Labour says it will \u201c100 percent\u201d repeal one of the most contentious parts of the Government\u2019s Planning and Natural Environment Bills if it wins power.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking says the regulatory relief provisions will force councils to choose between maintaining current standards, or increasing the cost to ratepayers.<\/p>\n
The replacement\u2019s architect, Minister for RMA Reform Chris Bishop, agrees it will increase costs, but thinks it is fair these costs are borne by the council enforcing the rules, rather than the landowner experiencing a restriction.<\/p>\n
Brooking says her party will \u201c100 percent\u201d repeal the regulatory relief provisions if elected.<\/p>\n
She says the design \u2013 which would see councils pay to offset environmental protections enforced on private property \u2013 means \u201ceither it\u2019s going to cost ratepayers, or there\u2019s not going to be environmental protections\u201d. The top-down nature of the design was \u201cdeeply ironic,\u201d says Brooking, given the National Party\u2019s campaign promise to stand up for localism.<\/p>\n
Labour has promised to work collaboratively on replacing our resource management laws, but is not satisfied with the current proposed legislation, a stance it made clear in its opposing view section of the bill\u2019s select committee report.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Among a handful of other primary issues, regulatory relief is consistently one of the top concerns among the critics of the new Planning and Natural Environment Bills, including Labour.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Another concern is the bills\u2019 \u201cfunnel\u201d design: the Minister for the Environment of the day will be able to weigh up priorities \u2013 including environmental protections and development initiatives \u2013 and judge when a certain priority outweighs another.\u00a0<\/p>\n
This design means minimum requirements can be breached if the minister judges the activity to be more important than the environmental consequences.<\/p>\n
But unlike the funnel design (which critics say hands too much power to the minister at the top) and concerns over how the dual-bill structure could create complications, the regulatory relief problem offers Labour a relatively simple solution: just get rid of it.<\/p>\n