Why would we trust a climate denial Government with RMA changes?

Surprise, surprise…

RMA overhaul puts private property rights first

The coalition Government’s sweeping overhaul of the Resource Management Act is focused on the enjoyment of private property rights – an approach it says will turn New Zealand’s economic outlook around.

Under the new system, Minister for RMA Reform Chris Bishop says nearly half of current consents will be rendered unnecessary – mostly things that only affect private land, for example balconies and garages – freeing up billions in compliance costs.

The new system is designed to shift the assumption away from an activity being prohibited, and towards the assumption that it would be permitted. It creates a mechanism by which landowners can recover costs from councils if their private land was held behind environmental protections, and allows ministers to set national limits on human and environmental health.

But critics say the devil’s in the detail, and still have questions about how the two new acts will communicate with each other, how environmental limits will be set, and who has to pay if those limits clash with someone’s private property rights.

…this is being sold as changes for the ‘kiwi battler’ building a deck without having the Council poke their sticky beak into, but that’s just bullshit, this is about making it far easier for mining, property speculators and polluters to get away with anything they want.

What is most hilarious is that Labour had made it easier for those kiwi battlers in their version of RMA reform

Bernard Hickey point this out…

It’s like deja-vu all over again.

For the second time, the Government has reinvented another legislative wheel that runs local Government and local infrastructure and housing development.

The first reinvented wheel was Three Waters, where the new Government repealed long-deliberated legislation just months after it was legislated by the previous Government, and then replaced it with legislation that looked and felt remarkably similar, apart from a few key details. The big differences between Three Waters and Local Water, Done Well was National’s version of forced separation and amalgamation of water networks and the imposition of user-pays was slightly less forced and does not include the veneer of co-governance with iwi.

Now, the second reinvented wheel is RMA reform. Labour spent six years creating two acts to replace the RMA, only for the Spatial Planning Act and the Natural and Built Environment Act to be repealed in a flurry of pre-Christmas urgency in 2023. Two years later, we’re back where we started with two bills called the Planning Bill and the Natural Environment Bill.

…look.

Of course the RMA needed an overhaul, but this Government is the most climate denial Government in NZ Political history, they have waged a war win the environment and have ben over backwards for the polluters interests and their developer donor mates, so OF COURSE the RMA will be weaponised against community, against environmental law, against Māori to sate the thirsts of their big polluter donors!

I don’t trust Chris Bishop as far as I could throw him and I doubt I could lift that dumping!

This will be legislation for their developer pimp mates, it won’t protect the environment or our communities.

There’s a reason they are ramming it through under urgency.

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