Groups say legislation holding up mills

By PAM GRAHAM

It is Australia 21, New Zealand nil for investments in wood processing.

Two forest industry groups yesterday called for an overhaul of the Resource Management Act - blaming the legislation for the absence of investment in new wood-processing mills.

Stephen Jacobi, of the New Zealand Forest Industries Council, said Australia had 21 "green fields" or "brown fields" mills under development, while New Zealand had none.

Of two mills planned, one - a $7 million sawmill in North Taieri near Dunedin planned by City Forests - was halted by an Environment Court ruling; another - a $30 million sawmill planned by Blue Mountain Lumber at Whangapoua in Coromandel - is being fought through the Environment Court by local residents.

Rob McLagan, of the Forest Owners Association, said: "We need a law which allows industries to invest in New Zealand at reasonable cost and with a degree of certainty.

"This is not happening under the Resource Management Act."

Jacobi said decisions with national implications were being made by regional and district councils ill-equipped to deal with them.

Approvals for new processing sites, or expansion of existing ones, would then be faster and smoother.

Local discretion caused delays, duplication and rent-seeking behaviour, increasing the cost of plants.

The industry has developed a code of practice for forest harvesting in a bid to create a straightforward process for resource consents to harvest, and a similar code had been developed for the wood-processing industry.

Neither has been taken forward to achieve the reduction in bureaucracy hoped for.

About 55 per cent of wood leaves the country in the form of logs compared with 1 per cent in Chile.

It is estimated that $3 billion needs to be invested in wood processing because forests planted 20 years ago are coming on stream.

Jacobi said foreign investors in particular were concerned about the Resource Management Act.

"Like many other business sectors we have concluded that the act is just not working." Adjoining councils could be quite different in their approach.