The defining purpose of the Resource Management Act is to delegate responsibility for planning matters to local authorities. This means that locally elected territorial councils make planning rules that best suit local circumstances.
That arrangement can result in much time-consuming debate over proposals, but that is democracy in action.
The Resource Consent process ensures that affected people and local communities are consulted about developments and ultimately have the right to elect local councils to implement their wishes.
S360D would override that local democratic process with executive powers of a government minister. That is a dangerous and retrograde step for New Zealand to take.
In 1947 Winston Churchill said: "Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time."
A recent example of democracy is the Brexit referendum in the UK, which to everyone's surprise resulted in a decision to take the UK out of the European Union.
Despite severe problems, the UK Government is following the will of the people to implement that decision.
To do otherwise would have effectively transformed the UK overnight from a democracy into a dictatorship.
The British democratic government is the model on which the New Zealand system is founded. We deviate from that model at its peril.
We all want efficient and effective decision-making. But S360D is not needed to deliver that. More importantly, the powers the Government wants Parliament to hand over would expose local economies to planning uncertainty.
The minister-of-the-day could intervene at any time with wide discretion. S360D has been labelled a "constitutional outrage" with good reason.
History illustrates time and again that executive power, unmoderated by democracy, leads to corruption and disaster.
It is enchanting to imagine a benign, wise dictator capable of acting solely in the best interests of all but, in practice, history tells us that that does not happen for long. Instead any dictatorship becomes captured by vested interests or greedy self-interest.
For example, there is great pressure by overseas corporations to establish Genetically Engineered (GE) seeds and crops in New Zealand. It would be in their best interests not to have a significant isolated producer able to supply the global market with non-GE foods.
They are therefore lobbying the Government to permit the release of Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) here. Several local councils, including all three Northland councils, have adopted rules prohibiting the release of GMOs in their territory.
In the event that the proposed S360D is enacted, then it could be in the sole authority of the Minister for the Environment to prohibit rules that take a precautionary approach to any release of GMOs.
Regardless of the dangers of GMOs in the New Zealand context, removal of the local level of democratic control and freedom from the legislative process is a dangerous step for NZ to take.
- Steve Goldthorpe is an energy analyst from Waipu, currently visiting the post-Brexit United Kingdom.
