Joyce pressures councils on environmental consents
The government is continuing its pressure on local authorities to give environmental consents to mining and big dairying operations.
Speaking this weekend on TV3’s The Nation programme, Economic Development Minister Steven Joyce said people couldn’t argue for more jobs in their region on the one hand “but then say but no development, no oil and gas, no intensification of agriculture, none of these other things that would lead to jobs, and that’s the debate we have to have”.
Mr Joyce is citing Taranaki as an example for the rest of the country.
“Because you know there are reasons why regions like Taranaki are successful, and reasons why Northland and Gisborne aren’t, and the Hone Harawiras of the world can't sit up there in Northland and say 'oh it's terrible that our people are going over to Western Australia, but by the way don’t you mine in Northland?'”
Mr Joyce said Environment Ministry was working with local authorities to try and achieve some consistency in environmental standards across the country.
And that included learning from Taranaki.
“Because to be fair to those other councils it's new to them, you know Taranaki has had this for 40 to a 100 years.”
And Mr Joyce said Ms Adams was ready to bring a paper to Cabinet outlining how the resource consent process could be speeded up for projects of regional significance.
“We have to overhaul the Act.
“We have to get those processes shortened, and again it's not necessarily about changing the answer, because often the answers come out you know pretty good.”
He said that the process used for the Waterview Connector motorway in Auckland which was “called in” as a nationally significant project and which was consented in under 12 months was an example for regional projects like the Bathurst coal mine at Denniston which is still bogged down in court hearings on its consents".
"If you're going to have that sort of investment you have to have a process which allows it to happen.”
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Comments and questions13
Completely correct. However it is not just big projects that are being blocked but hundreds of small ones as well. Reforms need to free them all, not just big politically favoured ones. Many people have just given up considering doing things here under the current regime
friend of mine spent over $1m to irrigate but nup not allowed
everyone says he made a bad business decision. really the council did.
they say they dont know how to measure what they are concerned about so its best just to say no.
mr key says no one owns the water. he is out of touch if on the right track.
the rma has created fiefdoms that are unconstitutional with respect to our cherished values of fair play.
Absolutely wrong.
Absolutely typical of the Left. Can chant (if told the words) but completely incapable of stringing together a coherent argument or logical thought.
This is the sort of numb brain that makes you despair for your country and long for intelligent immigrants.
We have jobs for everyone that wants to work . The natural resoucrces we have would keep them in a job for life , but along come the greens and Labour , you cant mine that there might be a 7 legged frog somewhere on the ground .So lets keep paying them the dole !
If you got rid of third party appeals under the RMA that would solve many of the delay problems. NZ one of few countries in the world that lets third parties appeal consents. Council's have the impossible job of trying to find solution that pleases everyone, and get paranoid about appeals from neighbours, greenies etc. Hence decision making is slow. If you keep the Council as decision maker rather than everything going to the Environment Court it speeds things up no end. Applicant only person who can appeal council decision.
The problem being Anonymous, that the Environment Court is a very lucrative gravy train rort for all those planners, taxpayer funded environmental lobbyists etc who rule in the Environment Court.
There is no way that any of the very people who do so well out of this decision making "process" are going upset the golden goose is there?
I know of sensible Kiwis who never wish to visit a third world country again.. If Joyce and his team cant change the minset of all the tree huggers and moaners and defenders of the dole takers in this country, they might not have to go through Customs again to live in one.
Lets pray Joyce and his ream get traction on this.
isnt this a typical case of attemted interference and indirect force being applied by the federal on the local government?--hey if u guys in parliament knew what u were doing--leave aside the fact what u were supposed to do (a far cry)--and thought about what bills you were dealing with--taking into account the future developments and needs--it wouldnt have come to this--but one realistically cant expect this--take the case of the important tax bill--where the presenter simply read the paper written fr an earlier bill--sorry--Oh Tax--so this will do--educated or dumb guess?
it's short-sighted, and typical of this government, to look solely at the benefits to the economy and ride rough-shod over what are very real environmental concerns. I'm not against development, but I am against unsustainable development that is not forward-thinking. we need green jobs, not short term solutions for business as usual.
In other words, let's have a consent process that looks like a rubber stamp, ok?
There are plenty of examples - Nelson being one of them - of regions doing very well, thanks, without digging bloody great holes in the ground for short term gain. Joyce is utilising an age old tactic - blame the victim. This is how they've worked it. Joyce's government (and make no mistake, Joyce is the guy that McCully etc want running things because Key simply has no clue) made a big song and dance about job creation when they first got in. You might remember the Job Summit. No mention of mining at the Job Summit. In fact not much of anything at the Job Summit except suggesting a stupid slogan designed to convince us we are happy....or something. What the government came up with was the cycleway ffs. Then this government proceeded to do nothing about creating jobs. Now that they have done nothing except reduce taxes for wealthy people and double the number of people moved off ACC weekly compensation on to sickness benefits and then blame those people for ruining the economy, New Zealanders are starting to question them about the lack of jobs. So now is their chance to have another go at the mining thing which Brownlee so royally screwed up - except now the tactic is to blame ordinary New Zealanders for the lack of jobs. It's our fault because we won't let Joyce's mates mine out the minerals in our national Parks and pay us a pittance from the proceeds. It's our fault because we don't want Chinese companies pouring cow shit into the river we live on. You see Mr Joyce knows heaps about how to balance our need to open cast Kahurangi with safe environmental practice because he used to run a radio company. FFS
Nelson is renowned for its poor wages - how is the region doing well if low incomes puts families on poverty line? We moved from Nelson to the West Coast, everyone on substantially higher wages. Far from short term gain, Denniston (has been mined since late 1800's) and Stockton are the most visited tourist attractions in Buller. The area destroyed by mining is a fraction of the area destroyed by possums - in fact, if mining companies didnt put the roads in, there is no way you would know they are there amongst the thousands of hectares of beautiful forest in the region