I recently received a statement from ACT MP and Primary Production Select Committee chair Mark Cameron.
Cameron is a Northland dairy farmer and an extremely busy MP who is committed to the primary sector.
He’s drafted a Private Members Bill that stops regional councils using the Resource Management Act (RMA) to restrict farming activities.
I read the legislation thinking that on the one hand ACT wanted local communities to make their own decisions but on the other here was a Private Members Bill that was telling them what those communities through their local councils could and couldn’t do.
On reflection my view is that regional councils are out of control and anything that restricts their excesses has got to be good.
Cameron makes the point that currently councils can use the RMA “to impose a patchwork of restrictions on the way Kiwis use their land all in the name of reducing emissions”. He felt that “previously property rights were sacrificed to the climate gods, in a way that wouldn’t even reduce net emissions”.
As you will have read in my previous articles I don’t have a lot of time for many of our regional councils. I’d further suggest that some are out of control.
We’ve had the most bizarre statements come out of the local council’s well-resourced spin doctors telling me that central government isn’t taking climate change seriously and that the regional council is. As such it is planning tougher regulations than those proposed by the previous government.
Understandably I have considerable problems with that approach and I’m no fan of many central government agencies, the Ministry for the Environment being one.
The difference between central and local government is that there is some rigour given to the central government’s scientific arguments, which are inevitably discussed at length in the media.
In addition, central government politicians are more accountable for their decisions. With local government the majority of electors don’t even bother to vote.
So local government can get away with a lot central government can’t. Having said, that some of the absurd situations that have arisen lately could well have been part of a Seven Days skit.
First out of the blocks would be the Otago Regional Council (ORC), which genuinely appears to have a Canute-like approach to freshwater rules.
It’s going hell for leather to install the old legislation involving Te Mana o Te Wai or the mana of water. There is no scientific backing for the proposal, more folklore in my view.
The issue is it creates some major bureaucratic hurdles along with considerable costs to ratepayers. Not that the ORC seems remotely concerned.
Local ratepayers would be well advised to canvass the various councillors’ views and vote accordingly in next year’s local government elections.
The ORC isn’t the only council creating costly bureaucratic idiocy but currently it is in the hot seat.
While unrelated to water, the Gore District Council’s attitude to significant natural areas (SNAs) is difficult to understand.
Unbelievably, in my opinion, the Gore council has suggested turning its entire geographical area into an SNA for Māori.
That strikes me as unbelievably stupid. I just wonder if the entire council was asleep when the officials gave their recommendations.
I would further wonder if anyone had given any thought to the cost to ratepayers or the massive barriers to progress that the Gore council was planning.
I was also totally unaware that the entire Gore area was significant to Māori. Further, if Gore is that significant, the Taranaki and Waikato councils are going to have a real fun time of it.
What irks me considerably is that Mark Cameron’s Private Members Bill shouldn’t have been necessary if the regional councils had an ounce of common sense.
There has been a change in government and the councils were told that many of the regulations would change with it. That’s called democracy.
Why then are some of those councils racing against time to install the old regulations knowing they are about to be changed?
I would argue that they are not competent to make some of the judgements they are and that they are actively trying to pervert the democratic process.
Yes, the councils are operating under existing laws. Yes, the new government has said those rules will change and sooner rather than later. So why not just sit on your hands for a few short months until the new rules can go through the system?
Why rush through old legislation at a massive cost to ratepayers when new legislation is on the horizon?
The only way I can describe it would be sheer bureaucratic bloody-mindedness, all exercised without any care as to the impact it will have on ratepayers.
Consequently I hope Cameron’s Bill is drawn from the ballot and debated in full.
