1) It’s entirely appropriate that members of the community who have concerns about the environmental, social and heritage impacts of development are able to have their say.
2) You’re talking about a cafe on a beach, not a vital infrastructure project needed to develop the economy.
Remember, the your line is that the RMA is holding back economic growth, not that it’s allowing community objections to cafes built in heritage buildings next to iconic beaches.
If anyone’s done research into this, do flick it through us. The Left is going to need to get its research and its lines on the RMA in order very soon.
habitat and biodiversity are THE key questions facing the world
leaders and partys come and go but if we destroy some or all of the vital principles of physical wellbeing on the plas net then humanity will be living living in a sh*thole
no apologies for the non-bleatway non complex terminology and argument
- 51,768 resource consents were processed through to a decision, up 7.7%
from 48,045 in 1999/00
- 0.69% (357) of resource consent applications processed were declined
compared to just under 1% declined 1999/00
- 4.1% (2,129) of resource consents were publicly notified compared to 5.2% in
1996-97 and 5% notified in 1999/00
- 1.5% (768) of resource consents were notified to affected parties only (limited
notification)
- 73% of all resource consents were processed within statutory time limits
compared to 76% in 1996-97 and 82% in 1999/00
- 1.0% (543) of resource consent decisions were appealed to the Environment
Court, unchanged from 1999/00
However, he seems to be arguing the the RMA isn’t effective enough at protecting the environment although it has become much more efficient since it’s inception.
The cafe was an entirely poor example and not what the National party had in mind when changing the RMA. A better example would be the wind farm in Otago.
Fact is it will get passed as National has the numbers easily. The left can choose to merely try and block it but I see that as a mistake. Instead they should see what they can add to the changes in the RMA that prevent environment destruction and to ensure the RMA doesn’t lose focus the community democracy aspect. Where there is the potential for trouble is with the Maori party. Which likely will oppose any changes in RMA policy in terms of the Treaty of Waitangi.
Incidentally the Labour party had no policy on the RMA. There’s was to keep it as it was. The Greens wished to strengthen the RMA. http://www.greens.org.nz/node/18156
National needs to be careful. On one hand its pointless leaving the RMA as it is. Where they need to be focus is that the changes can’t afford to lose its community democracy aspects or its environmental aspects. On the other hand anything that can speed up the process is a good thing.
I don’t think the changes National wish to bring are all doom and gloom for the left. I also think its an opportunity for the left to make a case for the RMA to be strengthen to ensure environmental protection without necessarily hurting the streamlining of the RMA. It just depends how the left handle it I suppose.
Gingercrush: interesting read of the Nats RMA policy. Thanks. I guess some of the items which might speed up the process might be a good thing. But the Priority Processing might be a problem. Does Priority equal bulldozing a project through, as the cartoon above would suggest?
I tend to agree with ginger in that there’s no need for Labour to be the type of opposition National has been.
The National party’s support of the repeal of section 69 is the one conspicuous exception I can think of (and they don’t like to talk about that one) to the way they performed in opposition.
Labour can and should be a constructive opposition party and work to achieve positive outcomes wherever possible regardless of the position they find themselves in, much as the Greens have done – from outside of government – with considerable success.
You mean like calling for cross-party agreement on electoral reform? So easy to be reasonable and inclusive when the numbers aren’t on your side anymore.
Not sure where you’re coming from with that Billy.
I’m not saying the government is obliged to listen, I just think the opposition should make an honest attempt at trying to work with the govt if possible rather than outright oppose everything the govt does 180 degrees.
The Nats showed they were capable of this with the repeal of sec 59 and the Greens do it all the time. I’m just saying I’d like to see Labour take this approach where they can legitimately do so.
What I mean Felix is that, given their behaviour when in government (over the EFA in particular), any call by Labour for cross party consensus on issues is going to ring a little hollow.
Billy: From what I understand, the Nat’s were totally opposed to both increasing the accounting transparency for political donations and increasing the election accounting period.
Since those were the two things that Labour was adamant had to change, there was a basic conflict. I’d expect that the same would happen when the law gets changed next time. While the Nat’s and Act were happy to attack anonymous trusts and ask NZF to open up their books, I noticed that they were reluctant to do the same for their trusts.
The area that there was room to move on in 2007 was the role of the 3rd parties, labelling etc. The Nat’s preferred to play a opposition role on those as well – probably because they didn’t like having to make their large donors become non-anonymous.
