This page last modified 12 November 1999

ACT New Zealand

Environment Policy

Discussion Paper: Local Government & RMA

Local government, through its activities and regulatory operations, has a significant impact on the national economy.

Local body rates have been rising well in excess of inflation, while the Resource Management Act is proving unwieldy and costly to implement. Compliance with this Act has become a bureaucratic nightmare including a lack of technical competence within Council staff and a tendency to rely on prescriptive controls rather than clear outcomes.

• Problems have often been exacerbated by:
• A lack of technical competence within Council staff.
• A tendency to rely on prescriptive regulatory controls rather than clearly specifying the desired objective.

ACT's Vision for Local Government

ACT believes:

• That commercial activities are best performed by the private sector.
• That environmental regulations need to be more permissive ensuring greater clarity and certainty.

ACT's goals are:

• To see a reduction in the rates burden on households and businesses.
• To lower the costs of complying with the Resource Management Act and other regulatory regimes.
• To remove one tier of local government.
• To update the funding base of local government.

Government for the People

ACT will require local government to progressively shed its commercial activities thereby eliminating the need to separate the regulatory and commercial functions between local and Regional Councils. In addition the ownership and operation of other activities and services should pass to the private sector.

The prevailing two-tiered structure will be reviewed in favour of integrated local bodies that incorporate the environmental responsibilities of both regional and local councils. This will also contribute to the simplification of the Resource Management Act.

ACT will reform the RMA by:

• Introducing contestable resource consent processing.
• Limit appeal rights to points of law.
• Narrow the scope and sharpen the focus of the Act by removing references to social and economic aspects that are not directly related to the sustainable management of the natural and physical environment.
• Ensure that compensation is payable where private property is appropriated for public good purposes.
• Clarify section 32, which is specifically intended to require Councils to consider alternatives to the imposition of regulatory controls.

ACT's initiatives will substantially reduce the burden on ratepayers, while increasing the ability of local government to plan effectively for the needs of our communities.

Feedback

We welcome feedback on any issues discussed in this document.

Please direct feedback to the environment spokesman, Ken Shirley, the local government spokesman, Owen Jennings, or the ACT Research Unit.

Environment Policy (released 11/99)

Environmental Stewardship
New Zealanders can feel justly proud of our natural environment. Some progress has been made in recent years but significant environmental problems remain. Environmental issues are causing unnecessary strife because of poorly-designed legislation and the government's command and control approach is bureaucratic, costly, uncertain and anti-development. People's right to property is not being respected. While many of the problems raise undeniable difficulties, government is all too often the problem rather than the solution.

ACT's goal:

To promote the sound and sustainable management of an environment of which all New Zealanders are justifiably proud.

ACT believes:

• Free and prosperous societies with light-handed environmental regulations give the best environmental protection.
• Sound economic policies, clear private property rights and efficient pricing mechanisms allow the most efficient use of scarce natural resources.
• It is unfair to make individual landowners bear the costs involved in protecting areas of environmental significance as at present. The costs of pursuing public good outcomes should be borne by all taxpayers.
• The interpretation of the Resource Management Act often offers little environmental benefit at great cost to investment and job creation.
• ACT recognises the environmental commitment made by thousands of New Zealanders through many voluntary organisations. Groups such as Fish and Game Councils have the strongest motives to make the right decisions on sustainable resource use, successfully managing the resource at minimum cost to the taxpayer.

ACT will:

• Implement sound economic policies - so we can afford to protect our environment.
• Reform the Resource Management Act so it is focused on the sustainable management of the natural environment and is not a tool for bureaucratic meddling.
• Ensure the costs of protecting the environment fall fairly on all New Zealanders, not just a few landowners.
• Focus government's role in providing public goods such as pest control and the policing and enforcement of the law.

Governance & Constitution

Fair, full and final

ACT says legitimate Treaty of Waitangi claims must be resolved. To enable us to move forward as a nation we must put the grievances of the past behind us. To do that it is essential that a timetable for the fair, full, and final settlement of all legitimate claims is established.

A clearly defined process for the settlement of Treaty claims and the application of the principle of one law for all New Zealanders will enable our country to meet future challenges with confidence.

