Chris Bishop: RMA Minister on the proposed changes to the Resource Management Act

Slashing certain consenting laws, allowing more quarries and mining and reducing farming red tape all feature in the proposed Government reform of the Resource Management Act.

The Associate Environment Minister has described current climate regulations as 'out of proportion' to the environmental risk.

Consultation's opened until July 27.

RMA reform minister Chris Bishop says the country needs more energy, renewables and infrastructure - and the Government hopes to send a clear message. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, good afternoon.

Speaker 2 (00:00):
The government's now it's sweeping changes to RMA rules, in
particular the national policy statements that deal with infrastructure, farming,
freshwater management and so on. For example, the governments announce
they going to make it easier to get consent for
mining and quarrying, boost the housing supply, and then reduce
rules for farmers as well. Chris Bishop Is, the Minister
for RMA reforming, is with us now bus shallow. Hello,

(00:21):
what are you planning for the electricity sector.

Speaker 3 (00:23):
We're planning a strength and national policy statement for renewables,
which I mean, it's complicated, but the short story is
it will send a really clear message to people doing
resource consents that we need more energy, we need more renewables.
In particular, the current policy statement is pretty vague and
it's not directive enough, so it will be much clearer
about that. Likewise, on transmission, you know, for generation, you've

(00:44):
got to have the transmission and the distribution. Really hard
to get consent for some transmission around the place. It'll
be easy to get consent for all of these major process.

Speaker 1 (00:51):
Trying to wait the consent in favor.

Speaker 3 (00:52):
Of a yes, yes it is, so it sends a
clear message from central government that we need infrastructure. We're
also doing a new policy statement on structure, which there
isn't at the moment, which is crazy when you think
about it. So we need infrastructure, we need renewable energy,
we need these things to grow the economy and boast energies.
To make it a default, yes, it doesn't make it
a default, yes, but it seems a very clear waiting

(01:14):
in favor of development through these statements.

Speaker 1 (01:16):
And brings the costs down.

Speaker 3 (01:17):
Well, it will in time, because if you're trying to
get a resource consent for a wind farm or geo thermal,
you can spend literally years in court, millions and millions
of dollars on lawyers. And it's also the time like
it takes sometimes it takes six eight years to get
resource consent for a wind farm. It's totally crazy at
a time when we have energy shortage and all of
these abundant renewables out there.

Speaker 1 (01:37):
On the freshwater statement, are you getting rid of the
tamonal or to why part?

Speaker 3 (01:40):
We're consulting on rebalancing it and that's one of the options.
So we haven't made a firm decision on what.

Speaker 1 (01:46):
Rid of it all together. It's so vague and weird.

Speaker 3 (01:49):
It is vague and it does cause complexity. We're going
through a bit of a two stage process there and
we are consulting. That's one of the options is to
get rid of it entirely. But generally we are rebalancing
the system in favor of all water users and making
sure that we protect fresh water but also we can
use it. And also we're looking at things like greater
direction around water storage. It needs to be easy to

(02:10):
store water for.

Speaker 1 (02:10):
This in Auckland. What's the problem with quarries. Why is
it so hard to get a quarry or expand a quarry?

Speaker 3 (02:16):
Well, good question. So we are making changes to a
whole suite of different things to make it easier to
get a quarry underway and a mine. It's really hard
to get consent for a quarry and we need them.
One of the major drivers why roads are so expensive
to build in the Zealands. It's just really difficult to
get the fill, get their aggregate to build the roads.
So there's all sorts of rules around indigenous bio diversity,
around wheatlands, around significanatural areas that the system makes it

(02:39):
just really too hard, and so we are stripping back
some of those protections in order to allow quarries.

Speaker 2 (02:44):
And let's be honest about it, right, you're deprioritizing, not
completely deprioritizing, but you're lowering the priority on the environment here.

Speaker 3 (02:51):
Well yeah, I mean we're saying that in relation to quarries,
they are of such significant importance to our future infrastructure,
addressing our infrastructure deficit that where it makes sense to
you should allow quarries to expand and open new ones.
That people don't necessarily like it, but the reality is
they also need we need roads, and they also don't
want to spend billions and billions of dollars building the roads.

(03:12):
So it needs to be easier to get through the
consenting process and the costs of the material going then
like the fell and the aggregate, you know, it needs.

Speaker 1 (03:18):
To be cheaper.

Speaker 2 (03:19):
Yes, Okay, now, Bush, what's going on with the road cones?
But I'm going to talk about this later in the program.
But I see road cones everywhere, and I thought, you'll
predecessor Simme and Brown declared a war on road cones,
and they're supposed to be gone.

Speaker 3 (03:28):
We've got a war on road cones, have you?

Speaker 2 (03:30):
Though?

Speaker 3 (03:30):
We do the war there and I can report some progress.
So we now track well, firstly, we now track how
much is being spent on it, so the number of
dollars being spent as tracking down as a percentage. One
of the reasons why you do see them it is
that we're spending a huge amount more money on maintenance.
So when you do maintenance and you fill in all
the potholes, you know you don't necessarily need as many

(03:50):
as the road cones are out there. At the moment,
you do need a bit of protection.

Speaker 2 (03:54):
But yeah, okay, listen, I'm okay with five road cones
at every pothole. If there are a thound podcoles, there
are five thousand road cones, I don't mind. What I've
got a problem with is five thousand road cones at
the one pothole.

Speaker 1 (04:05):
And I'm still seeing that.

Speaker 3 (04:06):
Yeah, look, I could, I can't. I can't not agree
with you. Of course I agree with you. One of
the interesting things that I've just got the data today,
because I suspected you might ask about this, is INSYTA
has been going around and actually checking when they're needed,
and they've actually removed three thousand road cones from three
thousand sites in the last year or so, what.

Speaker 1 (04:23):
Like three thousand road cones from three thousand signs.

Speaker 3 (04:26):
No, I sorr, it's three thousand sites around the country
that has just taken out the road cones so that
they found out, well they weren't requiet. They weren't Yeah,
they just meant they weren't needed. So they're redundant. They
call them redundant road cones. So we've still got a
war on it. We're winning the war, but it will
take time. You know when battles overnight.

Speaker 1 (04:42):
Are they ignoring you bish?

Speaker 3 (04:44):
No, But I'll tell you what. I'll tell you what
I am king to crack down on. And there's some
stuff coming around this in the future. There's councils, so
insy TA has got their house in order a bit.
That's central government councils though, like seriously charging one thousand
or five thousand bucks for temporary traffic management to run
a parade. Yep, that stuff's nuts. You know it's going
to stop that well watch the space, don't care.

Speaker 1 (05:06):
Hope, So thank you very much.

Speaker 2 (05:07):
I appreciate your time, mate, and go well at the
Music Awards the scene four talk. Yeah, I hope, I
hope somebody decent wins, I don't know who you're rooting for.
That's Chris Bishop, Minister for RMA Reform. For more from
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