Achievement and Failures both at the same time It is been reported today that the rail network has reached 12 million rail passenger trips to the rolling year total … Continue reading 12 Million Rail Passenger Trips, and Consultation Under Way for West Auckland
Blog serves as a good archive and e-story as well Well it seems this Herald article (as well as wider comments elsewhere): ‘Illegal’ to build a house in Auckland … Continue reading A Collation of Posts on Auckland Development
From Scoop Business Desk
Key confirms review of most contentious RMA reforms |
By Pattrick Smellie Oct. 6 (BusinessDesk) – Prime Minister John Key has made his most explicit comments since the election that contentious reforms to the Resource Management Act will be reviewed and may not proceed.
Key appointed Nick Smith to the environment portfolio in his new ministry announcement today, returning him to a role previously held by Amy Adams.
Speaking to BusinessDesk after the Cabinet announcement today, Key said he expected Smith to “go away and have a very good look at” proposals to reform the RMA, which would have led to the merging of two crucial clauses, Sections 6 and 7. These clauses define the “sustainable management” principle in Section 5 of the RMA. Adams had led proposals to collapse the two interpretive clauses into one and to add economic development elements that would balance up environmental considerations.
Environmental groups and opposition parties were alarmed by the proposals, which stalled in the last Parliament after the United Future and Maori parties refused to back them. While the National party could count on the one vote available from the Act party to pass the proposals in the new Parliament, Key is signalling a willingness to hear alternative approaches, making good on commitments he made to environmental lobby leaders before the Sept. 20 election.
“The concern that the environmental agencies and lobby groups have made is a real concern about that merger of 6 and 7,” said Key. “The question is: do you need to merge 6 and 7 to deliver the outcomes that you want? There’s quite a mixture of views. Some people think it’s actually quite possible for us to not merge 6 and 7, allay some of the concerns of the environmental groups, and still deliver.”
Greater use of National Policy Statements and National Environmental Standards, which are already provided for in the existing RMA, is being proposed as a simpler alternative. It would also avoid the potential for years of litigation to establish new case law around substantially changed RMA purposes clauses.
Key also outlined two further issues requiring Smith’s attention, saying a sunset clause in existing Special Housing Area legislation needed to be “embedded in the RMA”, and that there was an as yet unpublicised issue relating to industrial land that needed resolving.
“I’d expect Nick to go and have a look at his whole building and construction portfolio and see how that ties in ultimately with the RMA reform,” Key said. “He’ll obviously go and talk to the other interested groups on both sides, from business right through to the environment, and see how that looks.”
———-
Source and full article: http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/BU1410/S00187/key-confirms-review-of-most-contentious-rma-reforms.htm
I was talking to Green MP Julie Ann-Genter around the Section 6 reforms of the Resource Management Act to which Ms Genter stated that the Government could look around the National Policy Statements, and National Environment Standards rather than gutting Section 6 (and 7).
Well it seems the Government might just be doing that in embarking on the NPS and NES fronts with the RMA reforms.
It will be interesting to see how Key plans to go down this road. It will be a legacy for him but whether a good or bad legacy depends how Key pulls the RMA reforms off. Also it will be interesting to see if the RMA reforms affect the Unitary Plan Hearings and results in any way as well.
Using the Resource Management Act Reforms to help mitigate/remedy child poverty The question you would be first asking is: “how can the reforms of the Resource Management Act help … Continue reading Mitigating Child Poverty via the RMA Reforms
New Super Government Coordinated Role So as the news about Paula Bennett wanting to do something else after being Minister for Social Development over the last six years I … Continue reading Minister and Ministry of Planning
Last night John Campbell on Campbell Live gave a full show length interview with re-elected Prime Minister John Key.
An extract of the interview below:
Monday 22 Sep 2014 8:38 p.m.
Just 48 hours after New Zealand’s general election, John Key sat down with John Campbell in Wellington after he was elected for another three years as Prime Minister.
“I will lead a Government that will govern for all New Zealanders” was a quote from Mr Key’s acceptance speech that stood out for many.
“I wrote the speech that was delivered on Saturday night because I wanted them to be my words and it was how I felt,” says Mr Key.
Mr Key says he believes he has made a difference over the past six years, though he knows he has his critics.
“There will be some New Zealanders who say, ‘Well, he may have made a difference, but not positively to my life.”
