Fast-track consent legislation on cards
The Government plans to introduce legislation to fast-track consents, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones has announced.
Jones told reporters in Nelson on Thursday that he and MP Chris Bishop were sponsoring policy work that would become a bill to be introduced to Parliament in March.
The “guts” of the bill was the fasttracking of approvals and consent allocation, Jones said, which would cover “not just Crown infrastructure, or local government infrastructure, [but] also industry”.
“I really want to emphasise that I'm sick and tired of hearing international visitors say that we really do love your country, but we get the sense that you guys take too long to get things done, that you guys aren't really open for business,” Jones said.
Aquaculture, he said, would be at the “heart of the new fast-track consenting”.
Jones said the Government’s intention was also to use legislation and use Parliament to extend aquaculture permits.
“And there'll be some niggle as to whether or not it's appropriate for central government to have a broad extension of those permits,“Jones said.
“But we’re into an export-led recovery.” He referred to the “horror story” of King Salmon, a private company that had spent millions of dollars trying unsuccessfully to get “legitimate consent for a genuine industry in New Zealand”, a situation that was “not sustainable”.
“There are people ... who are very satisfied that King Salmon spent millions of dollars and never went ahead.
“I’m not satisfied. I'm absolutely not satisfied. And I think there has to be a lot more honesty when we arrive at trade offs between – do we want more industry, or do we want to treat community values as something out of the Bible, so tapu you can't touch?
“We're going to deal with those issues in our fast-track legislation.”
Under the proposal, Jones said, an applicant would get consent from the Government, but that would then go to a conditions panel, chaired by “a high court judge or someone of similar ilk”.
They would work with the applicant who had a consent to determine what conditions were appropriate, “but they will not be able to either hold the project to ransom over three, four, [or] five years, or indeed turn the project down”.
Nelson mayor Nick Smith expressed his excitement about the proposal.
“No industry is as important to Nelson as our fisheries and marine industries,” he said.