To be perfectly frank, I’d expect Labour to oppose major changes to those first two, and (if changed) resolve to change them back to transparency and realistic election periods when they have the numbers.
I thought they were looking to repeal the EFA go back to the 1993 Electoral Act but were going to take the sections in relation to donations from the EFA and insert them into the 1993 ACT.
RMA halted the progress of Project Aqua. Now that would have been worthwhile. No power cuts for the next few years.
RMA halted progress on Water Taxis around Tauranga Harbour in 2002/2003. Water Taxis would have been an ideal addition to the transport network in Tauranga, but due to “oil spill risks” “disturbance to wildlife” the Water Taxi business was doomed to failure.
Remedial work needed urgently on a Dam in the Hunua Ranges in 2003 delayed it by nearly a year
RMA is now causing issues with a skateboard park in Titahi Bay
RMA caused a headache for the Te Rauparaha Arena – which is finally open and is a bloody fantastic venue. Much better than the echolocaters nightmare that is TSB Arena.
Need I say more? Its amusing its Nactional that have to tidy up their mess… Labour at least attempted to work with it, but Nactional “Oh NO, it’s TOO hard”
OT: Is anyone else wondering how Key as “Tourism Minister” and Joyce being the CEO of “Jasons Travel Media” could be portrayed elsewhere? Would JTM benefit from such an arrangement? Could JTM be poised to publish insider information based on information Key would pass on to Joyce?
hs: From what I understand of the Nat’s policy on the EFA (there is bugger all of it).
They were planning on repealing the EFA and as you say heading back to the 1993 Act. After that they have said they’d either amend the EFA 1993 or add a new Act – but unspecified on what.
They haven’t specified what they’d do to legislate the enormous problems with the 1993 act. Personally I’d suspect that they will just drop back to the 1993 Act and do some tinkering after 6 months or a year. That would allow them to use the anonymous trusts to refill their coffers. If they hit any opposition to their ideas, then I’d expect them to leave it on the 1993 Act over the next election.
After all they did write the 1993 act to favour themselves in the first place. There is no benefit for them to fix their corrupt electoral law.
Jasper – Where do you live? Because I’m guessing its not where project aqua would have ruined your land. Project Aqua is perfect example of how the RMA works for communities. Need you say more? Yes. A skateboard park hardly an important piece of infrastructure, more like an eye sore to cater for a fad and then you mention some arena where consent was granted, so yes you do need to say more.
I’m not sure, I thought I read somewhere that they were definitely going to keep the bits in relation to transparency of donations – although guess we’ll have to wait and see and I would hope there’s more important things on the agenda in the short term.
Fair enough Billy. I too think Labour could have handled a lot of things a lot better in the last few years.
Of course they can’t “call for” inclusion as you put it, they’re not in govt and that’s that. As I said, the National govt has no obligation to work with them.
I does strike me as interesting though, that the deal with the maori party is seen as a safety valve on National’s left to be used when ACT wants to go too far right.
In many areas Labour’s policy is probably closer to National’s than either ACT or the maori party. If Labour are smart they’ll recognise the opportunities this presents and not cut off their nose(s) to spite their face(s).
I suspect though, that politically Labour wants to create the impression of more distance from National so we’ll probably see expediency take precedence over principle as usual.
And yes, if the local marae wants to erect something that will interfere with your quality of life then you should make a submission. Why wouldn’t you?
Nothing wrong with community democracy Tane – too often though the RMA was used to block projects that the bulk of the community supported.
The main benefactors of the RMA seem to have been the legal profession.
There are legitimate situations where a non-majority of the community have a right to block a project which has a very high impact on them. I think there are a few cases where you’re right, but that they’re mostly to do with wind turbines which oddly seem to face about five times the scrutiny of other projects. Not In My Back Yard, right?
nah it’s true Felix, people who actually live in the affected areas are forever choosing to degrade their own quality of life. they just don’t seem to get how fly-by-night developers really have everyone’s best interests at heart.
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Scoopit!
lol very clever. The scary thing is what is after.
about time too. silly bloody RMA. another hand brake on progress.
We live in hope. As soon as the act is dropped the better.
Yeah, that whole community democracy thing… total drag eh guys?
Nothing wrong with community democracy Tane – too often though the RMA was used to block projects that the bulk of the community supported.
The main benefactors of the RMA seem to have been the legal profession.
“…too often though the RMA was used to block projects that the bulk of the community supported.”
Name 5.
