1
00:00:00,320 --> 00:00:03,720
Speaker 1: The government announcing some big, digitive changes, wanting to scrap

2
00:00:03,800 --> 00:00:06,240
Speaker 1: regional councils and replace them with boards made up of

3
00:00:06,320 --> 00:00:08,480
Speaker 1: mayors from the local region. This would be the biggest

4
00:00:08,520 --> 00:00:12,080
Speaker 1: shakeup of local government in thirty five years. The lead

5
00:00:12,080 --> 00:00:13,760
Speaker 1: of armer David Clark, you start.

6
00:00:14,960 --> 00:00:17,760
Speaker 2: Yeah, good morning, Luke. It's good to see that there

7
00:00:17,800 --> 00:00:22,040
Speaker 2: is change in progress. What that turns out to be,

8
00:00:22,160 --> 00:00:25,400
Speaker 2: I guess the devil's in the detail of how this works.

9
00:00:26,280 --> 00:00:30,000
Speaker 2: But government clearly has recognized that here in Canterbury, across

10
00:00:30,080 --> 00:00:34,239
Speaker 2: all of New Zealand, there's fundamental problems within the structure

11
00:00:34,240 --> 00:00:37,480
Speaker 2: that we have at regional council level and they're making

12
00:00:37,560 --> 00:00:40,519
Speaker 2: changes to that. So I think that's very encouraging and

13
00:00:40,600 --> 00:00:42,839
Speaker 2: certainly be keeping a very close eye on the detail

14
00:00:42,920 --> 00:00:46,560
Speaker 2: of what's being proposed. But the first first blush at it,

15
00:00:46,560 --> 00:00:49,440
Speaker 2: it looks very encouraging that there's changes about to be made.

16
00:00:49,640 --> 00:00:51,959
Speaker 1: Your struggles with e can have been pretty well documented

17
00:00:51,960 --> 00:00:55,760
Speaker 1: of late. Were you really facing a quarter a million

18
00:00:55,840 --> 00:00:58,600
Speaker 1: dollar bill to get the consent to keep on doing

19
00:00:58,640 --> 00:00:59,400
Speaker 1: what you've been doing?

20
00:00:59,440 --> 00:01:02,680
Speaker 2: So no change, Well, yes, we would have been had

21
00:01:02,720 --> 00:01:07,120
Speaker 2: the regional council publicly notified our consent. That is what

22
00:01:07,280 --> 00:01:09,679
Speaker 2: it would have potentially costs would have cost to have

23
00:01:09,720 --> 00:01:13,119
Speaker 2: gone to a hearing. Now, the last paragraph in their

24
00:01:13,200 --> 00:01:16,840
Speaker 2: first requests for information stated very clearly that if we

25
00:01:16,880 --> 00:01:19,520
Speaker 2: did not comply with the request for information, they would

26
00:01:19,560 --> 00:01:23,560
Speaker 2: within fifteen days fully publicly notify our hearing our consent,

27
00:01:24,120 --> 00:01:28,759
Speaker 2: and that that consent could be declined at a public hearing.

28
00:01:28,880 --> 00:01:31,520
Speaker 2: So yes, to answer your question, yes, that's what we

29
00:01:31,520 --> 00:01:34,000
Speaker 2: would have been facing had we been notified. At the moment,

30
00:01:34,040 --> 00:01:36,319
Speaker 2: we're about sixty grand to get the midway through the

31
00:01:36,319 --> 00:01:39,759
Speaker 2: process with no guarantee of an outcome. And I guess

32
00:01:39,760 --> 00:01:44,120
Speaker 2: that's what government has recognized, not just our example. Ours

33
00:01:44,240 --> 00:01:46,720
Speaker 2: was actually mild in comparison to some of the people

34
00:01:46,720 --> 00:01:50,120
Speaker 2: that have come forward subsequently, but they've recognized that these

35
00:01:50,160 --> 00:01:55,680
Speaker 2: are overtly expensive, complicated adversarial processes that are actually they

36
00:01:55,720 --> 00:02:00,920
Speaker 2: are doing nothing for our environment or nothing for our communities. So, yes,

37
00:02:01,000 --> 00:02:06,040
Speaker 2: we spoke out, But what occurred after that has been

38
00:02:06,040 --> 00:02:10,360
Speaker 2: the very key part of the process has been the

39
00:02:10,480 --> 00:02:13,280
Speaker 2: number of farming families that have come forward and said, yes,

40
00:02:13,680 --> 00:02:16,280
Speaker 2: we're in that situation, this is our story. And as

41
00:02:16,320 --> 00:02:18,800
Speaker 2: I say, most in a lot of situations.

