November 30, 2015
RMA law change talks continuing
Maori Party co-leader Te Ururoa Flavell says he'll push for more changes to the Resource Legislation Amendment Bill once it's introduced to parliament.
The party agreed to let the reform of the Resource Management Act go ahead after the Government dropped its plan to scrap sections six and seven, which would have meant protection of the environment would have taken second place to economic development.
Mr Flavell says he also negotiated with new Environment Minister Nick Smith to include iwi participation agreements with local government.
"Have we achieved everything we wanted? No we haven't, but we've got an opportunity now, having agreed to have it passed through the first reading which will happen this week, we have pretty much a protocol between ourselves and Minister Smith to work through some of the other issues we had on the table but because of lack of time we weren't able to put everything in the agreement,but we have got to a space where we think we are in the right space, and iwi leaders have been pretty supportive of that position as well," he says.
Te Ururoa Flavell says the law change should remove some of the red tape around getting resource consents.
Copyright © 2015, UMA Broadcasting Ltd: www.waateanews.com