The council is a governed by the law of the land. My role is to influence policy. It is then up to staff, not councillors, to implement the policy.
During the recent election one minor party advocated "scrapping" the RMA, appealing to the property rights extremists who contend that they should be able to what they like on their property, and that any government regulation is an unjust infringement on their rights.
The Resource Management Act was designed to balance resource extraction against community values, like preserving natural landscapes, indigenous biodiversity and water quality. It has been around since 1991, and does seem due for an overhaul to account for changing public perceptions, technological advances and environmental capacity to absorb our ever-increasing demands on natural capital, which in some cases are reaching breaking point.
Water, in terms of both quality and ownership, is increasingly becoming the key resource issue, nationally and globally. We can't survive without the stuff, nor can we farm or grow crops. But how do we fairly balance the wider needs of the community, like access to clean drinking water, against the needs of agriculture, horticulture and industry?
There have been a number of articles in the Age about the upcoming resource consent applications to extract groundwater in the Motutangi/Waiharara area. There is considerable community concern that the amount of water taken will deplete the aquifer to the extent that shallow bore users will lose their access, and worse, that salt water will intrude, making it unusable for anyone.
