Alan McDonald: EMA Head of Advocacy previews government's Resource Management Act reform

The Employers and Manufacturers Association has high hopes for tomorrow's reveal of the Resource Management Act overhaul.

The Government's announcing significant changes tomorrow, foreshadowing it as one of this term's biggest pieces of reform.

It says it'll be introduced this year - and pass before next year's election.

EMA Advocacy Head, Alan McDonald, told Ryan Bridge councils interpret the current RMA for themselves - letting planning differ from region to region.

He says the old RMA system did not protect the environment.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Resource Management Actors from nineteen ninety one. That's about
as long as we've been complaining about it. Tomorrow, the
big revamp of the rules will be announced. Alan McDonald,
as the head of advocacy for the Employer's Manufacturers Association,
joins us tonight.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
Ellen, good evening. Hi, Ryan, have you seen this? Have
you been given a little heads up?

Speaker 3 (00:18):
I've been working on this thing for eight years now,
so we've been working fairly closely with MFE and various
ministers along the way. So yes, I've seen what's in it,
but I can't talk about it yet.

Speaker 1 (00:29):
I understand that. But can you give us this Is
it going to be a blockbuster? Is this going to
be a bazooka or is it going to be more
tankering around the edges?

Speaker 3 (00:36):
Definitely the bazooka.

Speaker 2 (00:38):
What's changing, Well, the old.

Speaker 3 (00:40):
System is cumbersome, slow, inefficient, uncertain and very expensive and
the new system, if it works well, will be none
of those. And also the old system didn't actually protect
the environment, and we had the Environmental Defense Society prove
that for us about seven or eight years ago. So
the new one will have an enforcement agency and national standards.

(01:02):
So the councilors can't sort of add their own seventy
different interpretations of it, so hopefully it will also hopefully
it will I think give better protection to the environment.
Many people will not agree with that.

Speaker 2 (01:13):
Can you get yeah, well that's true. Can you give
us an example of how bad the IRMA is right now?

Speaker 3 (01:21):
Yeah, I can give you two really good ones. So
we've got a member who builds two bedroom beach batches
to be used in the white catto. There are nine
councils in the way catto. These things are identical. They
plug in at one end and everything flows out the
other end. He can have anywhere from about thirty or
forty pages of compliance up to something that looks like

(01:42):
about an inch and a half thick. So that's one
example of how inefficient it is. One of our other
members who runs a sawmill, very successful one down on
the Bay of twenty wanted to expand a building on
his site. So it's got all the air discharge, water discharge,
has kem all of those things. It's already got those

(02:02):
existing commissions. Quarter of a million dollars to get a
consent just to expand the building on the site where
he's already doing all that stuff. It's just ridiculous.

Speaker 2 (02:13):
Makes you blood boil. Tomorrow it's all over. We live
in Hope, Alan McDonald, head of advocacy for the AMA.

Speaker 3 (02:20):
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Speaker 1 (02:24):
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