Protest as Government passes controversial fast-track regime into law

Tuesday, 17 December 2024

The Government has passed the controversial fast-track regime into law, creating a route for 149 roading, mining, energy, and housing projects to circumvent the consenting process.

The fast-track legislation continued to attract protest in its final moments in the House on Tuesday afternoon.

Partway through the last debate, four activists from environmental group 350 Aotearoa sitting in the public gallery began chanting “this bill kills” and hung three protest banners into the House below. One banner was tugged down by National MPs before the protesters were escorted out by security.

“We have a problem in this country with how difficult it is to do things. I actually think there's broad consensus around the Parliament across that,” said Infrastructure Minister Chris Bishop, afterwards.

“Fast-track is a way of cutting through this, and it is needed more than ever before … so much of our problems as a country could be addressed through economic growth.”

The Fast-Track Approvals Bill will create a route for major projects to be approved outside the processes of the Resource Management Act and environmental laws, among others.

Already the Government has put into the legislation 149 projects to enter the fast-track, which now can be considered by government-appointed panels for final sign-off.

Among the more contentious projects on the list are those which have previously been declined under consenting processes, including seabed mining off Taranaki, a renewed bid for the Ruataniwha dam and an aquaculture project in Southland.

The Government’s “Roads of National Significance”, a prospective Auckland prison expansion and private-sector housing developments that would create thousands of homes are also on the list.

As are expansions to coal and gold mines, solar- and hydro-energy projects, and a “waste-to-energy” plant in Waimate.

“We now have arguably the most permissive regime to affect growth and development in Australasia,” said Resources Minister Shane Jones, in the House.

“Perhaps for some people in this Parliament, no higher praise could be recited, other than the fact that President Trump in America himself has now promised to deliver a fast-track bill.

“We will enrich our nation through the mineral sector, and the mineral sector is about to get a great boost off the coast of Taranaki as a consequence of this bill.”

The Government has argued such a “one-stop shop” for consenting, that expands an existing Labour regime, is needed to tilt the balance from environmental protection to development, for the country’s economic benefit.

The Opposition and critics have argued the regime will override necessary environmental protections and due process, and that allowing ministers to determine projects entering the fast-track risked corruption.

Responding to such concerns, the Government in August removed one of the more controversial aspects of the regime, the empowering of three ministers to green-light the projects. Instead, the expert panels would provide this final sign-off.

But terms the projects are considered under, and the panels themselves, will have been set by the Government.

Bishop and Jones also declared their conflicts of interest with companies that had applied for the fast-track, including that Bishop had advocated for one housing developer that also donated to the National Party.

The auditor-general is now investigating how conflicts of interest have been handled.

Labour Party environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said the large amendments the Government made to the regime in its later stages revealed them to be “nincompoops”.

“There had not been enough rigour applied to it … There is no social licence for the projects included in this bill, which means that there is no certainty for them.

“Some of those projects will have large environmental effects and really muck up the livelihoods of those around them.

“They can be declined, but it's very unlikely that they will be declined once they are on this list because of how the act, the bill is written.”

Green Party environment spokesperson Lan Pham said the law was an “unexpected and unwanted Merry Christmas to Aotearoa”.

“It's been really clear from the start that the public didn't want and still don't want this bill,” she said.

“If they knew the places in communities that would be put at serious risk by these projects, they would not be passing this bill.”

She said the Waimate waste-to-energy plant was a “disaster waiting to happen” as such plants had harmful to people overseas ‒ and the community did not want it.

“And yet, under fast-track, here is a pathway to allow this project to happen.”

The Green Party committed to reviewing and possibly revoking “every consent rammed through” the law.

Te Pāti Māori co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer, a longstanding opponent to seabed mining off Taranaki, said the law would “bulldoze” through environment and communities for “bloated greed”.

“They do not care that we are allowing seabed mining into our oceans. They do not care that no one in the communities, including their own voters … think about it.”

Te Pāti Māori had written to 16 fast-track applicants including seabed miner Trans-Tasman Resources that it would, in any future Government, “immediately revoke changes that facilitate the exploitation of our natural resources and legislate to retrospectively hold organisations accountable”.

Bishop said this was “frankly disgraceful” and he called on Labour to “rule out such constitutional stupidity”.

NZ First’s Jones was equally curt. “Maori Party is using stand over tactics against industry. Their destructive correspondence is designed to strip the quarry industry of their Fast Track consents.

“Sadly they’ve joined the mung bean nibblers in threatening our business community and eroding trust in NZ.”

The Fast-Track Approvals Bill passed by 68 votes to 55.