Marching orders for Environment Canterbury
Three government commissioners are likely to be appointed to head Environment Canterbury.
Core functions will be stripped away under the recommendations of a hatchet team sent in to dismember Environment Canterbury. The Government is expected to ratify the recommendations within eight weeks.
The review group was appointed by the Minister of Local Government Rodney Hide and Environment Minister Nick Smith. The review team was headed by former National minister Wyatt Creech.
The report criticises Environment Canterbury for failure to develop comprehensive regional water management plans and slow resource consent processing. It also says there is a perception that staff too strongly advocate for the environment rather than economic and social considerations.
“Large numbers of staff are ‘green’ in orientation, which leads to an imbalance of environmental protection over other considerations.”
The recommendations of the team will suspend local democracy until 2013 with the recommended appointment of commissioners to replace elected councillors and setting up new structures to carry the council’s core function of water consenting.
Recommendations for a review of other functions such as public transport will follow.
While recommending a major overhaul, the review team absolves the elected councillors from accusations of disfunctionality.
“The Review found that while the process for debating strongly opposing views has been marred by poor behaviour and reflects past grievances in some cases, the governance of Environment Canterbury is functional and enables it to meet its statutory obligations. Mostly, the tensions that exist arise from differing political perspectives and not from any fundamental dysfunction.”
Even so, the review team concludes that Environment Canterbury is not up to the job of managing the water resources of the region and recommends a new Canterbury Regional Water Authority be set up that will initially be comprised of professional managers, and possibly later, a mix of elected representatives. It would be funded by Environment Canterbury ratepayers.
The review generally represents a victory for rural interests and rival territorial authorities over Environment Canterbury.
The language of the review emphasises economic, cultural and social objectives over environmental objectives.
“One stakeholder group interviewed considers that “Environment Canterbury takes a ‘protector of the environment’ rather than an ‘integrated management’ interpretation to their role, i.e. they undertake rigorous environmental analysis in decision making rather than fully evaluate the available options to come up with win-win solutions that satisfy social, environment, economic and cultural components.”
The review was sparked by the findings of a recent Ministry for the Environment biennial report in which Environment Canterbury scored poorly for resource consent processing.
The review team accepted that between July 2002 and June 2008, the number of applications increase from 2106 to 3763 per year – an increase of 79%. This was partly due a “gold rush” effect after Environment Canterbury warned in 2004 of limits to water abstraction in some catchments, prompting farmers to put in a flood of applications.
This was exacerbated by the boom in dairy farming and other rural production and the competing demands of energy generators.
Environment Canterbury was also partly author of its own misfortune by accepting incomplete or poor quality applications in efforts to be more flexible. Other councils tended to reject such applications.
“Whilst laudable in attempting to work with applicants, Environment Canterbury should not have accepted the applications in the first instance or formally sought additional information,” the report says.
A shortage of qualified staff meant the system became overloaded.
The review team accepted that a shakeup of processes has greatly improved performance. The Environment Canterbury chairman, Aleck Neill says the council is now achieving 90% compliance.
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Comments and questions12
The Minister of Loca l Govt should have a look at the Whangarei District Council if he wants to see slow consent processing! No wonder the Whangarei District has the lowest growth rate in the country - no one wants to deal with a council that requires consents for trivial items, then holds up the processing while the staff seek to impose their wil on applicants. Those who can afford to and who have the persistence, get the conditions over-turned at the Environment Court but few can be bothered going thru the process - it's just not worth it.
It's council's that are holding economic growth back. That's what central govt needs to address by stripping back the Local Govt Act 2002.
this is hilarious. Great script.
You've got one Nick Smith becoming Judge, Jury and executioner on dysfunctional environmental departments. brilliant. what a hoot.
He should get up and do a gig at the comedy festival.
He'd be a huge hit as a stand up, impersonator and has a brilliant hyper-contradictory script.
Looks like national has just cleared the field for environmental carnage. By 2013 she will be just one big dairy farm.
Someone dared to suggest the farmers pay their way for water use...and the coup at Environment Canterbury is the result.
This fight is ALL about the water...and the tiny minority who think they have an "economic right" to it over everyone else.
We'll see more of this...and the "business-friendly" National Party being used as the tool for the few to essentially sequester resources from the many.....and profit by them.
It's the effective privatisation of the commons.
But you don't read about that in the news. Most media portray it as greenies obstructing business. The truth is it's the greedy few against everyone else.
Truth Seeker: Have you been reading the UN manual on how we will live?
Frightening stuff eh.
I bet that the hardened core with ecan will still not realise or acknowledge that the report tells the truth.
Nick Smith paid for the report.
I agree with anothers summary of this disgraceful hijacking of canterbrians democracy:
Water- Elected representatives-money. Something got in the way...
solution remove the democratic hurdles.
Perhaps next time NZers shake their heads over the Fiji Coup they should look Canterbury's way and reflect that NZ is perhaps no longer a bastion of democrarcy and a the fair go.
We need to remember
Pastor Niemöller's original poem from the Nazi era and send a message to this govt that bypassing our democratic processes will not be tolerated...
