Last Minute Amendment Papers Take Us Even Further Towards Environmental Destruction

Today the government introduced further extensive changes
to the Planning Bill and Natural Environment Bill, which
will replace the Resource Management Act. The changes are
being made via amendment papers, a mechanism for altering
proposed legislation at the last minute – after public
input and select committee scrutiny.

“These Bills
were deeply deficient for the environment when they were
introduced, they were made even worse through the majority
recommendations of the select committee, and now we have
amendment papers that erode them even further,” says EDS
Reform Director Dr Greg Severinsen.

“Environmental
limits have been weakened yet again. Councils will no longer
be able to create a ‘cap’ on resource use to defend a
limit. A cap would have described the maximum amount of
resource use that could occur without breaching an
environmental limit, such as an annual nitrogen discharge
cap within a catchment. That’s all been
deleted.

“Instead, councils will have to rely on
action plans to defend limits. These are non-binding and
aren’t allowed to even propose regulation unless voluntary
measures are exhausted first. There’s no requirement for
regulatory plans to actually include rules that are
recommended in action plans.

“The goals of the
Natural Environment Bill have been changed to include the
protection of “significant indigenous biodiversity”.
That sounds good, because it more clearly allows for the
protection of existing significant natural areas. It’s a
small win.

“Unfortunately, however, this has
replaced the Bill’s previous goal of achieving ‘no net
loss’ of indigenous biodiversity. The legislation needs
both of these things, not just one.

“The ability for
councils to impose more protective rules than those set in
national level permitted activity standards has also been
further constrained. This means it will be very hard for
councils to impose bespoke controls even when an activity is
having significant impacts on a particularly sensitive
environment.

“Regional councils will no longer have
any ability to manage the impacts of fishing on marine
biodiversity. Instead, this will be done solely under the
utilisation-focused Fisheries Act, which for many years has
shown itself not to be up to the task.

“Effects on
outstanding natural landscapes and areas of high natural
character will also now have to be disregarded entirely if
an activity is further than 3 nautical miles from the coast.
That’s not far – many activities are highly visible at
this distance. Think offshore wind and
aquaculture.

“Overall, these last-minute changes
send the Bills even further in the wrong direction. They are
also a missed opportunity to fix up the Bills’ existing
flaws.

“For example, the goals of the Bills still
have no hierarchy. The Minister gets to decide when
development is more important than safeguarding the
life-supporting capacity of the natural environment. The
only new requirement is for the Minister to ‘consider’
any severe and irreversible effects when prioritising one
goal over another. That’s not a meaningful
guardrail.

“Regulatory relief, which may require
councils to compensate landowners for rules on things like
biodiversity and landscape, also remains unchanged. As EDS
has explained in a recent webinar and Newsroom opinion
piece, this has the potential to remove vast swathes of
environmental protections across the country.

“The
environmental limits framework in the Natural Environment
Bill is not worthy of the name. It still requires councils
to balance the environment against the economic aspirations
of communities, and it retains extremely wide exemptions to
limits.

“Urban planners will still be hamstrung in
their place-shaping efforts because of the narrow scope of
the Planning Bill. They’re not allowed to think about good
urban design, amenity, or character. Greenhouse gas
emissions can’t be considered either, meaning unfettered
urban sprawl.

“And public participation remains
extremely limited, with involvement largely confined to
those who live or own property in a region.

“These
Bills shouldn’t pass. If they do, they will require heavy
amendment if there is a change of government – possibly
even repeal and replacement.

“And the extent of
amendments being made this late in the day, without select
committee scrutiny or public submissions, reinforces that
the Bills are far from ready for enactment,” concluded Dr
Severinsen.

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