David Parker’s Central Planning Committees on the Policy Bonfire

Responding to the repeal of the Natural and Built Environment Act and Spatial Planning Act, Taxpayers’ Union Policy Adviser, James Ross, said:

“David Parker’s resource management reforms tried to strip consenting, planning and resource management powers away from local communities and place them in the hands of unelected, co-governed regional planning committees.

“We saw with the creation of the failed Te Pukenga, centralisation of the health system and the ballooning costs of Three Waters just how costly and ineffective the ‘Wellington knows best’ approach is. The last Government had an obsession with centralisation at any cost, and it is promising to see the new Government on track to reverse that trend.

“Scrapping the NBEA and SPA will keep planning in the hands of local communities, and this will be welcomed with open arms by anyone who values democratic accountability. Forcing the incoming Government to scrap these power-grabbing pieces of legislation is a huge victory for grassroots Kiwi activism, but it won’t fix the underlying problems in the RMA itself.

“The RMA has fuelled a crippling housing and infrastructure crisis. We can’t unlock New Zealand’s potential for development and growth without taking an axe to all this red tape, and there’s a long road ahead of us before New Zealand gets the meaningful RMA reform we need to get New Zealand building again.”