Opinion: 'We need to see full exposure drafts of all three pieces of legislation'

Penny Gaylor.

Weekly column by Kāpiti's Greater Wellington Regional Council representative Penny Gaylor.

As indicated last week, I'm sharing more of Greater Wellington Regional Council's submission to the parliamentary environment select committee to the proposed natural and built environments committee.

To recap, this "early exposure" of the bill is seeking input to help shape the eventual bill, which will form the first part of three pieces of legislation that will replace the RMA.

As chair of GWRC's environment committee, I joined GWRC chair Daran Ponter who spoke to the submission. Here are the other two key points that we highlighted to our oral presentation to the select committee.

Greater Wellington supports the requirement to 'give effect to" Te Tiriti principles, and the expectations for how councils and mana whenua will partner on natural and built environment issues. But our point was, that alongside this, the Crown must clarify whether local government is, or is not, a Te Tiriti o Waitangi partner. This is not currently clear in the Local Government Act.

While the Local Government Act 2002 clearly acknowledges responsibility for the Treaty obligations lies with the Crown, other parts of the act also address participation of Māori in local government. They say that local government must promote opportunities for Māori and tauiwi (other members of the public) to contribute to its decision-making processes.

This does not line up with mana whenua expectations that councils do have Treaty obligations. Mana whenua do not cut a line between the Crown and local government in terms of Treaty responsibilities. This is created by an artificial construct that exists only in the minds of the Crown's constitutional advisers.

Greater Wellington recommended an amendment to the LGA so that councils have greater clarity on the full extent of their obligations of giving effect to the Treaty of Waitangi and managing any conflict with the existing LGA provisions.

In addition, mana whenua and councils will need significant support from the Crown to increase their capacity and capability for partnering. This must include workforce planning and training programmes to ensure that mana whenua can transition quickly to the opportunities partnership will provide.

Importantly, we did acknowledge that the exposure bill approach is excellent. It gives us all a much greater opportunity to engage in the process of shaping the law that we are going to end up administering.

But as good as it is, it feels like we have been provided with a teaser. The bill is only partial with many aspects missing. And it is only one of three pieces of legislation in the reform package.

There will be significant interplay between the three pieces of legislation. Opportunities will be missed if councils are not able to work with government on how to maximise the benefit of the reforms — we need to see full exposure drafts of all three pieces of legislation.

There are many other reform exercises playing out in the local government sector at this point — we need this processes to be joined up with the RMA reforms exercise.

Central government needs to take more time and put all their cards on the table and allow us to work with government to find workable and lasting solutions.