Kieran McAnulty: Fast-track bill prevents proper process

Labour MP Kieran McAnulty has spoken out against the Fast-Track Approvals Bill, saying he feels the community still needs a say.

The bill, introduced in Parliament earlier this month by Cabinet minister Chris Bishop, seeks to fast-track consenting to make it easier to get projects up and running.

In the first reading debate in Parliament, Bishop said the amount spent on resource consent fees per year was $1.3 billion.

“It is just too hard to do things – too hard to build houses, too hard to build roads, too hard to build public transport, too hard to build geothermal and wind power stations.”

Bishop said under the bill, projects would become eligible for the fast track either through referral by a joint decision of ministers for Infrastructure, Regional Development and Transport upon application, or by being listed in a Schedule of the Bill for a direct referral to an expert panel.

Those experts would apply the relevant consent and permit conditions.

Bishop said it was felt that it was better to “run a process that was insulated from Government and insulated from ministers and where ministers could have the ability to assess the advice of an independent panel about what project should be included and what projects should not be included”.

However, McAnulty has voiced concerns saying he did not accept that ministers were a better process than giving communities a say.

He acknowledged that there would have been frustration over long and drawn-out consenting processes.

“There’s no doubt that the Resource Management Act had become costly and it had become cumbersome.

“But it was still important that a process was followed.”

McAnulty told the Bush Telegraph he had received messages from a large number of people in the Tararua District with concerns about the bill.

“The residents are concerned that their views will not be heard,” he said.

“And they are right. The bill proposed that ministers alone will make the final decision.”

He said the locals and Tararua District Council would not have anywhere near as much influence as was previously the case.

“This rides roughshod over proper process and could easily lead to projects going ahead against the will of the local community.”

McAnulty spoke on both the Makomako Rd, Pahiatua windfarm proposal and the Mt Munro, Eketahuna proposal in his speech in Parliament.

A local windfarm, similar to those proposed for Pahiatua and Mt Munro. Photo / Dean Purcell

He invited ministers to speak to the residents at Makomako Rd who were concerned about the windfarm proposed to be right above their properties.

“The good people that live near Pahiatua have already got a windfarm near their farms, so close that they can hear them working, are now, potentially facing another windfarm, just as close.

“No one is saying that windfarms shouldn’t be built; in fact, there should be more of them. But they should be in appropriate places.”

Residents in Hastwell, near Eketahuna, had made submissions to the proposed windfarm at Mt Munro and McAnulty said in the debate that they now face the possibility that their views, and the processes they’d been engaging in, meant “absolutely nothing”.