Fast Track law: Final approvals still in hands of expert panels, government says

With submissions about to close on changes to the Fast Track regime, the government is rubbishing suggestions it marks a return to ministers calling the shots.

The changes are expected to pass through Parliament by the end of the year with a shortened select committee process Labour says is "cynical avoidance" of scrutiny.

Forest & Bird says the changes are a return to ministerial decision-making powers New Zealand has not seen since Muldoon.

But RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop maintains that the decisions on whether to push ahead with a project will remain independent.

Submissions on the Fast Track Approvals Amendment Bill close at 2pm on Monday.

The legislation makes changes to the Fast Track regime passed into law last December.

These include:

• The ability for a relevant minister to make a statement on the regional or national benefits of a specific project, which the expert panels that make recommendations on whether to proceed would need to take into account
• The deadline for those panels to make decisions on a project is reduced to 60 days at most
• The Environmental Protection Agency's ability to seek further information about environmental impacts is being limited

Environmental and other specialist groups have been critical of the changes.

Forest & Bird chief advisor Richard Capie told RNZ the amendment bill was an attempt to return the Fast Track law to more like what it was when introduced.

"It makes approvals of projects that go through the Fast Track system almost inevitable, and ministers will be able to issue policy statements that panels must follow," he said.

He said the Fast Track regime had so far been working well - "as well as it can, you know, for a very problematic piece of legislation", with the panels acting with integrity, but Forest and Bird was concerned at the concentration of power.

"In effect, it means that projects the size of Clyde Dam or the new Mount Vic tunnel or large housing developments on the edge of your community will be green lit by ministers - and panels will in effect lose a huge amount of their independence.

"It was made very clear to the government that kind of ministerial decision making was not the way forward ... these are ministerial decision-making powers we haven't seen since Muldoon."

However, Bishop said it was simply not correct that it would give ministers "carte blanche" for approvals.

"We moved away from the idea that ministers would approve projects by themselves quite some time ago. That's not on the current Fast Track Act, and it's not on the amendment bill either," he said.

It was true - and an important part of the regime - that the government would be able to say specific types of project were of regional or national significance, but the panels' job was to weigh that against any environmental impacts, Bishop said - and the panels would get the final say on that.

"I think it's important that the final approvals are in the hands of expert panels ... we heard the feedback, and we haven't changed that, and we're not proposing to change it."

Labour's Rachel Brooking also said some of the changes would "take the fast track back to what was originally introduced by Chris Bishop and Shane Jones that people were protesting about".

However, she was less concerned about the policy statements than about the limits on the panels seeking additional evidence.

"At the moment there's a wide discretion for them - if they think something is relevant or a group will hold their information, then at the discretion, they can ask them for it - what the bill does is really restrict that discretion to groups that the relevant councils are interested in hearing from."

She pointed specifically to the removal of clause 53 (3) which allows the panels to invite comment "from any other person the panel considers appropriate".

Bishop characterised that as a technical change.

"That'll be an efficiency procedure ... some of it is, frankly, rats and mice. Given we have a legislative vehicle to make amendments to the Act which is the supermarket stuff, we decided to make those amendments because basically you may as well while you're there."

Short window for submissions: Labour criticises 'cynical' process

Brooking said the government's decision to push ahead with a rapid report back from select committee without seeking a debate from Parliament was "very cynical avoidance of parliamentary scrutiny".

"What normally happens when a bill has its first reading is that it's sent to select committee for six months. However, the government has an option to have a shorter report back period and if that period is four months or less then there's a motion and a debate that goes with it. That didn't happen in this case."

She asked the committee chair Catherine Wedd about it in Questions Time last Tuesday.

Wedd argued the decision for a shorter submission period was made in her capacity as Committee chair, in consultation with the committee members.

Brooking attempted to follow up on Thursday - but with Wedd absent from Parliament her question was delayed to the coming Tuesday. She said the government had chosen not debate the shortened report back date, and could choose to fix that.

"Unfortunately, this government has a very poor track record of avoiding normal processes for law making, and they keep doing things like putting a bill through all stages urgency so there's no select committee process ... or they do huge amendments at the Committee stage of a bill [after the select committee stage].

"It seems to me that this government has very little regard to Parliament ... they have little regard for constitutional norms, and they just want to make law badly as quickly as possible."

Capie also criticised the shortened period for submissions - which amounted to five working days - saying the projects at stake were by definition among the most significant for New Zealand with impacts lasting generations, and a robust process was needed.

"Rushing it through is really, really, really unfortunate."

But Bishop argued the amendment changes were simply not on the same scale as the main fast track law.

"To be honest, the changes there ... they're major and substantive in the sense that they're important but they're not long-winded provisions and actually the bill itself is quite technical and quite minor in comparison to the original fast track," he said.

"I would classify them as minor tweaks to make the Act work better. They're not, to be honest, 100 percent necessary - the Act is actually working pretty well."

He said he would be reluctant to split the bill an urgent one around the grocery competition changes and a more thoroughly examined bill making the more technical fixes.

"We have a big enough legislative workload as it is. I mean, there's a huge amount of things that Parliament needs to actually pass by Christmas - in some cases legally.

"I hear what Labour's saying around that but the option for them is just vote against the stuff they don't like and vote for the things they do like - they'll have an opportunity to do that at the Committee of the Whole House stage."

Submissions close at 2pm Monday, 17 November.