The Cabinet proposals announced today (Sunday 25 August) to slightly modify the Fast Track Approvals Bill are grossly inadequate, the Environment and Conservation Organisations, ECO said.

Cath Wallace, vice chair of the Environment and Conservation Organisations, ECO, an organisations of organisations that are concerned about the environment, said “The Bill remains unacceptable and abhorrent and should not be accepted by MPs and Parliament.”

“The Bill forbids public notification and bars public participation. The primary purpose would still exclude environmental and conservation goals.”

“The Bill still rides roughshod over the Conservation Act, the Reserves Act, the Environmental Protection Authority, Local and regional government standards, plans and consent provisions, and it suspends a host of other environmental protection measures.

“The government lauds those who support the Bill without mentioning that the vast majority of the submitters opposed the Bill. Independent Parliamentary Officers, including the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment and the Auditor General opposed it too. Sir Geoffrey Palmer and many other constitutional and legal experts have also damned the Bill.

The provisions to include environmental experts on the panel may be positive, but the Advisory Committee has “environmental experts” who in fact are heavily involved in the very industries and sectors who will be applying for fast track approvals. They are not independent.

Despite some changes, the Bill continues to be an outrage against democratic processes and rights. Cosmetic changes and spin are not enough. The Bill is still a huge risk to Aotearoa’s environment, community and democracy and it should be dumped.

The Bill does not provide Te Tiriti partnership provisions and limits the involvement of hapu and iwi Maori and where there is not any settlement.

Applicants, many of whom will be overseas owned mining, energy, infrastructure or agricultural companies have far more rights than New Zealand people. The Luxon-led coalition is putting New Zealand last, not New Zealand first.

The Select Committee needs to do a lot more work than to swallow what these ministers and the cabinet are trying to ram through.

There is a huge risk that if this fast track bill is shoved through, with no public notification or right to make submissions and be heard, frustrations will boil over into direct action and protests.

The Bill is reckless of environmental harm and of democracy and dissent.

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