Parliament fast tracks changes to weaken the RMA

3 August 2005 - Wellington

Contact: Kevin Hackwell, Conservation Manager, 04 801 2215(w), 04 389 4815(h), 021 227 8420

Parliament's last major act before dissolving will be to fast track changes to the Resource Management Act (RMA) in order to promote development at the expense of the environment and public participation.

"We are disappointed that this Parliament's last major act is to undermine New Zealand's sustainable resource management law. It's hardly going out on a high note," said Forest and Bird's Conservation Manager Kevin Hackwell.

"We trust that the next Parliament will be more willing to take action to protect New Zealand's environment," he said.

Parliament is expected to pass amendments to the Resource Management Act under urgency today. This will limit opportunities for Parliamentarians to scrutinise the complicated law changes and the 35 pages of extra changes tabled in Parliament this morning.

"Although most of the more extreme Resource Management Act changes have been moderated by Parliament's Local Government and Environment Committee, powers to fast track pet projects and new rules for the development of National Environmental Standards and Policy Statements are still in the bill," Mr Hackwell said.

"We have already seen how reference groups developing National Environmental Standards and Policy statements to regulate the environmental effects of infrastructure involve vested infrastructure interests but have not included community, public health and environmental representation. The changes going through Parliament are part of the same agenda," he said.

"We are pleased that accreditation of local government decision makers and appeals on notification have survived the process. These are two of the few clauses in the amendments worth supporting," he said.

Changes Forest and Bird supports

Accreditation of local government decision-makers (Clause 16).
Accreditation should improve the quality of decisions by council decision makers by providing training in the RMA and its processes. Improved decision making will be good for both public and private interests in resource management as it should result in fairer processes and better decisions.

Appeals on notification (Clause 82)
Affected people and public interest groups should be able to appeal decisions by local authorities to unlawfully exclude them through 'non notification' or 'limited notification' from making submissions on resource consent applications that have significant environmental effects and that affect neighbours. This is an important proposal that was promised in 1999 by both Labour and National, but which has not yet been implemented.

Changes Forest and Bird opposes

Fast track process for major projects (Clause 55)
New fast-track processes called 'non-local decision-making' for major projects will undermine public participation and good environmental outcomes. There are two processes being proposed:

- a one-stop Board process without Environment Court appeal rights; and,
- a modified version of the National Party's direct referral to the Environment Court.

These processes are similar to the Muldoon's National Development Act, which allowed Ministerial call-in of development projects, but lack the safeguards contained in the National Development Act (such as independent auditing of development proposals).

Government can prevent councils from turning down environmentally harmful proposals (clause 20)
The Minister for the Environment will be allowed to declare environmentally harmful activities 'controlled' irrespective of environmental effects. This means that local authorities would not be permitted to decline proposals, even if they were concerned at the effect of them on the local environment and community.

This clause would be widely open to abuse under a government that wanted to push through prisons, cell-phone towers or transmission lines. This clause is particularly concerning as infrastructure companies are included in reference groups preparing draft infrastructure environmental standards, whereas environment, conservation, public health and other public interest groups have been excluded.

In the extreme, a government could declare nuclear power a 'controlled' activity so that local authorities could place conditions on the use of nuclear power, but could not turn down proposals for nuclear power stations.

Absolute national standards (clause 21)
Unless the Government grants specific exemptions, local authorities will not be allowed to set stricter environmental standards than the Government whether the standards are in resource consents, district or regional plans or local authority bylaws. This will create problems for local community if unsatisfied with the environmental standards set by a future government.

This clause is particularly concerning as infrastructure companies are included in reference groups preparing draft infrastructure environmental standards, whereas environment, conservation, public health and other public interest groups have been excluded.

National policy statements (clause 24)
The new process for creating National Policy Statements (national guidance under the RMA) is very fast and does not have adequate checks and balances such as robust public involvement processes and ability to appeal to the Environment Court. It will result in policy flip flops, creating uncertainty. The current process works well, but has been ignored by successive governments.

This clause is particularly concerning as infrastructure companies are included in reference groups preparing draft infrastructure National Policy Statements, whereas environment, conservation, public health and other public interest groups have been excluded.