Peter Cresswell: RMA surely don't impress Shania much

Peter Cresswell

Opinion

Canadian singer Shania Twain's proposed home doesn't impress Queenstown's busybodies, but their personal views should not be the business of law.

Unfortunately the Resource Management Act has given them that power. It doesn't say to property owners 'Come on Over'. Instead it screams 'I'm Gonna Getcha Good'.

The RMA has given unelected power to busybodies who now consider they have rights over other people's property.

It seems nothing will allow Twain's house past Andrew Henderson, the planning stickybeak from CivicCorp who rejected the application and Julian Haworth, head busybody from the Upper Clutha Environmental Society, who between them have decided that 'the complex would not be in harmony with the surrounding landscape' and 'man-made mounds to screen the house' were 'not appropriate'.

I guess even a camouflage net wouldn't have satisfied them. Remind me again how the RMA is "permissive" as Owen McShane has called it, and "far-sighted environmental legislation" as Nick Smith has described it.

The RMA is neither. It has destroyed property rights in this country, and it is time that the RMA itself is now destroyed.