ACT policy:

• Fair, full and final settlement of all legitimate treaty claims. ACT proposes a law to set statutory time limits for lodging and settling Treaty claims:
  • 31 December 2000: final date for lodging claims with the Waitangi Tribunal.
  • 2005: the Waitangi Tribunal to have completed hearing and reporting on all claims.
  • 2006: we achieve one law for all New Zealanders.
  • 2010: deadline for the fair, full and final settlement of all legitimate Treaty claims between Maori and the Crown.
• Waitangi Tribunal to be resourced to allow all claims to be heard and reported on by 2005.
• Appoint to the Waitangi Tribunal people known for their ability to rigorously apply the rules of evidence.
• Amend the Treaty of Waitangi Act so as to redirect the Tribunal and the judges to the clear statements of the first and third Treaty articles.
• Waitangi Tribunal to be abolished once it has completed its work on claims.
• Repeal all laws that discriminate for or against any New Zealander on the basis of race, colour, ethnicity, or national origin.
• Abolish the Maori seats to end state-sponsored racial discrimination.

ENDS

For more information:

Subscribe to a news and views mailing list and receive news releases, speeches, and articles by email as they are published. Contact the spokesman, Richard Prebble. Contact the ACT Research Unit.

ACT NEW ZEALAND TRANSPORT POLICY
AUGUST 1999

(supplied to PANZ 2/11/99)

ACT has not finalised its position on transport.

ACT supports the commercialisation of the management of roads to improve efficiency and pricing, remove inequities, reduce congestion and enhance road safety.

Public involvement through a consultative planning approach at a regional level is important.

ACT would systematically reduce the amount of revenue raised from roading sources going into the public accounts.

ACT would also require legislative changes removing Local Government from the road funding process.

Auckland roading problems are now severe and need urgent and bold initiatives. ACT wants to remove any obstructions that preclude this happening.

ACT favours inter modal equity and improving the investment and business climate by reducing taxes, red tape and bureaucracy.

TOLL ROADS TO SOLVE AUCKLAND'S TRAFFIC CRISIS

Richard Prebble Thursday 30th Sep 1999

ACT is the only party openly acknowledging that New Zealand, and Auckland in particular, has a transport crisis. Our roading system has a third more cars than it was designed to meet. In Auckland the motoring system and the Bridge are now beyond the design limits. Traffic speeds are down to 10 mph at peak periods in the key bottlenecks. Ernst and Young estimates Auckland's traffic congestion costs $755 million a year.

Elsewhere in New Zealand congestion is growing. The Hutt highway is down to walking speed. My house in Tinakori Road overlooks the Wellington motorway. At 8.00am every day the traffic is stationary. In a rainstorm at 5.00pm the whole city grid-locks. We are not as bad as Auckland but we are catching up.

ACT is the only party is courageous enough to say that public transport solutions, even a rapid rail scheme, will not solve the transport crisis. Even if Robbie's famous rapid rail with underground tunnels had been built, only 8 percent of transport movement would be by public transport. The1965 De Leuw Cather report recommended an extra 175 kilometres of motorway by the year 2000, but only 110 kilometres have been built.

Only ACT is saying New Zealand needs more roads. Roads are not free; they must be paid for. ACT supports a system of motoring tolls, like they have in Melbourne, to pay for Melbourne's new ring road freeways.

ACT would give the go-ahead for a new second Harbour crossing paid for by tolls. In Melbourne the tolls are collected electronically. There is the ability to vary the toll on the time of day travelled. If you travel out of peak times, you pay a lower toll. I want the same for Wellington. We Wellingtonians want Transmission Gully and we are willing to pay for it.

On transport, as on other policies, Labour is now saying two different things. This week Labour leader Helen Clark has said that Labour will consider allowing the private sector to build new toll roads and allow the developers to collect the tolls to repay the cost and transfer the roads back to the state after they're paid for. It's what's known as BOOT scheme - build, own operate, transfer. When ACT first put up this proposal, the Labour party derided us as being the party of extreme capitalism.

Now Labour is saying that they are prepared to consider a proposal first advanced in New Zealand by the ACT Party.

Let's be positive. It shows that ACT is the party of new ideas and even influences the Labour party. But on the other hand I'm bound to point out that Labour is also saying the direct opposite.

Labour's President, Bob Harvey of CIA fame, has promised quote "no more motorways." Only ACT is saying yes to a second Harbour crossing, to a new eastern motorway, to Transmission Gully and to any other new road that is needed. Tauranga has boomed since they built their toll road, the only one in the country. It is an issue not just for Aucklanders but the whole country.

---

Public Access New Zealand, P.O.Box 17, Dunedin, New Zealand

---