Greenpeace says the Luxon Government’s fast track bill is one of the most damaging pieces of legislation in living memory, and the changes announced today in the select committee report-back do nothing to change that.
“The changes to the Fast Track Bill announced today will do nothing to deter the uprising of public protest that this grievously bad bill has sparked,” says Greenpeace Aotearoa executive director Russel Norman.
“This government is waging a war on nature, and the Fast Track bill is a key weapon.
“Destructive projects like the Ruataniwha Dam and the Trans-Tasman Resources seabed mining proposal for the South Taranaki Bight are threatening to return from the dead like nightmarish zombies under the fast track bill. Both of these projects were already stopped by the courts due to their environmental harm.
“The amendments to the Bill in the select committee report-back do not change the fundamental problems with the bill, and they will not deter the groundswell of public protest that is building. In some respects, they make the bill worse.
“The purpose clause of the bill has been amended to give even greater direction to expert panels to focus on approving development projects.
“The key part of the Fast Track Bill remains in place after the changes announced by the select committee report. Projects will still be assessed primarily on economic criteria that completely override environmental criteria and put profit before people and nature. Environmental protections and the balance in the Resource Management Act are trumped by profit under the fast track bill.
“There are no safeguards. Projects referred to the fast track process are almost guaranteed to be rubber-stamped by the expert panels under this legislation.
“It is also deeply disturbing that the Minister of Infrastructure, who gets to decide if a corporation gets access to the fast track rubber stamping process, is Chris Bishop, who was also the chair of National’s campaign committee at the last election.
“We already know that $500,000 in campaign donations flowed from shareholders and companies associated with projects that have been listed for fast-tracking. This creates clear risks of conflict of interest in the very heart of the fast track process.”
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