RMA reform Minister Chris Bishop, fresh from his housing intensification backdown last week, is now backing off some of his hardline rhetoric on his Resource Management Act reform proposals.
Bishop’s move along is an obvious concession to longtime National voters in Auckland’s leafy suburbs, where National has been coming under attack from ACT.
And now, in another concession to many of the same voters, the Government is proposing to further restrict commercial fishing in the Hauraki Gulf.
The only problem with that is that its proposal is opposed by New Zealand First, who warn that it places the Maori Fishing Settlement at risk.
So it will be an election campaign promise.
But the intention is clear.
National is after the Auckland vote, and part of that will be an appeal to the kind of affluent centrist voters in Auckland who have abandoned National’s Australian counterpart, the Liberals, and instead moved to independent so-called “Teal” candidates.
POLITIK has learned that the intensification proposals had such an impact among National supporters that three Auckland Cabinet Ministers, Simeon Brown, Paul Goldsmith and Simon Watts led the move to persuade Bishop to back down.
Plainly the whole experience has focussed the party’s mind on Auckland and how to restore its support there.
But it was Bishop’s speech (and another by Finance Minister Nicola Willis) at the weekend at the party’s annual Blue Greens Forum in Wellington, and another by the Prime Minister, where the new, more environmentally friendly National Party was showing its green colours.
Perhaps it was made more urgent because of what was glaringly evident at the Forum, with a boycott by environmental organisations.
The usual attendance by the country’s environmental lobby groups, Forest and Bird, Greenpeace, World Wildlife Fund and the Environmental Defence Society was cancelled by them in protest at the Government’s resource management law reform proposals and the decision to abolish the Ministry for the Environment.
Their absence left a big gap in the Forum, which has traditionally been an event less dominated by partisan point-scoring, more by seeking long-term consensus on the big environmental issues.
But this year, it was Finance Minister Nicola Willis and Bishop who set the mood when they opened the Forum.
Willis reminded the 140 attendees that she herself had a long history with the Blue Greens.
“I always enjoy going back and looking at Blue Green principles that were articulated when this group first came together,” she said.
“I look at it as a framework for Government in the real world, which is a world that the National Party is very pleased to have.
“And at the heart of those principles is sustainability; not as an abstract concept or buzzword, but as a practical discipline, a recognition that the decisions we make today shape the options available to future generations.
“That is, I think that it’s much more a conservative principle.
“It speaks to the idea that we should not just take for granted those things handed down to us by previous generations but should accept that it is our responsibility to preserve them for generations yet to come.”
That contrasted with her speech from last year, in which she had said economic growth had to come before the Environment.
Bishop also last year was uncompromising when he bluntly dismissed questions about the place for the Environment in the Fast Track planning legislation by saying it was about planning, not the Environment.
But this year, now faced next week with the first of the submissions on his two Resource Management Act reform bills, he was much more conciliatory.
At times, he sounded like he was from the Environmental Defence Society as he explained how the current RMA legislation had not helped the Environment since it was passed in 1991.
“Most of our environmental metrics since 1991 have degraded, with studies showing two per cent of our rivers have impaired ecological power,” he said.
“Half of New Zealand’s total river length was not suitable for swimming in 2016-2020, due to unsafe Campylobacter infection levels.
“In 2021, 68% of indigenous freshwater-dependent bird species were threatened with extinction or at risk of becoming threatened.
“Many of these species are found nowhere else in the world.”
The reform Bills have predictably attracted a sackful of submissions; 3050 overall, 800 of which wish to be heard in person.
Bishop has suggested to the Environment Committee that it allocate more than the usual five minutes to some of the organisational submitters.
It seems he is willing to make some concessions.
“We’re up for changes,” he said.
“You never get anything right the first time.
“We’re proud of what’s been produced so far, but this is 700 pages, two pieces of legislation. We’re on for change. We want to do everything better.
“The key is to sit down and deal with these issues with good faith, listen to each other, work out where the common ground is and make some changes. We’re up for that.”
He was also at pains to assure the Forum that the abolition of a standalone Ministry for the Environment would not be negative for the Environment.
But he said that did not mean the Ministry had been disestablished because it would now be part of the new Ministry of Cities, Environment, Regions and Transport (MCERT).
“It’s going to be at the heart of this new Ministry, and environmental functions will remain a core part of the Ministry’s work,” he said.
If there was an example of the way National wants to go forward on the environment, it came from Conservation Minister Tama Potaka.