42
00:02:18,160 --> 00:02:22,799
Speaker 1: They will, well, how heartening that those at the top

43
00:02:22,800 --> 00:02:24,799
Speaker 1: of listening to you gave David Seymour a tour of

44
00:02:24,880 --> 00:02:26,680
Speaker 1: your place and he must have passed on the message

45
00:02:26,720 --> 00:02:31,200
Speaker 1: to Bershon. Now we've got some announces announcements here, although

46
00:02:31,280 --> 00:02:33,600
Speaker 1: the change is proposed at this day just to a

47
00:02:33,639 --> 00:02:38,359
Speaker 1: governance level counselors to a board of mayors. And I

48
00:02:38,400 --> 00:02:41,040
Speaker 1: think we can appreciate the cost isn't the counselors, it's

49
00:02:41,040 --> 00:02:42,760
Speaker 1: what's happening in the back room. So do you have

50
00:02:42,800 --> 00:02:44,640
Speaker 1: confidence that we can get that sorted?

51
00:02:45,360 --> 00:02:47,320
Speaker 2: So there's going to be two stages to all of this,

52
00:02:47,440 --> 00:02:49,880
Speaker 2: As there's reform of local government, which has been clearly

53
00:02:49,960 --> 00:02:53,560
Speaker 2: signaled yesterday. The second chance of all of this is

54
00:02:53,600 --> 00:02:55,880
Speaker 2: the rewriting of the Resource Management Act, which is a

55
00:02:55,919 --> 00:02:59,880
Speaker 2: document that dates from nineteen ninety one that's pasted its

56
00:03:00,200 --> 00:03:02,920
Speaker 2: by date and need to refresh. A government doing that,

57
00:03:03,000 --> 00:03:06,000
Speaker 2: and I think that's being read in Parliament early December.

58
00:03:06,040 --> 00:03:11,120
Speaker 2: Now it'll be fascinating to see what that contains, what's

59
00:03:11,160 --> 00:03:14,120
Speaker 2: going to be required under resource consents, what will be

60
00:03:14,240 --> 00:03:19,000
Speaker 2: dealt with by farm plans, what layer of complication there

61
00:03:19,000 --> 00:03:21,280
Speaker 2: will be, and what role there will actually be for

62
00:03:21,440 --> 00:03:24,080
Speaker 2: regional councils within that. But to go back to what

63
00:03:24,120 --> 00:03:28,560
Speaker 2: they announced yesterday, Yes, initially it is for regional council

64
00:03:28,639 --> 00:03:31,960
Speaker 2: laws to go and be replaced with a forum of

65
00:03:32,880 --> 00:03:36,080
Speaker 2: district and city mayors. So the fundamental problem that I

66
00:03:36,160 --> 00:03:40,480
Speaker 2: see at ECN is that half of the council laws

67
00:03:40,960 --> 00:03:45,000
Speaker 2: are elected by urban and peri urban christ Church. Now

68
00:03:45,640 --> 00:03:49,400
Speaker 2: largely that's a population that is ambivalent to the actions

69
00:03:49,680 --> 00:03:53,840
Speaker 2: of the regional council, and if they vote for a

70
00:03:53,840 --> 00:03:59,720
Speaker 2: councilor every three years, they will either vote on name,

71
00:03:59,760 --> 00:04:03,760
Speaker 2: rek mission or some mootive issue largely and then probably

72
00:04:04,400 --> 00:04:06,680
Speaker 2: not even remember who they vote for three years down track.

73
00:04:07,360 --> 00:04:10,600
Speaker 2: But what they don't do is critique the actions of

74
00:04:10,640 --> 00:04:13,640
Speaker 2: that regional counselor that they voted for over those three years.

75
00:04:13,960 --> 00:04:18,520
Speaker 2: And then that regional counselor it's not setting rules and

76
00:04:18,560 --> 00:04:24,280
Speaker 2: regulations that affect the people that voted for them. They

77
00:04:24,279 --> 00:04:28,719
Speaker 2: are effectively setting the rules and regulations that govern the

78
00:04:28,960 --> 00:04:34,040
Speaker 2: environment of the wider Canterbury province, which is a very

79
00:04:34,080 --> 00:04:36,919
Speaker 2: indirect effect on the people of christ Yet, so therefore

80
00:04:36,920 --> 00:04:40,200
Speaker 2: you get people that get into ECAN that are driven

81
00:04:40,240 --> 00:04:43,520
Speaker 2: by their own agendas and ideologies and then we get

82
00:04:43,560 --> 00:04:49,520
Speaker 2: this terrible even split and things just feed on themselves

83
00:04:49,520 --> 00:04:53,440
Speaker 2: and become far too complicated. It's what we've saw happen

84
00:04:55,040 --> 00:04:59,800
Speaker 2: with the complete incompetency of the Regional Council leading up

85
00:04:59,839 --> 00:05:04,880
Speaker 2: to the commissioners being imposed fifteen years ago. Now we've

86
00:05:04,920 --> 00:05:07,520
Speaker 2: got the same level of dysfunction within the Regional Council

87
00:05:07,640 --> 00:05:10,520
Speaker 2: yet again. So what I see is key in these

88
00:05:10,560 --> 00:05:13,360
Speaker 2: reforms are saying, Okay, we're going to change the way

89
00:05:13,920 --> 00:05:18,320
Speaker 2: we do representation, and I would like to hope out

90
00:05:18,360 --> 00:05:21,839
Speaker 2: of that that provincial Canterbury will get more of a

91
00:05:21,960 --> 00:05:25,400
Speaker 2: say on the decisions that are made that directly affect it.