Submission from the New Zealand Council of Cargo Owners to the Environment Committee on the Natural and Built Environment Bill and the Spatial Planning Bill.
The Council supports the submissions made by Business New Zealand and the New Zealand Port Company CEO Group on these Bills.
The Council has been, for many years, a strong advocate for a reform of the RMA. The Council therefore supports the intent of these Bills. However, these are extremely complex pieces of legislation. We have concerns about how the Bills will be implemented in practice. We also have a concern that we do not have the third of the three Bills replacing the RMA in front of us. If you are going to break the RMA into three new pieces of legislation we believe that it would be more sensible to wait for the proposed bill on Climate Change Adaption to be considered at the same time.
The fact that one Act is going to be changed by three Bills is of immediate concern. We would consider replacing one Act with one new Act as being a better process to follow.