Bet you can’t without:
contradicting “Nothing wrong with community democracy”
or using weird defintions for: “RMA was used to block ” or “bulk of the community supported”.
PB… first one that came to mind was the Piha cafe
Lukas.
1) It’s entirely appropriate that members of the community who have concerns about the environmental, social and heritage impacts of development are able to have their say.
2) You’re talking about a cafe on a beach, not a vital infrastructure project needed to develop the economy.
Remember, the your line is that the RMA is holding back economic growth, not that it’s allowing community objections to cafes built in heritage buildings next to iconic beaches.
3) Resource consent was granted.
Aren’t 98% of consents granted without contest?
Ianmac: 99% are granted without contest, and half of the applications that are contested are allowed after the case has been heard.
I assume the 0.5% are held up indefinitely or cancelled.
Surely the important stat is what % of projects are blocked by value? That way, a blocked cafe is not the same as a blocked power station.
Does anyone have that stat?
Ianmac: I seem to recall that about 95% are granted without public consultation, thereby putting the lie to this entire line of argument.
L
If anyone’s done research into this, do flick it through us. The Left is going to need to get its research and its lines on the RMA in order very soon.
habitat and biodiversity are THE key questions facing the world
leaders and partys come and go but if we destroy some or all of the vital principles of physical wellbeing on the plas net then humanity will be living living in a sh*thole
no apologies for the non-bleatway non complex terminology and argument
habitat and biodiversity are far too important to be left to rugged individuals with a chainsaw, bulldozer and some sort of pissweak vision
From Rod Oram’s 2007 paper on the RMA:
However, he seems to be arguing the the RMA isn’t effective enough at protecting the environment although it has become much more efficient since it’s inception.
The cafe was an entirely poor example and not what the National party had in mind when changing the RMA. A better example would be the wind farm in Otago.
http://national.org.nz/files/2008/RMA.pdf – Not nearly as scary as some people make it out.
Fact is it will get passed as National has the numbers easily. The left can choose to merely try and block it but I see that as a mistake. Instead they should see what they can add to the changes in the RMA that prevent environment destruction and to ensure the RMA doesn’t lose focus the community democracy aspect. Where there is the potential for trouble is with the Maori party. Which likely will oppose any changes in RMA policy in terms of the Treaty of Waitangi.
Incidentally the Labour party had no policy on the RMA. There’s was to keep it as it was. The Greens wished to strengthen the RMA.
http://www.greens.org.nz/node/18156
National needs to be careful. On one hand its pointless leaving the RMA as it is. Where they need to be focus is that the changes can’t afford to lose its community democracy aspects or its environmental aspects. On the other hand anything that can speed up the process is a good thing.
I don’t think the changes National wish to bring are all doom and gloom for the left. I also think its an opportunity for the left to make a case for the RMA to be strengthen to ensure environmental protection without necessarily hurting the streamlining of the RMA. It just depends how the left handle it I suppose.
Gingercrush: interesting read of the Nats RMA policy. Thanks. I guess some of the items which might speed up the process might be a good thing. But the Priority Processing might be a problem. Does Priority equal bulldozing a project through, as the cartoon above would suggest?
I tend to agree with ginger in that there’s no need for Labour to be the type of opposition National has been.
The National party’s support of the repeal of section 69 is the one conspicuous exception I can think of (and they don’t like to talk about that one) to the way they performed in opposition.
Labour can and should be a constructive opposition party and work to achieve positive outcomes wherever possible regardless of the position they find themselves in, much as the Greens have done – from outside of government – with considerable success.
Felix,
You mean like calling for cross-party agreement on electoral reform? So easy to be reasonable and inclusive when the numbers aren’t on your side anymore.
Not sure where you’re coming from with that Billy.
I’m not saying the government is obliged to listen, I just think the opposition should make an honest attempt at trying to work with the govt if possible rather than outright oppose everything the govt does 180 degrees.
The Nats showed they were capable of this with the repeal of sec 59 and the Greens do it all the time. I’m just saying I’d like to see Labour take this approach where they can legitimately do so.
What I mean Felix is that, given their behaviour when in government (over the EFA in particular), any call by Labour for cross party consensus on issues is going to ring a little hollow.
Billy: From what I understand, the Nat’s were totally opposed to both increasing the accounting transparency for political donations and increasing the election accounting period.
