Government halts RMA planning work in major win for farmers
In a major win for farmers, the Government has directed regional councils to halt all work on plans and regional policy statement reviews under the Resource Management Act (RMA).
OPINION: The case of four Canterbury high country stations facing costly and complex consent hearing processes highlights the dilemma facing the farming sector as the country transitions into a replacement for the Resource Management Act (RMA).
The Government has announced that the Resource Management Act 1991 will be replaced with two new acts that clearly distinguish between land-use planning and natural resource management, while putting a priority on the enjoyment of private property rights.
Regional councils will no longer individually be able to set rules as in the past and one national set of standards will apply over such matters as freshwater, biodiversity and coastal policy. However, the new legislation is two years away. Until then, farmers are at the mercy of the regional councils.
In this case, some Ashburton Lakes farmers face potentially costly and complex publicly notified consent hearings for the continuation of existing farming activities when a catchment approach is their preferred option. Environment Canterbury isn't wrong in pushing ahead under current RMA framework.
But farmers are right in questioning the need for costly and complex publicly notified hearing consents. They rightly question whether regional councils should ignore the work done by catchments groups, when the new regulations signal a shift to national standards.
At Ashburton Lakes, the O Tu Wharekai working group has been in place since 2019 working on a collaborative approach to catchment management with all affected parties involved.
Beef + Lamb NZ says that current processes don't seem to recognise that these are existing farming activities, nor the huge amount of work farmers are undertaking at the catchment scale to reduce impacts and improve water quality.
Rather than tying farmers up in inefficient and expensive consenting processes, as is currently occurring, they believe the farmers' limited resources would be better directed to implementing farm and catchment scale mitigations to achieve real environmental gains for this catchment.
The Government is looking at its options. In this case, can the Government direct ECan to stop the public notification of the consent hearings? The Government's options are limited.
All it can ask for is that common sense prevails. In the case of Ashburton Lakes and its farmers, even that option seems to be off the table.
"The worst of the worst" is how Richard Kempthorne, the chair of the Nelson Tasman Rural Support Trust, describes the cumulative effects of the two storms that have wreaked havoc across the top of the South Island.
The basis for making great cheese is good milk, says the owner of Banks Peninsula's Barry's Bay Cheese, which was named Champion of Champons Mid-Size, for its traditional Aged Gouda, at this year's NZ Champions of Cheese Awards.
The 2024 Ahuwhenua Young Māori Farmer of the Year, Ben Purua has been named farmer-backed charity Meet the Need's first official ambassador.
Global dairy prices have ended a two-month run of losses.
The world's largest dairy company may be in pole position to acquire Fonterra's Australian assets.
In a major win for farmers, the Government has directed regional councils to halt all work on plans and regional policy statement reviews under the Resource Management Act (RMA).
OPINION: Spare a thought for the arable farmer, squeezed on one side by soft global prices and on the other…
OPINION: Labour leader Chris 'Chippy' Hipkins is carrying on the world-class gaslighting of the nation that he and his cohorts…