Send projects like Hayes to Environment Court

new-zealand-national-party

Mon Apr 30 2007 12:00:00 GMT+1200 (New Zealand Standard Time)

Send projects like Hayes to Environment Court

Monday, 30 April 2007, 2:06 pm
Press Release: New Zealand National Party

Hon Dr Nick Smith MP
National Party Environment spokesman

30 April 2007

"Major resource consents like that required for Project Hayes would be directly referred to the Environment Court under a National Government," says National Party Environment Spokesman Nick Smith.

The Central Otago District Council today began considering an application for the country's largest windfarm after pleas to Government by Meridian Energy that the council wasn't equipped to deal with such a huge and complex project fell on deaf ears.

Meridian Energy wants to build up to 176 wind turbines, with a generation capacity of 630 megawatts, on the Lammermoor Range, between Alexandra and Dunedin.

"National is disappointed that Mr Benson-Pope has declined requests by both proponents and opponents of Project Hayes for it to be called in. What is the point of the call-in provisions in the Resource Management Act when a project of this scale is declined?

"Project Hayes is a massive $2 billion project that has implications way beyond Central Otago. It will have huge environmental impacts on the landscape of the region but will also save millions of tons of carbon emissions.

"The process under this Labour Government for dealing with major consents is a mess and is not serving the interests of proponents or objectors well.

"It is no wonder that New Zealand, under Labour, has trebled its use of coal to generate power and dropped to the lowest level ever of renewable energy. They have botched up the process for renewable energy projects like Aqua, Westwind, Dobson, