Bridges keen for resource management reform
National leader Simon Bridges says the party is getting a new RMA reform bill ready – and says his party should have moved on the issue while in Government.
Speaking to the Registered Master Builders Infrastructure Forum in Wellington yesterday, Bridges said his party could have moved faster in their first term, when they had the numbers with ACT to pass serious changes to the much-maligned Resource Management Act (RMA).
The RMA is an environmental law that governs consent for development across the country. It is blamed by many in the industry for slowdowns and high construction costs and as a contributing factor to the housing crisis.
National passed some small reforms to the law and often talked about ambitions to go further but failed to pass substantial reforms.
‘‘I think we should have moved faster on the RMA,’’ Bridges said, specifically talking about the first term form 2008-2011.
In National’s second and third terms it was more reliant on partners such as UnitedFuture which was not as eager substantial RMA reform.
‘‘The reality is though by second and third terms we were reliant on partners, whether it was the Ma¯ori Party whether it was Peter Dunne they weren’t up for changes there,’’ Bridges said.
‘‘We of course couldn’t either go to the opposition parties, Labour and the Greens were at that time dead against it.’’
Housing Minister Phil Twyford has also expressed interest in seriously reforming the RMA.
Bridges said National’s RMA reform spokeswoman Judith Collins was working on a reform bill to launch at some point in 2019, which he hoped could garner bipartisan support. If not, the party could campaign on it at the 2020 election.
‘‘I would like to think that we could have something in place that other parties could sign up for – and if not we would go into the next election with it,’’ Collins said.
Collins said the RMA needed to stop being a ‘‘holy writ’’ and needed to be ‘‘pro-housing’’.
‘‘I am very very concerned that we make sure we protect the environmental parts of the RMA, and we certainly would, but what we would not do is buy into this rhetoric that we would not touch this holy act.’’
National would also consider supporting a Government bill that reformed the act.
ACT leader David Seymour said his party had heard similar promises from National before.
‘‘The Nats went into the 2008 election promising RMA reform and, despite having the numbers with ACT after the election, did nothing,’’ Seymour said.
‘‘National rejected RMA reform in 2014 confidence and supply negotiations with ACT. After the 2014 election, National, with ACT’s support, had the numbers to pass RMA reform but Nick Smith dragged the chain until Winston Peters won the seat of Northland in 2015.’’
‘‘National campaigns from the right and governs from the left.’’