To them Mr Key says “[We in National] have certainly tried our best to do that”.
But he knows he must now carve his legacy.
“Helen Clarke will be remembered for the Cullen Fund or the Working For Families,” he says. “If it all ends on Saturday night, I would like to be remembered for leadership around the Christchurch earthquakes and [getting through] the global financial crisis.”
Robert Muldoon’s ambition, “to leave the country in no worse shape than I found it”, Mr Key describes as having an incredibly low ambition.
“I want to leave the country in better shape than I found it,” he says.
……
He also wants to harness some of the lessons learned from the campaign to improve the next three years, and look at what poor voter turnout says about New Zealanders.
“I think something people think that their individual vote won’t influence anything,” says Mr Key. “Nationally, if you look at the trend [of voting] it’s reducing, which is very sad.”
He sees the drop in turnout as especially bad for democracy, as it “means that people aren’t quite as engaged as they should be or they don’t believe that their political leaders can make a difference when they absolutely can”.
Mr Key was quick to brush off criticism surrounding New Zealand’s growing housing crisis, saying housing will always be a struggle in New Zealand.
“Everyone borrows too much, spends too much and has higher expectation than they can deliver for their first home.
“But you can get people in their [first home] and I actually do think that Homestart as a programme is good because it’s highly efficient,” say Mr Key. “You can literally go into Homestart, be with your partner in KiwiSaver for five years and pull out what’s going to be the better part of a $50,000 deposit.”
He believes the Government’s job is to get on top of the land release and the building sector.
Read more (and see the video): http://www.3news.co.nz/tvshows/campbelllive/keys-outlook-goals-for-the-next-three-years-2014092220#ixzz3E59F2e00
————–
What I found from the interview was a couple of things.
First was the Prime Minister’s composure in spelling out his vision while for three years it could easily go down for six years – that elusive fourth term which only National’s Holyoake did from 1960-1972 (NZ’s Golden Years). That vision looked of one that will portray the Common Good (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_good) which also encompasses Social Liberalism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_liberalism). Now given Key leads a Centre Right Government that would naturally dabble more in Neo Conservatism and Neo Liberalism it will be interesting to see if he does reach over the Centre and towards the Left where Social Liberalism and the Common Good naturally sit.
Given the first third of the interview and most likely the Prime Minister’s talks with Minister of Finance and Deputy Prime Minister Bill English I do expect a Centre Right agenda to go through. HOWEVER; if Key and English are looking at that lasting legacy and want that fourth term then something tells me that the Government will sit around the Centre and reach both directions left and right and whether that will be tempered by conservatism
It will be interesting when Budget 2015 comes around to see which way the Government will swing. For the rest of the interview it descended into a confusing buggers muddle apart from the housing section which the Government is looking at more Special Housing Areas and reforms to the Resource Management Act. Both to be controversial and large changes.
As for the opposition? Well we don’t have one at the moment unless they can unite and get their collective acts together.
The next three if not six years got interesting indeed.
Well – We Hope After the Auckland Development Committee in June where the Council got itself in a muddle over the Hobsonville Point Marine Precinct (see: A Question About … Continue reading Council Considers Business Land
An overall look into how we commute I will be running a series of posts on Auckland’s commuting journeys from home to the work place and back again. … Continue reading Auckland’s Commuting Journeys – A Series. #Introduction
No Part One of the Bubble Series I have seen both the Main Stream Media, and Social Medial whip up the “news” of the apparent risk New Zealand is … Continue reading New Zealand’s Bubble About to go Bang? Part One
I saw this Tweet from The Age this morning:
Seems we in Auckland are not the only one suffering road and transit chaos (on a regular basis) with for some unknown reason last night the CBD jammed up and both cars and buses unable to move very far very fast.
Melbourne this morning is gripped with a major accident on one of its Free-ways which has brought road traffic to a stand-still while their City Loop suffered a fault causing a meltdown on the heavy rail network.
There was a common theme though between Auckland and Melbourne as I looked through The Age – well three themes:
Meanwhile I notice the very conservative Utah is continuing to push through its mass transit investment which patronage levels doing very well indeed. For that matter I am noticing more Northern Hemisphere Conservative Governments pushing through large mass transit programs while the Southern Hemisphere Conservative Governments fall behind the 8-ball. Not amusing when you live in one of those Southern Hemisphere countries…
Talking Southern Auckland 