechanism than just the Cabinet Manual for dealing with real or perceived conflicts of interest, given the extent of the power the legislation would grant to ministers.

…we have 3 Politicians as power crazed as Muldoon on Meth running the entire infrastructure program of NZ.

Do you honestly trust these fucking Muppets over the advice of actual engineers and people who have to build the infrastructure?

If Labour had pulled a stunt like this, you’d all be screaming about abuse of power, but Shane Jones, Chris Bisho[ and Simeon Brown are doing it, it’s suddenly ok?

The Right are hypocrites!

Allowing 3 of the worst Ministers to have the power of God over our economy is a terrible idea that will produce a harvest of self interest.

This hard right racist climate denying beneficiary bashing Government is an Authoritarian one.

We are taking from the mouths of hungry children at school to put $2.9billion into the pockets of the richest landlords in a policy that will push 13 000 kids into poverty.

We have a Prime Minister who won’t even bother informing the people if we are entering a new military arrangement with America…

Watch: Prime Minister Christopher Luxon won’t say if government will consult public on joining AUKUS

…they are throwing 50 000 beneficiaries off welfare into a sea of rising unemployment caused by a technocrat Bank Governor no one elected, who is crashing the economy to save the economy while this Government wages a war on renters, workers, Māori and the environment to fund tax cuts to the richest!

This is a very Kiwi fascism. Laid back and casual.

This Government’s Fast Track powers are a declaration of war on the environment and our society – it’s time to admit this Government is authoritarian and dangerous.

Don’t pretend you weren’t warned.

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37 Comments

  1. Oh yes. And the appointment of a woman who makes Hannibal Lector look like the Sugar Plum Fairy as the Chair of Pharmac, IMO, is clearly an invidious and insidious diversionary tactic to cloud over this undermining of the democratic process. Shame on Peters and Jones allowing this to proceed.

    Politicians’ idea of what constitutes an “expert” panel is the stuff of nightmares when most of them themselves are depriving a village of its idiot by being bottom warmers in the Beehive.

  2. It is f’ing ridiculous that you would give any Minister these powers let alone these three muppets.

    Again what are the numbers? How many projects have been unduly delayed by the current framework? Being hopeless at completing projects on time is not necessarily due to consenting. You could refine the process without this sort of bullshit.

  3. The fact remains that the once in a generation majority 2020 Labour Govt. should have fast tracked a whole bunch of stuff. Legislation can obviously be wound back to an extent, I mean say reduce the minimum wage, that would not go down well even with lower level tory munters…

    But…once state house construction, hospital construction, School improvements, a new Ministry of Works and Infrastructure say are in place…not so easy to shit on that from a great height. The main fast track from the CoC Govt. is the transfer of wealth upstairs to the NZ ruling class!

    1. Labour never fast tracked much because they believed in the democratic process. So to your headline Martyn, yes, we now live under an authoritarian Government.

        3. So COVID is over and Labour are not the government. Are you saying what was bad is ok when these dipshits do it?

      2. Yes NASC, and imagine the furore if they had fast tracked some projects.
        Also the first 3 years were handbraked by Winston just so he could make himself out to be someone. Then he got spiteful and it backfired on him in 2020. Just like his arrogance is backfiring now.

    2. Instead of getting things done Labour increased the public servant pool and to prove their worth they set up committees to write reports that got ignored .This gave the impression that they were doing something but at the end of the day achieved very little except increase the debt burden and tax take

      1. Steady on there Trev, so far this Govt hasn’t built a fucken thing, so we can’t really sing their praises. So after they have built a few thousand domiciles, a school or two, perhaps a hospital, and drastically reduces crime, then, we can compare Labours track record to them, but so far, all they have done is nothing.

      2. True that … labour gave the impression that all the safeguards made any action impossible , this is a reaction to that malaise..

      3. And all National done has taken advice from the many consultants they hired given evidence to the fact they do not have one competent minister intelligent enough to come up with an idea of their own. The many public servants required to run the country that have been axed to fund your tax cut Trev shows Nationals fiscal stupidity.
        They are also responsible for severing the connection between the north and south island. That decision was insane.

      4. So more tax came in because why Trevor? That implies businesses were making money.

    3. Exactly. If Labour MPs actually cared about human beings, they would understand what their acceptance of a see-saw between left-neoliberalism and right-neoliberalism as controlled by the regime media meant meant- which is that anything they do in four years would be undone in the four following years by the right-neoliberal party. So if they ACTUALLY believed that their milquetoast anti-patriotic, capitalist policies were any better than those of National and ACT, they would go TWICE as hard in the time available to them to make sure that only half of their pissant left-neoliberal ‘reforms’ could be reformed by the right-neoliberals.

      They don’t even do that. Disgusting

  4. The Godly will be engaging in civil disobedience on this one. Otherwise you gotta wonder if its even the same bible?

    1. And not even by Solid Energy. Absolutely disgusting. Those responsible for this are traitors to their nation, traitors to the human race

  6. The reality here is action. People actually want to see things get done. Not endless procrastination. The real legacy of Jacinda is procrastination to achieve nothing of note, no one remembers the 20,000 because they didnt die!
    Take Tyford and the 100000 houses, absolutly the right answer, it still is the right answer, but why couldnt he get them built?
    Protect this, protect that, not in my back yard, breach of Treaty, and God knows what else some irrelevant tosser dreamed up to make sure nothing progressed

    So shoot the lot of them,
    The men elected to Govern will decide and it will happen.
    From Vogel through Seddon, Massey, Savage, Holyoake, Muldoon. This was the norm, the Ministers decided and made it happen.
    So what we have is not somethimg new it is a return to the sanity of the past.

    2. yeah two tossers, one was called Winston and the other Covid but now we have a polished turd head and a bunch of cling-on plip plops who will magically make things happen, oh look would you like to buy this bridge

  8. The picture of the two on the wrecking ball are Im right on the front and of course Bob the first wanting to be from behind.

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