Devil in the details?

The National-led Government has announced plans to make a lot of changes to the Resource Management Act (RMA). The law is the main way to protect the environment from rapacious development.

The RMA has long been hated by the right wing, sometimes with justification. But the neoconservative ACT Party has in the past pledged to get rid of the RMA altogether, while some on the far left thought it was fine the way it is. The truth, as usual, lies between the extremes: While generally solid legislation, it did need some tweaks.

But I can’t tell you what I think about the Government’s proposed changes because I haven’t seen the text yet. Some of the reported changes seem bad: Making it easier to cut down large trees (which would overturn policy in the city where we live), for example. The rhetoric so far has also included attacks on local councils for delaying the processing of consent applications under the RMA, even though statistically local councils don’t take a long time to process the applications and, in any case, the delays are usually caused by requirements placed by Central Government.

Some things seem to be good: Fines for breaking environmental laws will be increased, and it will be much harder for businesses to use the RMA to prevent competition, as we’ve seen recently right here in North Shore City (a story in itself).

I wanted to know what opponents thought about the changes, since the NZ Herald can be counted on to lead the business and conservative cheering section. Greenpeace and the Environmental Defence Society are both concerned about proposed changes. Among other things, it will be much harder for grassroots organisations to file challenges, no matter how legitimate.

But what about the Opposition? I went to the Labour Party website and was assured that “We’re already planning for the future” which is just peachy, but what about the Party’s position on the RMA changes? The most recent posting was on January 21 about a summer camp for Labour Party activists. That’s simply not good enough. The Party ought to be putting out new releases constantly, even when Parliament is in recess. So, I have no idea what Labour’s position is.

So, for now, I think some of the proposed changes look like they could be good, some look like they could be bad but, on balance, I have no idea whether the proposed changes are good or not. Guess I’ll have to read the details, too.