We’ve all heard of the Fast-Track Approvals Bill, the Government’s plan to speed up the consenting process so it’s faster and cheaper to get big-money projects like dams or coal mines under way, but the sheer scale of the mayhem it could unleash is less well understood.
It’s worth recapping its intent and effects.
Usually, big projects involve a resource consent application and careful consideration of environmental impacts, heritage values and Te Tiriti o Waitangi. Quite likely, it would be contested, and there would be a court hearing or two.
We care about our natural environment in New Zealand; we care about what sets us apart from the rest of the world. It’s not our coal mines or our gas plants; it’s our scene-stealing natural beauty and unique flora and fauna.
Instead of improving existing processes, this bill dispenses with the laws that the coalition Government believes are getting in the way: The Resource Management Act, the Conservation Act, the Reserves Act, the Wildlife Act and EEZ Act. All gone. Climate impacts? No longer relevant.
Instead, there is a new process where companies need only apply for one approval; a process where a select few ministers have the power to over-ride pretty much all environmental and planning laws in order to approve projects as they wish or which are heavily lobbied for.
In fact, it seems less about fast-tracking, and more about green-lighting projects that have already failed all our environmental tests and have been rejected by our courts or are likely to be rejected going forward. Even projects that are otherwise outright illegal can be given the go-ahead under this bill.
If you care about any of those things, then this is devastating.
Shane Jones has made his position clear: if a threatened species is in the way of development, then it should just become extinct. He’s also “not interested in climate cultists, only in adaption and future-proofing the primary sector” (read: dairy farming).
So, what does this mean for Aotearoa? It means many places you love are under threat.
Some of the projects that are rumoured to go ahead are ones you will have heard of before. Together, over the years, we have rallied, marched, petitioned, took them to court, and stopped them. Now, like zombies returned from the dead, they are back, and we need to do it again.
Remember the Ruataniwha Dam? Flooding conservation land to provide irrigation for intensification of dairy farming in Hawke’s Bay? The scheme was rejected by the Supreme Court in 2017, but under this bill could go ahead.
The Makaroro River, on which the Ruataniwha Dam was to have been constructed. Photo / Warren Buckland
Seabed mining in the South Taranaki Bight? That special blue whale and Māui dolphin habitat we have been fighting for years to protect? Also rejected by the Supreme Court, opposed by iwi and hapū, the fishing industry and numerous environmental experts.
Now Trans Tasman Resources is so confident that it will be able to ignore all that and go ahead through the fast-track process that it’s pulled out of the latest round of consent hearings.
Te Kuha Mine? Stevenson Mining has been chasing consent for a coal mine on a mountaintop site near Westport for years, but this has so far been rejected by the courts. This conservation land is home to numerous threatened species, such as roroa great spotted kiwi and the South Island fernbird. Both are likely to be destroyed under this bill.
The list goes on. Phosphate mining on the Chatham Rise. Coal mining on the Denniston Plateau. Gold mining in the Coromandel Forest. Sand mining on Pakiri Beach. Rare earth mineral mining in our last remaining kauri forest in Northland. All are likely to push ahead under the fast-track bill.
And those are just the projects we already know about.
A lot of places we consider special are up for sale. If it’s not in a national park or marine reserve, then the starting point is that it’s not protected, which means about 60 per cent of our conservation land could be up for grabs.
This could mean the felling of ancient trees in Pureora Forest or Northland’s last big kauri in Waipoua Forest. It could mean clearing our favourite tramping spots for new roads, like the Coromandel Forest Park, the Kaimai Range, the Tararua Forest Park, or Mt Richmond Forest Park. It could mean mining down the West Coast. And if you live five minutes from a new coal-fired power station, you’ll get no say on that at all.
Rivers are also under threat. We are likely to see the return of large-scale irrigation schemes, in Canterbury, Hawke’s Bay and Otago, encouraging more cows and dairy conversions. Or pristine water being sold off to international water bottling companies, with no laws on how much water they can take.
Fossil fuel plants such as oil and gas will also be eligible for the fast-track process.
As well as destroying the places we love, we could also see the dumping or burning of hazardous waste, discharge of pollutants into rivers or lakes, or toxic chemicals released into the air, endangering our environment and health.
This bill is frankly the most alarming piece of legislation you could imagine for the environment. It ignores years of development of environmental standards, closes off democratic processes and puts at risk the places we care about most.
