The Natural Environment Bill and Planning Bill will go to their third readings this week. These are the laws replacing New Zealand’s foundational environmental law, the Resource Management Act (RMA).
Changes to the bills that appear to have come straight from industry lobby groups include critical wording on climate impacts, pollution limits, resource use limits, and environmental health, while including special provisions for specific industries, and reducing public input opportunities. This occurred despite repeated official advice, and independent expert warnings.
“Let there be no mistake. This government has gutted critical environmental safeguards as dictated by powerful, polluting lobbyists who will make huge profits as a result,” Green Party Co-leader Marama Davidson says.
“This week, Luxon’s Government will grant a polluter’s wish list, embedding climate denial and an open invitation to destroy nature into law. Critical protections at the heart of our planning and environmental laws will be deleted or replaced according to industry wish lists.”
“These documents show that while the public, NGOs and independent experts were largely limited to ordinary select committee processes – and ignored, agri-businesses were being hosted in a closed door ‘workshop’ by Minister Chris Bishop, Under-Secretary Simon Court, and Minister Todd McClay.
“In this parallel meeting, agri-lobby groups went as far as to question “whether protecting ‘life-supporting capacity’ sets too high a bar… when determining a limit”. This is how extreme these industries are - that life itself is deemed inconvenient. Government Ministers must be held accountable for whose interests they are serving.” Marama says.
Fonterra, one of the lobby groups present, was recently revealed as being behind secret communications with the Prime Minister’s office, ahead of a law change stripping New Zealanders of their right to take big climate polluters to court.
Changes made to the draft legislation, reviewed alongside OIA documents and industry submissions, show the agricultural and horticultural industries have:
- successfully lobbied to remove from the ‘goals’ of the Bill that the use and development of natural resources occur “within environmental limits”
- successfully lobbied to insert an industry-specific enabling clause to the goals of the Bill, so that it “enable[s] the use and development of natural resources, including for the production of food and fibre (including aquaculture)”
- successfully lobbied to remove the precautionary principle from explicit consideration in decision-making
- successfully lobbied to add a clause preventing decision-makers from considering the negative impacts of greenhouse gas emissions in causing climate change
- successfully lobbied to “ensure activities can be consented even if a [environmental] limit is breached”
- raised concerns “about whether protecting ‘life-supporting capacity’ sets too high a bar…” in environmental law
- successfully lobbied to require narrow cost-benefit analyses to be undertaken when setting ecosystem health limits, which officials warned "cannot fully account for” positive environmental outcomes "such as clean water for swimming or flood attenuation from green infrastructure such as wetlands...".
- successfully lobbied to limit public engagement on ‘Action Plans’ (leaving discretion with the Minister), which could control how industry must respond to environmental pollution
- successfully lobbied for the deletion of all references to “caps on resource use”
- successfully lobbied for changes to the freshwater farm plan system
- blocked regional councils from protecting the inshore marine environment from destructive fishing activity
“Aotearoa has one chance, on November the 7th, to stop these dystopian laws from becoming reality. Now is the time to believe in a better way, to enrol by October the 25th, and then vote this government out.” says Davidson.
