Editorial - September 4, 2012

Sticking up for us

It was made abundantly clear last week that no one knows what rules will be imposed on development, or even routine primary industry practices, within the newly defined coastal zone. It remains to be seen whether last week's meeting in Kaitaia, called to whip up opposition to the new mapping of Northland's coastal zone, will prove to have been a watershed moment. Regional council chairman Craig Brown did say, after all, that he would love (his word) a mandate to go to Wellington to tell the Government that Northland would not be complying, the question being whether a room full of angry Far North ratepayers represents such a mandate.

Mr Brown shouldn't need evidence of mass dissatisfaction before he embarks upon such a mission, however. We rely upon those we elect to govern us at a local level to display common sense and to pursue our best interests. Too often what comes out of Wellington has nothing to do with either, and too often councils willingly adopt the role of obsequious toady.

Former Whangarei district councillor Frank Newman put it nicely last week when he told Mr Brown that his job was to represent Northland in Wellington, as opposed to representing Wellington in Northland, while his wife, former Act MP Muriel Newman, said some councils had refused to comply with the coastal mapping process, and no one was caning them for that.

Mr Brown, for all his enthusiasm to fly to Wellington with a message from his constituents, reminded her that the Government could dismiss the council and replace it with a commissioner. That doesn't bode well. That suggests that the tone of last week's meeting does not, in his view, represent a mandate.

It is true that the Government has the power to dismiss a recalcitrant council, but how likely is that over an issue like this? Would the Government want to buy a fight of that nature over a bureaucratic process which, according to Muriel Newman, is a hangover from the last Labour Government that John Key's Government has allowed to trundle along for no better reason than it hasn't got around to consigning it to the bin? Everything this current Government has done over the past four years suggests that it would not be so heavyhanded, or that, if push came to shove, it would defend a process that opponents say will make the earning of export income even more difficult than it is now.

Most fundamentally, does the possibility of getting the sack absolve Mr Brown from his prime obligation to pursue our best interests? (The answer, Mr Brown, is no). And if it does buy that fight, so be it.

There is no question that the Government, and councils, should be doing whatever needs to be done to protect the coastal zone from development that will do environmental or aesthetic damage, but surely the rules that are already in place do that. So why the need for even greater restrictions than those that are already in place?

Therein lies a large part of the rub. It was made abundantly clear last week that no one knows what rules will be imposed on development, or even routine primary industry practices, within the newly defined coastal zone. The regional council is drawing the maps, and then it will be up to each of the region's three district councils to decide what rules will apply.

As one farmer pointed out, property owners are being asked to accept a process that no one can even begin to define, although the man who called the meeting wasn't in much doubt. Bob Syron claimed that once the coastal zone has been redefined, "they", they being local and/or central government, will exert a degree of control that could extend to telling farmers where they may and may not fence, how heavily they may stock their land, and what fertilisers and herbicides they may use.

No one can refute that because the district councils haven't even begun considering what rules they will impose. And even if the councils are overwhelmed by a desire to act rationally and reasonably, who is to say what future councils will do? It goes without saying that whatever rules are imposed they will be reviewed, constantly, in years to come. Farmers, foresters and developers are likely to find themselves fighting running battles that they cannot hope to win.

There may be a pressing need for this process in Northland, although if there is most people can't see it. There is no question that sewage is of concern in some areas, and needs to be addressed (although new maps and rules will of themselves achieve nothing), but beyond that this process would seem to be designed to fix something that isn't broken.

Most people would agree that rules are needed to prevent inappropriate development on the coast, but we already have such rules, don't we? And if we don't, surely we can devise some without going to the extraordinary lengths that this mapping process seems to be paving the way for.

It was generally agreed last week, even by the regional council's mapping project manager, that the government document that is inspiring all this was not designed with Northland in mind. Northland, after all, is unique in terms of the length of its coastline; there might well be places where the coastal zone as defined on one coast will overlap that of the other. Some suspected that Wellington was not aware of this.

Some suspected that this whole debacle had been dreamed up by underemployed planners with an unhealthy green bent who would struggle to find Northland on a map. They might well have been right. Central government has always worked on the lazy principle that one size fits all. The time has surely come for those who represent us at a local and regional level to point out that this can lead to grossly unfair, unreasonable demands.

It really is time for the district and regional councils to stand up for the people they represent and tell the Government and its minions to pull their heads in. Surely they have the ability to make a case, in this instance at least, for our best interests to be examined rather more closely than they have been thus far. It is time to show some defiance against the decrees of people who know nothing of what they are doing to this region. It is time for our councillors to ask themselves who they are actually serving. If they don't have the courage to do that they should make way for someone who does.

If there is one man who doesn't need any invitation to do that it is Far North Mayor Wayne Brown, who will defend the people he represents every time he sees a need to. And he has no shortage of causes. As luck would have it he's just been handed another one, in the form of a government decree that any land that has been farmed or forested in the past must be tested for chemical residues before it can be built upon.

That, Mr Brown says, covers just about every potential Far North building site that isn't swamp or sand dune. That, he says, is a ridiculous, expensive, unnecessary imposition, one that he does not intend to take lying down. All power to his arm. Oh that others would follow his example.

Wellington's bureaucrats - it is rarely the politicians who do the talking - are not an omnipotent force that must be obeyed without question. Too often they are silly, misguided people who haven't a clue what they are doing, and it's time we stood up to them.