February 16, 2024
New planning law environmental balancing act
Regional Development and Fisheries Minister Shane Janes says a new fast track planning law should turbocharge major infrastructure projects and encourege investment in areas like mining and aquaculture.
He says the legislation is based on ideas he worked on with former environment minister David Parker in 2020 which found their way into Labour’s rewrite of the Resoure Management Act, which has been scrapped by the new Government.
He says it will inevitably involve trade-offs between development and the environment.
Obviously any major project has to have appropriate conditions but those conditions need to reflect the fact at one side we’ve got our legacy of wanting to uphold sustainability outcomes but at another level we’ve also got the need to grow our econmy, fulfil our development ambiitons and in a sense it’s a rerun of the eternal balancing debate between developent and the environment,”