V8 resource consent fiasco highlights need for RMA reform

National’s Environment spokesman, Nick Smith, says the decision to abandon the Wellington V8 street race highlights the need to substantially change the Resource Management Act.

“It’s ridiculous that getting consent for this event could cost up to $1 million and take up to two years.

“This decision follows Auckland’s rejection of the event for similar reasons.

“The RMA basically makes the hosting of such events an impossibility in New Zealand because it makes us an events backwater.

“Labour’s Environment Minister, Marian Hobbs, killed off National’s RMA reform bill in 2000, and her subsequent changes to the Act have just made it even more bureaucratic.

“She must take responsibility for the death of this event and dozens of other community initiatives killed off by the red tape of the RMA.

“National will introduce a substantive RMA reform bill within three months of being elected and pass it with nine months.

“The RMA provides for the tyranny of the minority.

“Democratically elected councils need to be able to make the decision whether or not such events are in their communities’ interests, without the expense of millions of dollars and months or years of delays,” Dr Smith says.

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