The government’s announcement today on the fast-track approvals bill is still tinkering around the edges of what remains a dangerous piece of legislation, which it should ditch altogether, community groups say.

Communities Against the Fast Track (CAFT) said it was blindingly obvious the government had to abandon the idea of giving Ministers the final say on projects, and hand that decision back to an expert panel. But the public is still shut out of any consultation over the projects.

“Ditching the ridiculous notion of giving Ministers the final say over these projects was a complete no brainer, and the government received huge pushback from all of us, including independent government advisors,” said Augusta Macassey-Pickard, CAFT spokesperson.

“Given the government now describes this decision as ‘sensible’ one wonders what that says about its original decision to grant Ministers such a massive power grab.”

“This tinkering around the edges of this process still hasn’t given us any confidence. The public is still shut out of the process, unlike with the current fast-track process, and giving all referral powers to Infrastructure Minister Chris Bishop is still giving him too much power in this process.”

CAFT questioned what drove the Cabinet to make these decisions, ahead of the Select Committee reporting the Bill back to Parliament.

“Did they get an interim report from the Select Committee? If so, where is it? Will they release the Cabinet paper these decisions were based on?” 

Other moves announced today included ensuring the expert panels deciding on fast-track projects had environmental expertise, also a no-brainer, but there’s no mention of what standing the environmental experts would have in those panels.

The government has also decided to recommend ensuring that applicants for the fast-track approvals would be “required to include information on previous decisions by approving authorities, including previous court decisions, in their applications.”

“There’s no direction as to what weight should be given to previous decisions about a project. Take the Supreme Court decision against, for example, Trans Tasman Resources’ seabed mining application: this should automatically rule out that project’s eligibility for consideration,” said Kiwis Against Seabed Mining Chairperson Cindy Baxter.

CAFT said the changes in the Te Tiriti aspects of the government’s decision today didn’t appear to meaningfully strengthen tangata whenua voices and was a specific rejection of “matauranga” knowledge on the expert panels.

“The bill still fails to embed the constitutional obligation to honour Te Tiriti o Waitangi, still appears to limit wider Te Tiriti rights to ‘customary rights’ and still offers next to no protections for hapū who have not settled (such as Ngāpuhi), adding to an atmosphere of pressure for those hapū and iwi currently in Tiriti settlement negotiations,” said Adam Currie of 350 Aotearoa.

“A critical problem with the Bill is its exclusion of public notification and the secrecy and denial of public participation. That makes it entirely unacceptable. It is highly undemocratic. It also breaks commitments in the Open Government Partnership,” says Cath Wallace of the Environment and Conservation Organisations of NZ, ECO.

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