“Hawke’s Bay and Tairāwhiti can’t afford to get caught up in Wellington’s web of painfully slow bureaucratic processes. ACT would declare a Special Economic Zone to lift the regulatory barriers that make it so difficult to get anything done,” says ACT Leader David Seymour.

“Special Economic Zones enable economic development in designated areas by lifting the regulatory barriers that normally stand in the way of getting stuff built and businesses humming.

“This policy has history in New Zealand, In the wake of both the 2010 and 2011 Canterbury earthquakes, as well as the 2016 Kaikoura earthquake, Parliament passed legislation which allowed Ministers to override legislation for the purpose of the recovery. The events of Cyclone Gabrielle meet the threshold for enacting it again.

“ACT has a number of policies that could be implemented immediately in the Special Economic Zone to get things moving:

• Making finance more readily available with a wider exemption from the CCCFA
• Removing the RMA barriers to rebuilding and repairing with special legislation
• Removing the restrictions and bureaucracy for visas for migrants seeking work in the zone
• Avoiding artificial shortages of building materials with a Materials Equivalence Register
• Trusting workers and businesses to negotiate employment contracts that are fair for them with a regional exemption from Fair Pay Agreements
• Streamlining foreign direct investment from democratic OECD countries with an exemption from the Overseas Investment Office
• Making private insurance for a build an alternative to council consenting processes

“These policies would be worthwhile for the entirety of New Zealand, but Hawke’s Bay and Tairāwhiti cannot wait for a change in Government to get the rebuild underway.

“People have had their lives turned upside down in the floods, the same old one-size-fits-all rules and regulations aren’t going to work. Declaring a Special Economic Zone means allows people to access finance, bypass red tape and ensure they can work within their means to do what they need to do to recover.”

ACT's policy document for the Cyclone Gabrielle rebuild can be found here.

© Scoop Media