Chris Bishop: RMA Minister criticises the resource consent requirements impacting Auckland's Ikea

The Government's slamming the requirement for builders of a new Ikea in Auckland - to consult with seven mana whenua groups.

Consent for the Sylvia Park store requires iwi consultation around erosion, stormwater treatment, and planting.

 ACT's Simon Court flagged the issue, and the Prime Minister's called it insane.

RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop says it's ridiculous - and why we can't have nice things in New Zealand.

"And it's exactly the reason why we are ultimately repealing and replacing the RMA with new legislation. This is the red tape that gets in the way and drives up the costs."

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Now, there's been a fair bit of attention over the
weekend on the resours consent requirements that Ikea had to
meet to build the Sylvia Park store. Now, this included
consulting with seven man of Fenu were groups on water
and land management, and also inviting man of Fena were
to perform katakia and other cultural ceremonies on the site
at least three separate times. Chris Bishop is the minister
responsible for RMA reforming with us now, Hey Bush, Hello,

(00:23):
are you happy with this or you're going to change it?

Speaker 2 (00:26):
Oh? I've read it over the weekend from Simon Cord
who put it out, and I just thought, oh, jeepus creepers,
here we go again. Is this at the stuff that
drives people absolutely bonkers? Right? And it's exactly the reason
why we are ultimately repealing and replacing the RMA with
new legislation. It's the sort of red tape that just
gets in the way, It drives up the cost, makes
it too hard to do in this country. Imagine having

(00:47):
to go through all that just to build an Ikea.
I mean, as David Seymour said, you know this is
why we can't have nice things in New Zealand and
it's ridiculous.

Speaker 1 (00:55):
Can you tell me what part of the RMA allows
this to happen.

Speaker 2 (01:00):
There are sections of the r M A around engagement
with Manafenawa and local EWI and cultural impact assessments and
things like that. The whole there's the whole suite of
pieces of legislation or pieces of the RMA that will
allow this. But to be honest, councils go way too
far and people who grant consents go way too far

(01:22):
on this stuff. So some of it is authorized by
the Act and we're changing the Act to get rid
of that. But it's also a cultural thing where councils,
you know, randomly add this stuff into resource.

Speaker 1 (01:32):
So this is an al thing.

Speaker 2 (01:35):
It's well, yeah, ultimately counsels are the ones who who
grant resource consents under the RMA, so but it's but
it's fundamentally it's the authorizing statute and that's why we're changing.

Speaker 1 (01:45):
So if you change the RMA, how can you change
it to avoid Auckland Council just interpreting your future RMA
exactly like this.

Speaker 2 (01:54):
So you've got to put in really strict guard rails
to actually prevent make it not legal to do those things.
And that's what Simon Court and I are going through
at the moment where where you know, literally we are
donkey deep at the moment receiving you know, hundreds of
pieces of paper each and every week, going through making
detailed decisions around this stuff. And we are I just
want to assure everyone listening, we are so keen and

(02:16):
clear on making the act simpler and making it easier
to do things, and we are just got an absolute
focus on stripping out the bureaucracy of the stuff. You
do need some things, but you know, as simple as possible.

Speaker 1 (02:28):
Okay, But what of the things that you have seen
here with IKEA do you want to make sure cannot
happen under your new RMA.

Speaker 2 (02:38):
Well, I don't think, for example, that it should be
you should be allowed to make it mandatory to invite
representatives of Man of Fenua groups to engage in curre
care on sites that should not be a mandatory resource
consent requirement before the commencement of earthworks or immediately prior to.

Speaker 1 (02:56):
Completely What about what about having to consult with Man
of Fena will on things like erosion and sediment control measures,
stormwater treatment and planting now.

Speaker 2 (03:05):
I don't think that should be required. I do think
I just want to stress I do think there is
a role for marfenoa in the resource management process. It's where,
for example, you are affecting take for example, a site
of significance to the local the local EWI for example,
where they haven't an elder who's buried, or a cammarto's
whose passed, or there was a par in the past,
or there was a battleground those things. I think most

(03:27):
reasonable people would say, well, you actually you should if
you want to do something, you should go and talk
to the people affected by it. But stuff like you know,
storm water treatment, planting, ecological enhancements. I'm reading the resource
and sent now erosion and sediment control. I mean that
that is just standard operating to seaure. That's just there's
just stuff that you do to build something.

Speaker 1 (03:45):
There's just go and talk to how do we get
to this place that this is a requirement mona FENA
will must be afforded access to the site at their discretion.
So they just basically say, hey, we want to come
and have a look, and everything has to be stopped
at the discretion they should be allowed on how did
that happen.

Speaker 2 (04:02):
Well, exactly, it's the r m A. I mean, it's
just it's a condition of the resource consent.

Speaker 1 (04:08):
Society, like the fact that this is the fact that
an authority like Auckland would decide that this has to
be in there. So is that we've gone quite far
in our heads, haven't we?

Speaker 2 (04:19):
Well, yeah, I mean it's an unfortunate reality of the
world we live in and that's why we're changing it.
This government was elected to kind of get rid of
this sort of stuff and that's what we're going to do.

Speaker 1 (04:26):
Hey, as Minister of Housing, what are you going to
do about the maybe hundreds of thousands of homes that
have not met the healthy home standard ahead of tomorrow?

Speaker 2 (04:34):
Well, that the law of the law. People have got
to crack on and get on with it. The good
news is most people have followed.

Speaker 1 (04:41):
The law you're looking at, because some of those those
surveys that were in the papers yesterday said the vast
majority haven't.

Speaker 2 (04:50):
Yeah, well a lot, you know, a lot of landlords
have have moved heaven on earth over the last four
or five years to comply. But message lands who haven't
is get on with.

Speaker 1 (04:59):
It on, Hey, thank you very much. Chris, I really
appreciate it. Chris Bishop, minister responsible for RAMA reform, also
Housing Minister. For more from Hither Duplessy Allen Drive. Listen
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