Since those were the two things that Labour was adamant had to change, there was a basic conflict. I’d expect that the same would happen when the law gets changed next time. While the Nat’s and Act were happy to attack anonymous trusts and ask NZF to open up their books, I noticed that they were reluctant to do the same for their trusts.
The area that there was room to move on in 2007 was the role of the 3rd parties, labelling etc. The Nat’s preferred to play a opposition role on those as well – probably because they didn’t like having to make their large donors become non-anonymous.
To be perfectly frank, I’d expect Labour to oppose major changes to those first two, and (if changed) resolve to change them back to transparency and realistic election periods when they have the numbers.
I thought they were looking to repeal the EFA go back to the 1993 Electoral Act but were going to take the sections in relation to donations from the EFA and insert them into the 1993 ACT.
RMA halted the progress of Project Aqua. Now that would have been worthwhile. No power cuts for the next few years.
RMA halted progress on Water Taxis around Tauranga Harbour in 2002/2003. Water Taxis would have been an ideal addition to the transport network in Tauranga, but due to “oil spill risks” “disturbance to wildlife” the Water Taxi business was doomed to failure.
Remedial work needed urgently on a Dam in the Hunua Ranges in 2003 delayed it by nearly a year
RMA is now causing issues with a skateboard park in Titahi Bay
RMA caused a headache for the Te Rauparaha Arena – which is finally open and is a bloody fantastic venue. Much better than the echolocaters nightmare that is TSB Arena.
Need I say more? Its amusing its Nactional that have to tidy up their mess… Labour at least attempted to work with it, but Nactional “Oh NO, it’s TOO hard”
OT: Is anyone else wondering how Key as “Tourism Minister” and Joyce being the CEO of “Jasons Travel Media” could be portrayed elsewhere? Would JTM benefit from such an arrangement? Could JTM be poised to publish insider information based on information Key would pass on to Joyce?
hs: From what I understand of the Nat’s policy on the EFA (there is bugger all of it).
They were planning on repealing the EFA and as you say heading back to the 1993 Act. After that they have said they’d either amend the EFA 1993 or add a new Act – but unspecified on what.
They haven’t specified what they’d do to legislate the enormous problems with the 1993 act. Personally I’d suspect that they will just drop back to the 1993 Act and do some tinkering after 6 months or a year. That would allow them to use the anonymous trusts to refill their coffers. If they hit any opposition to their ideas, then I’d expect them to leave it on the 1993 Act over the next election.
After all they did write the 1993 act to favour themselves in the first place. There is no benefit for them to fix their corrupt electoral law.
Jasper – Where do you live? Because I’m guessing its not where project aqua would have ruined your land. Project Aqua is perfect example of how the RMA works for communities. Need you say more? Yes. A skateboard park hardly an important piece of infrastructure, more like an eye sore to cater for a fad and then you mention some arena where consent was granted, so yes you do need to say more.
Lynn
I’m not sure, I thought I read somewhere that they were definitely going to keep the bits in relation to transparency of donations – although guess we’ll have to wait and see and I would hope there’s more important things on the agenda in the short term.
Tane:
Why should other people have a say in what you do?
Perhaps I should put in a submission against the local Marae when it wants to erect something?
Fair enough Billy. I too think Labour could have handled a lot of things a lot better in the last few years.
Of course they can’t “call for” inclusion as you put it, they’re not in govt and that’s that. As I said, the National govt has no obligation to work with them.
I does strike me as interesting though, that the deal with the maori party is seen as a safety valve on National’s left to be used when ACT wants to go too far right.
In many areas Labour’s policy is probably closer to National’s than either ACT or the maori party. If Labour are smart they’ll recognise the opportunities this presents and not cut off their nose(s) to spite their face(s).
I suspect though, that politically Labour wants to create the impression of more distance from National so we’ll probably see expediency take precedence over principle as usual.
Brett,
Because we all have to live here together.
And yes, if the local marae wants to erect something that will interfere with your quality of life then you should make a submission. Why wouldn’t you?
Felix:
People are making submissions on others private land, that in no way have any effect on their quality of life and that is the problem.
Really? Haven’t come across that myself.
There are legitimate situations where a non-majority of the community have a right to block a project which has a very high impact on them. I think there are a few cases where you’re right, but that they’re mostly to do with wind turbines which oddly seem to face about five times the scrutiny of other projects. Not In My Back Yard, right?
nah it’s true Felix, people who actually live in the affected areas are forever choosing to degrade their own quality of life. they just don’t seem to get how fly-by-night developers really have everyone’s best interests at heart.