Infrastructure Commission fears fast-track regime won’t prove ‘durable’ without changes

Tuesday, 11 June 2024

The Government’s proposed fast-track consenting regime may not withstand the test of time if commercial projects are eligible for fast-track approval, the Infrastructure Commission has warned MPs.

The Crown-owned entity has advised against offering fast-track consents to projects that “may contribute to economic well-being but are essentially commercial”.

The commission’s infrastructure planning director, Paul Alexander, said “wide application to general commercial activities, while not without potential benefits, risks jeopardizing public support and therefore the durability of these processes”.

Mining industry organisation Straterra hit back at suggestions mines should not be eligible for fast-track consents with its chief executive, Josie Vidal, accusing critics of the Government’s proposed consenting regime of “bordering on hysteria”.

The Fast-track Approvals Bill would give three ministers, Chris Bishop, Simeon Brown and Shane Jones, the ultimate power to approve major projects with the ability to override both existing environmental laws and an expert panel that would be set up to advise them.

The Infrastructure Commission, which is chaired by former Reserve Bank governor Allan Bollard, had not intended to make a submission to the Environment select committee, which is considering the bill.

However, it gave evidence on Monday after being invited to do so by the committee.

Anna Moodie, general manager of operations at the Infrastructure Commission, said it had advised the Government to restrict the range of activities that could be approved by the fast-track bill, or that it should prioritise.

“The key objective for us is to have enduring legislation that enables the development of infrastructure that delivers significant public benefits.”

Public infrastructure providers were building assets for “decades to come and they wanted social licence to operate for the life of those assets”, she said.

“They need a consenting framework that is stable and enduring, and the bill is less likely to be challenged or repealed if it applies to infrastructure activities.”

The Environment select committee has received about 27,000 submissions on the fast-track legislation, the vast majority of which appear to oppose the legislation on environmental grounds or due to concerns over the potential for conflicts of interest.

As many as 20,000 people are believed to have joined a march against the legislation in Auckland on Saturday.

The Green Party has made clear it would not hesitate to revoke consents that were granted under the fast-track regime, while Labour Party environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking has guardedly left the door open to doing that on a case by case basis as and when Labour returned to power.

Moodie said restricting the fast-track regime to projects that had significant public benefits need not necessarily mean it would be limited to only expediting government or local government projects.

Renewable energy investments or investments in telecommunications infrastructure could also deliver public benefits, so could also potentially be eligible for inclusion under the Infrastructure Commission’s proposed amendments, she suggested.

Vidal told the committee shortly earlier that critics who believed the fast-track regime pitted the economy against the environment had got it wrong, and it was nonsense profits from mining would leave the country.

It was frustrating that some submitters and commentators were trying to make a case that mining projects should not be included the fast-track regime, she said.

“The bill is not without checks and balances, which will no doubt be refined by yourselves on the select committee,” she told MPs.

Mining companies were “bound by the requirements of their customers, investors, shareholders and financiers to report on their environmental impacts” and supported high environmental standards, she said.

“Miners will continue to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on predator control to protect indigenous biodiversity, run breeding programmes for kiwis, protect little blue penguins, study frogs, keep lizards safe,” Vidal said.

They would also spend “millions of dollars on planting the right plants where they have previously mined, protect waterways with innovative water management and generally quietly go about leading the world in environmental management of mines,” she said.

The conservation estate covered a third of New Zealand's land and it made sense to use some of it for farming, ski fields and mining, she said.

Vidal suggested New Zealand had a global duty to participate in mining.

“It is not appropriate for New Zealand to sit on its mineral wealth and expect everyone else in the world to provide,” she said.

Genesis Energy chief executive Malcolm Jones, also appearing in front of the committee on Monday, said it supported the fast-track bill but side-stepped questions on whether it approved of fast-tracking consents for new coal mines.

The power firm’s focus was instead on “how we build more renewables more quickly”, he said.

In order to achieve the Government’s goal of doubling renewable electricity by 2050, “a more certain development and investment environment” was needed, he said.

One of the biggest barriers was the “lengthy, expensive and complex process” for consenting renewable power plants, coupled with the separate difficulty of connecting them to the grid, he said.

Johns said the fast-track regime should be amended to allow for the speedy “reconsenting” of developments, if existing resource consents had expired.

Genesis, along with other power companies, has been accused of sitting on resources consents for wind farms without developing them.

In 2013, for example, it secured resource consent to build what would have been the country’s largest wind farm at Castle Hill east of Eketāhuna at a projected cost of $1.6 billion.

It is understood to have been paying retainers to land owners since then to keep the option alive.

However, the site has not been developed and the consents were due to expire last year before an extension was granted, up until June 2031, for work to begin on a smaller-scale wind farm now being considered for the site by Genesis.

The new consent would allow Genesis to build and operate a wind farm with up to 71 larger turbines, instead of an originally-proposed 286 smaller turbines.

As well as reducing the scope of the fast-track bill, the Infrastructure Commission advised the committee to recommend final decisions on consents were made by “expert panels” that would be appointed by the Government, rather than ministers.

The bill should also make it explicit that the environmental effects of projects should be managed appropriately, Vidal said.

The Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment, Simon Upton, has similarly advised fast-track consents should be limited to proposals that provide significant public benefits, such as roading, and electricity transmission and generation.