Legislation cause for concern - to be reviewed at council meeting
Published on 19 December 2022
Whanganui District Council’s elected members will be reviewing a report covering central government’s Three Waters Reforms, the Future for Local Government Report and the first two key pieces of legislation designed to replace the Resource Management Act at tomorrow’s final council meeting for the year on Tuesday, 20 December.
Central government has asked councils and the public to provide feedback on this legislation before the end of January.
The council’s chief executive, David Langford, says, “The big concern Whanganui District Council has is that all of the reforms are being done in silos and there’s no oversight to ensure the reforms are properly joined up.”
He says tomorrow’s meeting will give the new council the opportunity to reaffirm their opposition to the Three Waters Reforms.
Mayor Andrew Tripe is currently considering whether to sign the Mayors’ consensus on Three Waters Reforms, which opposes the reforms.
Langford says the council has serious concerns about the first two pieces of legislation designed to replace the Resource Management Act - the Natural and Built Environment Bill and the Spatial Planning Bill.
“With regard to this legislation, we’re disturbed at the idea of the council’s district planning functions being centralised and handed over to a Regional Planning Committee. Whanganui’s District Plan will be absorbed into a much larger Regional Spatial Strategy and we will only have one representative on the committee to make sure Whanganui’s priorities are in the new plan.
“We are concerned that Whanganui could lose its voice through that process,” he says.
“What it will mean is that planning decisions about residential developments, infrastructure planning, heritage buildings and protecting the natural environment will likely be made in Palmerston North instead of here in Whanganui.”
He says, in his view, the Future of Local Government report is not strong enough and is a missed opportunity to take a stronger position on structural reform of local government.
“If the Three Waters and Resource Management reforms go ahead then small and medium-sized councils across New Zealand are going to have to adapt or run the risk of getting into financial difficulties.”
Langford is also critical of the lack of genuine engagement with local councils and the timing of central government’s consultation on this legislation.
He says, “The window for making submissions cuts across the post-election period when new councillors are only just getting up to speed - as well as the Christmas and New Year holidays.
“Like other councils, we’re not pleased that the opportunity to submit on these crucial pieces of legislation has been scheduled for over the Christmas period, making it hard for councils to properly engage in the process. This is a once in a generation opportunity to improve the resource management system and we are being rushed to provide our input instead of being properly listened to by central government”.
The proposed legislation is available to view at www.legislation.govt.nz. Submissions can be made through the New Zealand Parliament website: www.parliament.nz/make-a-submission.