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East Coast iwi Te Whanau a Apanui wants to become the consenting authority for water and land use in its rohe.
Advisor Willie Te Aho says the proposal is one of the most exciting to come out of the discussions iwi leaders are having with the government about water policy.
He says iwi members own most of the land in the catchment and account for the majority of ratepayers.
"People put up resource consents to seek rights to do certain things, they have to go to the council and Apanui are saying that actually they can be the council, they can be the consenting authority. There’s room in the Resource Management Act under section 33 to delegate those powers of consenting authority or water allocation board to another body and we’re suggesting that the best body for Apanui is Apanui." Mr Te Aho says,
He says a precedent was set in Canterbury, where the Government established a new entity to allocate water.
FOR THE FULL INTERVIEW WITH WILLIE TE AHO CLICK ON THE LINK
http://www.waateanews.com/play_podcast?podlink=MjQyODE=
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