He talked about the Department of Conservation (DOC)’s commercial partnerships and revenue-raising activities, like charging for parking at top tourist spots like Punakaiki Rocks.
“When we’re managing one third of all the land with half of one per cent of the budget, we do have to be nimble,” he said.
“It really demands innovation, and it can’t operate without discipline.
“We have to bring those real hard, in some ways, commercial discipline, ethics and practices into conservation.
“We all agree that the Environment and the conservation of the economy go hand in hand.
You can’t do one without the other.”
Farmers make up a sizeable section of the Blue Green supporters, and a session on the QE2 Trust, which provides subsidies to farmers to fence off and lock up land in native forest in perpetuity, was a popular session.
Federated Farmers Bay of Plenty President, Brent Mountford, showed the Forum pictures of the land he had set aside on his farm and said the Trust worked because it was voluntary, but he had a challenge for National.
“There is not in this country at the moment, I honestly believe, a genuine environmental partner,” he said.
“Throwing around banners and making quick-bake comments does not make one iota of difference to what goes on in the Environment.
“It’s us guys getting out there doing it, really planting trees, looking after trees, doing that sort of thing, getting rid of the weeds.
“There’s a real opportunity for National to step up here and actually be seen to be the real environmental partner, you know, the one that actually gets stuff done, and we’re not talking about millions and millions of dollars, we’re talking about a few more million dollars.
“We’re not looking at10 million dollars extra, we are talking about four million dollars, about the huge difference.
“Here are people at the moment who want to do this, but there’s not enough funding to keep it going on a regular basis.”
However, a cynic might argue that locking up native forest on backcountry farms is a long way from where the votes are, which is in Auckland.
So when the Prime Minister spoke, he had a policy announcement targeted exactly at the Auckland vote.
The Hauraki Gulf Forum has estimated that the Hauraki Gulf sees up to 21,000 recreational fishers on the water, launching off 169 boat ramps on a busy summer’s day.
Last October, the Government passed legislation designed to protect around six per cent of the Gulf from commercial fishing.
“The legislation will increase areas of high protection in the Gulf from just 0.3% to approximately 6%, establish new seafloor protection areas and expand existing marine reserves,” the Environmental Defence Society said when the legislation was passed.
“Together, these measures represent the most significant step forward in marine protection in decades.”
But all environmental groups had the same caveats; the legislation allowed a carve-out of two High Protection Areas where commercial fishing would still be allowed and did not ban bottom trawling.
Both of those moves were the result of pressure on National from its coalition partner, New Zealand First.
However, the Prime Minister told the Forum National that it wanted to revisit both of those issues and would make that a part of its election manifesto this year.
Perhaps most controversially, he is proposing to review bottom trawling.
“While this has provided limited access to the commercial sector, the waves through it from certain environmental groups and the recreation and fishing population have not gone unheard,” he said.
“So we will review that also.
“We do believe that a consistent approach to protection of the gulf is best for all users and that removing exceptions is in the original interest of protection as needed.”
This proposal drew an immediate response from New Zealand First and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones.
“Our fishing industry is based on property rights,” he said.
“Attempts to cancel such rights in the Hauraki Gulf will lead to hundreds of millions of compensation to fishing companies.
“Commercial trawling catches 70% of our fisheries resource. Extensive consultation will be necessary in any policy work related to trawling.
“Terminating commercial fishing in Hauraki Gulf will void the 1992 Sealords full and final fisheries settlement between iwi and the National government.”
Luxon told POLITIK that he wasn’t phased by New Zealand First’s opposition and how that might impact any coalition negotiations after the election.
“We managed that well last time there were lots of trade-offs and lots of things that were different and lots of things we had common ground on and things that were important to us as a National party,” he said.
“Each of our partners had to sign up fully to our manifesto and our agenda, and we got all of our agenda away, and so that’s the first gate of entry. “
Ultimately, National believes it can go a long way to boosting its vote this election by recovering its support in Auckland.
That means it is now offering a softer, greener face to the city’s leafy suburbs.
He said National was a party of practical environmentalists. It is inherent in the values of the National Party. We’ve had this blue-green movement now for decades,” he said
That practical environmentalism will face some serious tests this year, firstly during the Select Committee hearings on the resource management legislation and then on the abolition of the standalone Ministry for the Environment and perhaps most importantly, on how the Fast Track Planning legislation deals with environmental issues.
But National is not trying to win votes from the Greens; rather, it is after centrist urban voters, particularly in Auckland.
That may mean we see a softer, warmer, greener face from the party in the run-up to the election.