First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a communist;
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a trade unionist;
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew;
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak out for me.
Perhaps the Labour Party was right at the last election - it's a matter of who you trust !
My concern, having read the entire report, is that this report is not really a sound basis on which to undertake the extreme, wide ranging and draconian actions advocated. In short is will be a very brave government indeed who undertakes the sort of anti-democratic measures this report advocates on such a contradictory basis. Much of the conclusions seem to be open to other interpretations, are not supported by the findings of the review, and many of the important long-term strategic questions are left unanswered.
The report very much appears to be a report of 2 halves. The first part appears to be highly political, and I'll return to this in a minute. The second half appears to be a much more considered analysis or Ecans performance against the Terms of Reference and the Ministerial review powers of S.24A of the RMA and Part 10 of the Local Govt Act (LGA).
Remember that is report arose out of 2 principal issues: Resource Consent In Time Processing being at only 29% and District Council Mayors 18pg 'gripe' letter to Minister Hide.
The second half of the report appears to show than ECan is within its RMA & LGA bounds saying:
+ Resource Consent Processing is now significantly within timeframes:
"Significant improvements have been made in terms of managing timeframes and consenting processes. In terms of the year to date (2009/10) ECan are reporting in excess of 80% compliance with statutory timeframes (over the last 12 months). (pg33)
+ Ecan's decision making governance is not dysfunctional, as charged:
"Almost all external parties interviewed had a negative perception of ECan’s governance. There is a widely held view that councillors are so polarised at times that they are dysfunctional as a group. ........The Review found that while the process for debating strongly opposing views has been marred by poor behaviour and reflects past grievances in some cases, the governance of ECan is functional and enables it to meet its statutory obligations. Mostly, the tensions that exist arise from differing political perspectives and not from any fundamental dysfunction." (pg51)
+ ECan is not overly litigious as charged by the local district councils (called TA's):
"The TA sector describes ECan as an organisation that is always right, arrogant, overzealous and litigious. The litigious claim is not supported by statistics as noted later in the report." (pg 56)
Despite that this seems to be a clearance against the original reasons for the review, the first part of the report concludes that the recommended solution is to:
+ Gut ECans major function of water management - leaving only it's 'rump' left and even the rump be then reviewed in part;
+ Remove Cantabrians democratically elected regional councillors( even though otherwise the electorates voice on ECans performance could be expressed in October's local elections); and
+ This must all be done with special legislation, pushed through under urgency, because no such justification for the advocated 'solution' exists under the RMA or LGA, under which the review was conducted.
In common with some other of your readers comments I believe NZers and all Local Authorities have just cause to be extremely concerned with this report and its proposed 'solutions'. The conclusion we must draw is that notwithstanding the law, if your democratically elected body is at odds with the desires of Wellington expect it to be removed by whatever means are expedient.
I suggest citizens urgently make their displeasure known to govt & coalition MP's. See here for a list: http://www.parliament.nz/en-NZ/MPP/MPs/MPs/
Also I suggest everyone read the full report on MFE's website here: http://www.mfe.govt.nz/publications/rma/investigation-performance-environment-canterbury/index.html
Reading the report, it is democracy at the local level being gutted. How can the same central government sign with Waikato Tainui for an over arching Vision for the Waikato river that elevates the river's health and well being so high that it must be deemed by legislation into the Regional Council's RPS, while in ECan it is gutting the water functions of the Regional Council in order to elevate commercial use of water above the environmental bottom lines of the resource. As a national approach to resource use this is clearly bizarre!
This issue is all about the farmers taking over control of the water 'resource'. When I was driving through canterbury late winter last year I was struck by the abnormal low water flows in the rivers there.
Crafar farming practices in Canterbury will now become the norm. Dried up natural water resource and effluent leaching into the trickle of rivers remaining. And NO democratic decisions made by local residents, all decisions made by farmers' representatives in Wellington. They will screw it up because their interests are self serving and short sighted.
Why is this happening with little media scrutiny?
Oh Joy - another bill on the way!
The upshot of the Wellingtons desire for more farmers irrigation will probably be another nice bill in the letterboxes o f long suffering Christchurch City Residents from those little tickingwater meters sitting next to their street toby's. Something nice to add to the 15% GST & ACC Levy Hikes.
The Canterbury Water Rights Trust figures show that irrigated land is expected, unchecked, to double over the next 10 years and with many aquifers being over allocated (ie used up) the water will have to come from somewhere...solution? Squeeze the urban water users: ie hello water metering charges, industrial water restrictions & privatisation. After-all the silent majority of Christchurch residents don't have a handy lobby group to advocate for them. And certainly won't have any voice at all when the 'Save Our Water' ECan councillors we Cantabrians voted in at the last election are handily removed by Wellington.
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More Info: Water Rights Trust - www.waterrightstrust.org.nz
Irrigation increase slideshow: /www.capella.co.nz/sites/waterrightstrust.org.nz/files/path_to_disaster_dec2009.pdf
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