Latest / Early Edition with Ryan Bridge / Mark Hooper: Federated Farmers RMA Spokesperson on the Government's new reforms

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Mark Hooper: Federated Farmers RMA Spokesperson on the Government's new reforms · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Finally a government has decided and has actually come about
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: to reform the Resource Management Act. In fact, the Resource
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: Management Act has gone. It's going to be replaced by
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: a Planning Act and a Natural Environment Act by the
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: next election. Analysis of the new system estimates a forty
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: five percent improvement in admin and compliance cost. Look, the
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  Speaker 1: whole thing is a whole lot more simple. And Mark
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  Speaker 1: Hooper is the RMA reform spokesperson at Fair Farmers and
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  Speaker 1: joins it now, HALLI Mark, good morning. So finally this
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  Speaker 1: brings us into line with other OECD countries.
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  Speaker 2: Yes, it does. It's it's good news really, I mean,
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  Speaker 2: it's sometimes hard to get excited about RMA, but this
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  Speaker 2: is great that we're seeing the government do what they
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  Speaker 2: said they were going to do. They've entered now into
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  Speaker 2: phase three of RMA reform by presenting at least at
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: this stage the early outline of what a new RMA
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  Speaker 2: legislation might look like. And Federated Farmers Guests, along with
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  Speaker 2: quite a lot of other organizations have been advocating for
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  Speaker 2: significant RMA reform for probably twenty years or so, so
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  Speaker 2: in that sense, it's an exciting development for New Zealand.
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  Speaker 2: I think and the opportunity to do things differently to
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  Speaker 2: what we have done over recent decades and see some
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  Speaker 2: real change, and it.
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  Speaker 1: Should have bipartisans support because a lot of it is
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  Speaker 1: quite similar to Labour's proposal last electoral term. But the
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  Speaker 1: important thing about National's proposal is the maintenance of property rights.
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  Speaker 1: To talk us through that, yeah, so that's right.
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  Speaker 2: So there's similarities, I guess to what the previous government
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  Speaker 2: brought through, but there's significant differences as well. And as
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  Speaker 2: you say, one of those big ones is around the
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  Speaker 2: principle of property rights, and it's something that takes a
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  Speaker 2: little bit of understanding, but basically it's around managing what
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: we call externalities. So another way, if an effect doesn't
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: impose anything upon a third party or outside of your property,
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  Speaker 2: then you should be able to manage what happens in
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  Speaker 2: your property. So that's the principle of property rights and
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: being able to enjoy those and do within a set
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  Speaker 2: of national limits, whatever it is that you want to
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  Speaker 2: be able to do.
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  Speaker 1: But the flip side of that, of course, if your
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  Speaker 1: neighbor decides to do something that impinges on your property rights,
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  Speaker 1: you've got the chance to come back at them.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, so absolutely. So obviously there's still limits and
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  Speaker 2: constraints there. There's both the Planning Act, as you mentioned,
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  Speaker 2: and the Natural Environment Act, So the Planning Act will
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  Speaker 2: have certain limitations on it. The Natural Environment Act will
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: be based around the set of national standards, and so
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  Speaker 2: in the farming seen for example, those national standards will
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  Speaker 2: probably be based around a farm plan system which has
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: been developed simultaneously, and so that will provide that kind
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  Speaker 2: of guidance in terms of what is allowable.
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: You sent through some notes last night and I saw
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  Speaker 1: that one of the first thing you said, it's good,
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  Speaker 1: but it's not perfect. So given that these things are
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: slow evolutions, what else would you and fed farmers like
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: to see.
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  Speaker 2: Well, I think one of the things that in terms
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  Speaker 2: of the good category that we're very excited about is,
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  Speaker 2: and I guess because this has been a major concern
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  Speaker 2: for our members of some time, is what's known as
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  Speaker 2: regulatory takings. The regulatory taking is when a regulatory framework
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  Speaker 2: is imposed upon your land, and that might be in
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  Speaker 2: the form of an outstanding natural landscape, Outstanding Natural Features
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  Speaker 2: SNAs and things like that. So these restrict what you
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  Speaker 2: can do. These go against that principle that we're just
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: talking about and being able to enjoy property rights, and
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  Speaker 2: so they are in effect of regulatory taking and what
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  Speaker 2: we're advocating for, and what seems to be indicating here
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  Speaker 2: is that there would be some sort of compensation associated
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  Speaker 2: with that. If there is a public benefit, then the
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  Speaker 2: public should be able to compensate in some way for
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  Speaker 2: that imposition on private property rights. So that's a good
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  Speaker 2: step forward. We'll see how that develops and what the
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  Speaker 2: detail around that is, but that's something good, I guess
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  Speaker 2: in terms of the things that we would want to
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  Speaker 2: keep an eye on. There's sort of a shift of
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  Speaker 2: having one plan per region, and we don't want to
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  Speaker 2: see local voice lost. But we think that there's probably
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: a good line that's been developed there in terms of
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: proposing that each individual district prepare its own plan. But
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: the big am is remembered that to have to try
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: and have less consents. But that also then means that
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: we move to a system where there's more focus on
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: compliance and enforcement, and so that's something again that you
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: would have to see a bit of a transition as
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: to how that would so there'll be something to look
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  Speaker 2: out for.
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: Good serve Mark Hooper Federated Farmers Roma Reformed.
• 5:05
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