Mike Finlayson
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.
Moreover, the first-come best-dressed philosophy underpinning the current RMA means that the 18 applicants' consents, if granted, will mean that no one else may have the right to extract water because it has reached the allowable limit.
What if the local community grows? Where will household water come from? What if people's shallow bores dry up? What is fair and equitable?
Some people think that I, as a councillor, can influence the resource consent process, and expect me to put pressure on staff to deny or mitigate consents. That is not how it works. 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.
If you want to influence regional council policy you have two opportunities, via the regional and long-term plans. You have until November 15 to submit to the regional plan. This is your chance to effect change to the way resource consents are administered. Every submission is a piece of ammunition in the fight for fairer resource allocation.
While councillors' opinions and ideas matter, they carry more weight if there are dozens of submissions supporting them. You may be but one voice, but you count.
¦mikef@nrc.govt.nz