Just one day after it announced local councils would no longer have to comply with Significant Natural Areas (SNAs) considerations, the New Zealand government has had to retract its announcement after realising it would be unlawful to do so.
On Thursday, Associate Environment Minister Andrew Hoggard announced that the government “has agreed to suspend the obligations for councils to impose SNAs under the Nation Policy Statement for Indigenous Biodiversity, and we’re sending a clear message that it would be unwise to bother”.
On Friday, he released a statement claiming that his announcement had been misunderstood.
“To be clear, there has been no change to statutory and regulatory obligations on councils at this point. These obligations continue to apply until and unless amended,” he said.
“If my statement has been read in a way that suggested that the change had already come into effect, this was not the intention. The next phase is to give effect to Cabinet’s decision.”
Legal experts told Radio NZ that asking councils to ignore the rules was unlawful, as no laws had been changed yet.
“It is essentially saying to councils, ‘Stop doing this work, we’ll change the law so you don’t have to do it, but we haven’t done that yet’,” Otago University’s Faculty of Law Associate Professor Marcelo Rodriguez told the outlet.
He noted that laws were made by the parliament, not the government of the day, and so for a government to direct anyone to ignore rules before new ones were established was bypassing the parliamentary process of creating legislation, describing the attempt as deeply disturbing.
Professor Andrew Geddis told RNZ it was “misleading at best, and borderline unlawful at worst”.
“No minister can by mere announcement remove an existing legal obligation imposed by a parliamentary enactment,” he said.
SNAs were first introduced in 1991, however last year’s National Policy Statement (NPS) on Indigenous Biodiversity obliged councils to identify land for protection by 2028, including private property.
The NPS faced significant push back from farming and agricultural groups due to the perceived financial and regulatory burdens on landholders.
The government’s walk-back follows more resistance by environmental groups against its fast-track approvals legislation, with the Environmental Defence Society (EDS) publishing its submission to the bill Friday.
“This bill has monumental implications for everyone. It could result in large-scale infrastructure and development being built right next door, with no ability to comment and no recourse to challenge,” EDS Reform Director Greg Severinsen said in a statement.
The bill is currently before the Environment Select Committee, with the public submission period lasting until Apr. 19.
By Mark Tilly – mark@carbon-pulse.com
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