Plans ‘a plenty’ may not lead to changes needed
By Malcolm Campbell
As readers will have seen from actual cases, Resource Consents, to do virtually anything, do not come cheaply, but at a cost unknown to the applicant until the consent is granted or declined.
How many people would purchase a new bedroom suite or a new car where the cash was paid upfront without knowing the final cost and without knowing whether the car or suite would be delivered, and if not delivered, no chance of getting the cash returned. The Hearing Panel and council staff have first call on your money while producing nothing.
All of this trouble was delivered via that monumental document, the Resource Management Act. The people in Wellington are truly great planners, as they have drafted and passed into Law the ‘Natural and Built Environment Act’ as well as the ‘Spatial planning Act’ with one source claiming it totals nine hundred pages. The ‘Climate Adaption Bill’ is still to come. It has taken thirty years to fathom out that the RMA is not fit for purpose. However, the National Party is still planning to keep the RMA.
Well, we are not in the least bit short of ‘plans’. They are coming at everyone fast and furious.
1. First up is the ‘Fresh Water Farm Plan’ although the farmers may be too stressed to handle it (see issue 12 September).
2. The Government has a new plan to reverse the decline in sea life support in the Hauraki Gulf.
3. The Waikato Regional Council has a coastal Marine Plan for the same area.
4. The Hauraki Gulf Forum has more plans.
5. Thames Coromandel District Council has the Coastal Management Strategy for the Coromandel Peninsula’s lengthy shoreline.
Others to have their oar in the water are ‘Forest and Bird’, ‘Fish and Game’, ‘Environmental Defence Society’, and various Commercial and Recreational fishing people. No doubt the Hauraki Gulf has severe problems, and the major problem is that it is largely land locked, and a receptacle for anything and everything that flows into it.
The water in the southern portion of the gulf between Kaiaua and Thames may take days or weeks to exit the inner gulf to the open sea. The water that is entering the gulf from the Waihou, Waitoa and Piako River systems is not of the best quality. There are some canals and also the Ohinemuri River all contributing to the mix. Environment Waikato has stated, ‘that the health of any water body can be judged by the creatures naturally in that water’.
Again, there is no doubt at all that those creatures previously in all of these waters, are in sharp decline, including both the fresh water and the sea water. This observation is not the result of some high-powered study; it is much simpler than that - creatures that were there and are not there now! They have simply vanished. Regrettably, some may be gone forever. The RMA, in twenty-five years, has done less than nothing to safeguard the ‘life supporting capacity of the air, soil and water’.
Austrian (not Australian) Victor Schauberger was known as the ‘Water Wizard. He was courted by many countries because of his knowledge of the properties of water. He believed that ‘water was the life blood of the earth’ in a similar manner to the animal and human circulatory systems and where bloodstreams are in trouble, so is the body. Use your computer and enter Victor Schauberger to find out where a lot or most of the troubles come from.
Caption: Malcom Campbell