Paul Goldsmith: Treaty negotiations minister responds to Labour's RMA and enrolment concerns (1)

Today, opposition party Labour has hit out at two of National's policies. 

Labour has said the RMA reforms and dissolving of council agreements with local Māori will result in a need to renegotiate existing Treaty settlements.

And, Labour justice spokesperson Camilla Belich told Andrew Dickens Labour has concerns about the voting law changes disrupting democracy. 

But, Treaty negotiations minister Paul Goldsmith denied any reason for concern.

LISTEN ABOVE 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Now Drew diggulous as well. Not well, okay, Now, the
later leader, Chris Hipkins says that some treaty settlements will
need to be renegotiated following the proposed changes to the
RMA that have been released. Yesterday it was announced that
all Manifa agreements between the Council and EWE will be
made null and void. But of course in some treaty settlements,

(00:23):
those certain agreements are actually written in. So Paul Goldsmith
is the treaty Negotiations Minister and joins me now hallo,
Paul good, Hey, how are you very good? Is Chris
Hipkins right?

Speaker 2 (00:34):
No, no, he's not right. So where there are specific
arrangements put in treaty settlements, they will continue, obviously to
be honored. What we're talking about different arrangements that were
sort of set up under the RMA, and we're changing
the whole RMA system and so that'll carry on. And

(00:55):
no treaty settlement said that the government could never change
legislation in the future and so will make those arrangements
is appropriate.

Speaker 1 (01:05):
So the matter of fact, Hane Aron Rohi agreements of
course came in ten years ago. Nobody actually adopted them
for a while there's been a real rush over the
last year.

Speaker 2 (01:13):
Why yes, Well because just because they because it was
clear that the system was about to change, and so
a whole lot of those have been coming in and
so that's why. But you know, look, our basic principle
when it comes to local government is that when it
comes to making decisions and voting on your rates bill

(01:34):
and on things that really affect people's lives in terms
of the cost of regulation and what you can and
can't do on your property, then our basic premises that
people who make those decisions should be elected and should
be accountable to the electorate every three years. And so
what's happened is some councils in the organ Council, which

(01:56):
started off with a my re representatives on committees that
dealt with just environmental has expanded and expanded and expanded
into actually making decisions on your rates. This is what
And if you can't sort of throw people out because
you don't like the decision, you've got a bit of

(02:17):
a problem.

Speaker 1 (02:17):
Yeah, and this is what is what I.

Speaker 2 (02:19):
Thought I was talking to you about. I thought I
was talking to about the general election and election day stuff.

Speaker 1 (02:23):
But this is a big thing. Can I ask you
question as matter of fact, Roy Agreement the Taxpayers Union
says they were basically co governance by stealth.

Speaker 2 (02:33):
Yes, well, they provided opportunities for councils to make arrangements,
but they grew and very rapidly and were part of
and in some cases we're getting beyond those normal expectations
of people living in a modern democracy for everybody to
have an equal say on these things. So, yes, there

(02:55):
are areas where it makes sense to have arranged with
local ee in terms of particularly sacred sites and wahi
tapu and things like that. That makes reference. But if
you extend it much further up the chain of democratic
decision making, like I say, ultimately to fundamental decisions around rate,

(03:17):
then I think, you know, in a democracy we should
have people who are elected and are accountable to the electorate.

Speaker 1 (03:23):
Okay, So to these early voting changes where you won't
be able to rock up to the booth on enrollment
on voting day and enroll, Labour says, this is heading democracy.
All the youngsters around me say, isn't democracy not about
every single personal person being able to cast their vote?
And they ask the question, why make it more difficult?

Speaker 2 (03:44):
Yeah, and so I mean, every country around the world
has different arrangements in place. In Australia you need to
be enrolled about thirty days before the election. In New
Zealand it always you needed to be enrolled the day
before the election and then labor at the last labor
just inder doing. Change that to enrolling on election day itself.
Now the problem is that if everybody, I mean the

(04:06):
whole point of the electoral commissioners to encourage people to
be enrolled well before the election, because it takes much
much longer to deal with a vote that is what's
called a special vote, which happens after writ day. It's
all quite a complicated system, but that's six weeks before
the election, and so it's about just trying to have
an efficient system so we're not waiting for weeks and

(04:28):
weeks after the election to get the official result. Always
used to take two weeks to get an official result.
Then it's blown out to three weeks. And when I
came and they said, if we carry on as we are,
it'll be heading towards four weeks to get a final
result because we've got all these late enrollments leading to
a complicated arrangement, which is what the officials are warned
would happen when labor made the change, and that's why

(04:50):
we're winding it back and making sure that people are
enrolled before voting starts before the election.

Speaker 1 (04:57):
Hey, Paul, I thank you for your time today. That
is Paul Goldsmith.

Speaker 2 (05:01):
For more from Hither Duplessy Allen Drive, Listen live to
News Talks it B from four pm weekdays, or follow
the podcast on iHeartRadio.