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Speaker 1: Finally a government has decided and has actually come about

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Speaker 1: to reform the Resource Management Act. In fact, the Resource

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Speaker 1: Management Act has gone. It's going to be replaced by

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Speaker 1: a Planning Act and a Natural Environment Act by the

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Speaker 1: next election. Analysis of the new system estimates a forty

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Speaker 1: five percent improvement in admin and compliance cost. Look, the

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Speaker 1: whole thing is a whole lot more simple. And Mark

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Speaker 1: Hooper is the RMA reform spokesperson at Fair Farmers and

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Speaker 1: joins it now, HALLI Mark, good morning. So finally this

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Speaker 1: brings us into line with other OECD countries.

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Speaker 2: Yes, it does. It's it's good news really, I mean,

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Speaker 2: it's sometimes hard to get excited about RMA, but this

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Speaker 2: is great that we're seeing the government do what they

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Speaker 2: said they were going to do. They've entered now into

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Speaker 2: phase three of RMA reform by presenting at least at

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Speaker 2: this stage the early outline of what a new RMA

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Speaker 2: legislation might look like. And Federated Farmers Guests, along with

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Speaker 2: quite a lot of other organizations have been advocating for

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Speaker 2: significant RMA reform for probably twenty years or so, so

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Speaker 2: in that sense, it's an exciting development for New Zealand.

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Speaker 2: I think and the opportunity to do things differently to

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Speaker 2: what we have done over recent decades and see some

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Speaker 2: real change, and it.

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Speaker 1: Should have bipartisans support because a lot of it is

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Speaker 1: quite similar to Labour's proposal last electoral term. But the

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Speaker 1: important thing about National's proposal is the maintenance of property rights.

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Speaker 1: To talk us through that, yeah, so that's right.

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Speaker 2: So there's similarities, I guess to what the previous government

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Speaker 2: brought through, but there's significant differences as well. And as

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Speaker 2: you say, one of those big ones is around the

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Speaker 2: principle of property rights, and it's something that takes a

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Speaker 2: little bit of understanding, but basically it's around managing what

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Speaker 2: we call externalities. So another way, if an effect doesn't

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Speaker 2: impose anything upon a third party or outside of your property,

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Speaker 2: then you should be able to manage what happens in

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Speaker 2: your property. So that's the principle of property rights and

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Speaker 2: being able to enjoy those and do within a set

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Speaker 2: of national limits, whatever it is that you want to

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Speaker 2: be able to do.

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Speaker 1: But the flip side of that, of course, if your

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Speaker 1: neighbor decides to do something that impinges on your property rights,

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Speaker 1: you've got the chance to come back at them.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, so absolutely. So obviously there's still limits and

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Speaker 2: constraints there. There's both the Planning Act, as you mentioned,

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Speaker 2: and the Natural Environment Act, So the Planning Act will

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Speaker 2: have certain limitations on it. The Natural Environment Act will

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Speaker 2: be based around the set of national standards, and so

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Speaker 2: in the farming seen for example, those national standards will

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Speaker 2: probably be based around a farm plan system which has

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Speaker 2: been developed simultaneously, and so that will provide that kind

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Speaker 2: of guidance in terms of what is allowable.

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Speaker 1: You sent through some notes last night and I saw

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Speaker 1: that one of the first thing you said, it's good,

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Speaker 1: but it's not perfect. So given that these things are

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Speaker 1: slow evolutions, what else would you and fed farmers like

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Speaker 1: to see.

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Speaker 2: Well, I think one of the things that in terms

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Speaker 2: of the good category that we're very excited about is,

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Speaker 2: and I guess because this has been a major concern

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Speaker 2: for our members of some time, is what's known as

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Speaker 2: regulatory takings. The regulatory taking is when a regulatory framework

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Speaker 2: is imposed upon your land, and that might be in

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Speaker 2: the form of an outstanding natural landscape, Outstanding Natural Features

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Speaker 2: SNAs and things like that. So these restrict what you

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Speaker 2: can do. These go against that principle that we're just

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Speaker 2: talking about and being able to enjoy property rights, and

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Speaker 2: so they are in effect of regulatory taking and what

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Speaker 2: we're advocating for, and what seems to be indicating here

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Speaker 2: is that there would be some sort of compensation associated

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Speaker 2: with that. If there is a public benefit, then the

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Speaker 2: public should be able to compensate in some way for

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Speaker 2: that imposition on private property rights. So that's a good

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Speaker 2: step forward. We'll see how that develops and what the

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Speaker 2: detail around that is, but that's something good, I guess

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Speaker 2: in terms of the things that we would want to

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Speaker 2: keep an eye on. There's sort of a shift of

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Speaker 2: having one plan per region, and we don't want to

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Speaker 2: see local voice lost. But we think that there's probably

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Speaker 2: a good line that's been developed there in terms of

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Speaker 2: proposing that each individual district prepare its own plan. But

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Speaker 2: the big am is remembered that to have to try

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Speaker 2: and have less consents. But that also then means that

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Speaker 2: we move to a system where there's more focus on

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Speaker 2: compliance and enforcement, and so that's something again that you

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Speaker 2: would have to see a bit of a transition as

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Speaker 2: to how that would so there'll be something to look

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Speaker 2: out for.

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Speaker 1: Good serve Mark Hooper Federated Farmers Roma Reformed.

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