Friday, March 29, 2024

RMA reform against local decision-making: DairyNZ

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DairyNZ says it has concerns that the Resource Legislation Amendment Bill as drafted could mean effective local decision-making is overruled by one-size-fits-all national guidelines or rulings. The industry good body says in its submission that while the Resource Management Act-focused amendment may have some merit, proposals for greater national intervention “appear unnecessarily heavy handed”.
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“We are concerned that the proposals for greater central government control over matters that have been delegated to local authorities may confuse some resource management processes with a lack of robust planning approaches or a lack of commitment to addressing resource management issues at the local level,” the organisation said.

While it is an “entirely accurate” assessment that local government needs assistance to meet some of its roles, the sometimes prolonged resource processes are just a reflection that local authorities are trying to “address complex issues while balancing competing objectives and disparate community views, with a paucity of information to inform these decisions”.

DairyNZ also recognised benefit in having multiple local authorities working through issues at a local level because the results from trial and error were often better than would be the case from having solutions imposed nationally.

Central government would still affect policy objectives through existing mechanisms, such as national policy statements and national environment standards that provide “high-level” direction while leaving flexibility for local solutions.

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