Is That It?

Matt Hooton and Laila Harre were bemoaning the lack of a narrative for the new government on the radio on Monday.

Here's my narrative: 

IS THAT IT?

It applies to two things today:

Resource Management Act

National's proposed changes to the RMA should be held up to the test that Nick Smith set for himself on the radio this morning. He said their aim was to not change the decisions that get made under our planning law, but instead to simply speed up the process. 

That's fine for me: efficiency should be improved whenever it can be, and public services (of which planning is vaguely a part) should always be aiming to become more user-friendly.  National's steps away from their earlier daft promise to re-write Part II of the Act also help with hoping that Smith might be right, and that this is not a gutting of the Act.

But: is that it? I thought the RMA was "fundamentally flawed" and "a handbreak on growth". If that sort of rhetoric is true, surely the whole thing should be abolished and the market allowed to rule, as ACT would like?

SME Package

While Kevin Rudd throws $43bn at the recession, John Key's government proposes a few tweaks and bells and whistles that will make some marginal differences here. I have not looked in detail at his proposed changes, but the overall summary in the media seems to be, "that's nice but why can't you do more?"

What we know already is that Labour's last Budget provides the real foundation for the injections of spending power and investment the country needs to keep the worst of the crisis at bay. It is not Mr Key's fault that there is little he needs to do.

But: he needs to say so. He needs to come out and say: "Look. Labour's last budget did most of the heavy lifting in responding to this financial crisis. The spending increases and tax cuts were very big, and they are working with the RBNZ's interest rate cuts to do all that government can really do at this point."  If he doesn't say that, then I and others are entitled to ask: "Is that it?" For if he won't acknowledge that then he must have more up his sleeve.

None of which is to say there may not be need for higher debt and more spending, or that the government hasn't planned what it might do. Labour's May 08 Budget was written in a different context to today. We have plenty of room to move in terms of public debt if we need to -- so long as people will keep lending to us, that is.

Comments

[Julie]

I'm pretty underwhelmed too. Aren't the 100 days, sorry 72 days, of action up soon? Does that mean we can expect even less from that point onwards??!

[Rob Davies]

Smith's proposed changes to resource management are significant, particularly when you consider them as a package.

Speeding the application process up where it can be done properly is of course desirable but doing so at the expense of best practise is something else altogether. How can Smith promise the same outcomes when a planner's fundamental ability to scrutinise a proposal is effectively neutered?

Then there's the interesting prospect of applicants actually being able to choose whether an elected member (a city, district or regional councillor) or an Environmental Commissioner hear their proposal.

All of this looks as if suddenly the pendulum has swung in favour of private planning consultants - and that is a fundamental change. And it's change by stealth because it's cloaked in moderate terms like "review" and "amend".

The Resource Management Act talks in clear terms about managing our natural and physical environment, but it also relies on a level of community involvement that hasn't existed for a long time.

The community can't divorce itself from the responsibility of contributing toward good environmental decision making by only becoming passionate when a city planner gets it wrong.

The fundamental differences between Labour and National's approach is this: the former supported encouraging community involvement while the latter appears to have given up completely.

"Leave it to the paid professionals". Bad idea.