If you want to have no say when your neighbour blocks your view or discharges waste onto your farmland or ruins your best fishing spot, then get rid of the RMA - as some political parties would like to do.

The central principle of the RMA is sustainable management for everyone's benefit, an outcome to be reached through consultation and expert knowledge mediating conflicting interests. It is the Greens' hope that the Government and its new 'reference group' keeps these simple, fair-minded considerations foremost in their review of the Act.

To listen to the RMA's critics, you could be led to believe that it stands in the way of every development ever contemplated in this country. But the facts tell a different story. To date, some 49,000 resource consent applications have been decided, of which less than 300 were declined. Proposals approved under the RMA include at least 20 new energy plants, Tauranga's new expressways, Auckland's Britomart transport centre and several submarine telecommunication cables.

Projects that have community support and are environmentally sustainable, such as Meridian's Te Apiti wind farm in the Tararuas, sail quickly through the consent process. Whereas Project Aqua, which was demonstrably not in the interests of Waitaki farmers, rightfully came unstuck (although it is still unclear whether this was due to the RMA or engineering problems).

Rewriting the Act itself will lead to years of court hearings and put millions into lawyers' pockets. Instead, Government should use the existing provisions of the Act to draw up National Policy Statements and Environmental Standards to guide local bodies.

A lot of bad practice during the nineties resulted from councils being left to flounder by the National Government's inaction. With central government assistance, on-the-ground application of the Act is now improving, but the Greens are worried that there is nothing to guarantee that the resources needed for this to happen will continue.

Increased funding in recent times has meant that the Environment Court has been able to clear its backlog and reduce the number of consent appeals from 3000 in the mid-1990s to 1100 today. The time it takes to get a hearing is now down to less than six months in almost all cases.

Introducing a 'national interest' clause to the RMA would be at odds with its intention and would see the needs of large urban centres taking precedence over the interests of small rural communities.

Public notification is one area where rural people have been losing out on RMA practice. Only about 3000 of the 49,000 consent applications to date were advertised, with even relatively major projects, such as a coal mine in Huntly, getting the go-ahead from their regional councils without notification. Across all policy areas, the Greens consistently argue that citizens should always be kept well informed if democracy is to function properly.

The RMA is all about devolution of power and responsibility. Its few failings to date lie not in the framework it sets, but by Government not fulfilling its role, council processes needing improving and developers pushing ahead with misguided projects.