Andrew Hoggard: Associate Environment Minister on the review into the assessment of Significant Natural Areas

There are further details on the Government's review of how Significant Natural Areas should be identified. 

The scope's been decided and will look at how SNAs are assessed and the way land is managed. 

A Bill was introduced in May that proposes to suspend requirements for councils to identify new SNAs and is expected to be in place by the end of the year. 

Associate Environment Minister Andrew Hoggard told Mike Hosking that final decisions based off the review will be made in mid-next year.  

He hopes the SNAs only apply to where it's truly significant, and not just taking swathes of farmland. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
More details for you on our Significant Natural Area Review,
three measures to be looked at, how SNAs are identified,
how are they're assessed, and the way the land has managed.
Final decisions expected mid next year. The Associate Environment Minister
Andrew Hoggard's with us on all of this morning to you.

Speaker 2 (00:14):
Good morning, Mike.

Speaker 1 (00:15):
Does this take the fear that we've seen in the
countryside out of what you're potentially going to do.

Speaker 2 (00:21):
Well? We'll certainly know once we get to the end
of the review, but my intention would be it definitely works,
but also provides some clarity to councils that in their
development of plans that this is all going ahead. We've
had some sort of messages coming back from councils the
staff we're telling them that we're not sure if the
government's going ahead. Yes, people bloody well are, and so

(00:44):
this has make it clear. We've got the suspension that
is through with Minister Bishops are one bill that we'll
be coming back to the House shortly and so hopefully
that will all be enacted by the end of the year,
and then we're doing this review which will give us
a much better sense for the middle of the next year.

(01:04):
And my hope is that the SNA is only truly
applied to where it's truly significant, but too much of
it's a best of exercise and just grabbing whole swaves
of farmland.

Speaker 1 (01:16):
Right, So when I get texts like this, Mike, the
Murray claim of cultural map overlays proceeding with speed here
on the way taking North Otiga region driven exclusively by
the local council, numerous petitions being stalled and ignored by
council stuff. They can rest assured that you are sending
the councils the message, you're on board, you're moving into tyhoe.

Speaker 2 (01:34):
These are two different things. Unfortunately, the on ls and
sasen's which you just talked about, they don't come under
the MPSIB. So I'm working on the MPs Indigenous bidiversity.
That's all part of the RMA part six. Now, we
could spend a couple of years tinker with that and
fix it. We're just going to get rid of it

(01:55):
instead and put something new. And so we will be
dealing with that through replacement of the RM with a
new system that's based on property rights. But it's not
going to happen straight away.

Speaker 1 (02:07):
Which leads me to then ask how tied up is
all of this with the Ramah.

Speaker 2 (02:13):
There is lots of it is a bit of a
bird's nest of all sorts of pieces of legislation here,
there and everywhere. So there's still CNA provisions under the RMA.
What I'm doing is fixing the National Policy Statement, and
with the replacement of the ram which Minister Bishop and

(02:34):
Under Secretary Court are doing, hopefully we'll have this that
through in this term and that will tie up those aspects.

Speaker 1 (02:41):
When I say cultural map overlay and you say RAMA
and SNA, and we're a sort of building into a
really big headache at this particular point in time. Does
all of this need to be this complicated?

Speaker 2 (02:54):
No? No, And that's how I hope we're going to
get to with replacement of the RMA is just something
much much simpler. Respecting private property rights, you know, we're
just let's man the things we need to manage. We've
just made a harder complicated darien Ay started off as
a very simple piece of legislation, a couple of hundred

(03:15):
pages long, and it's just ballooned out to one thousand.
What labor we're going to replace it with was also
one thousand pages. We've got to keep it simple stupid.

Speaker 1 (03:24):
Okay, So then we come to the question are you
expecting pushback? And this is the sort of the Mari
Wards thing. Are you expecting it's all very well to say,
here's what I'm doing. Are you expecting pushback from councils?
Are they compliant? And will they follow instructions and do
as they're told? And will what they do once it
all in be uniform across the country or their own interpretation.

Speaker 2 (03:45):
You know, the feedback I've gotten from councils is can
you make it happen? Some councils anyway, make it happen. Now,
I would think that what we're going to have in
place will be very much tidy this all up, and
you know, basically allowed this instrument only to be used
where it's really needed, and it's actually Significant's Department of

(04:07):
Conservation manage one third of New Zealand. If we can't
do some significant biodiversity within that one third, why are
we looking to grab qween hectores and hectores or farmers
here there and everywhere? To me, that makes no sense.
So you know, I'd rather much. You know, my focus
is really about creating some market based solutions for actually

(04:30):
promoting farmers to engage in bidiversity work. You know, our
farmers are pretty well leading in terms of what they're
protecting on their farms. Already, Wrestling was in Australia and
I looked at what they were doing there. You know,
they may be ahead in the framework stuff, but what's
setting me on the ground amongst the farmers. We're miles
ahead and you know we've got to respect that and

(04:50):
actually three our farmers with some respect.

Speaker 1 (04:52):
Well, said Andrew Hogar, the Associate Environment Minister with US
this morning.

Speaker 2 (04:57):
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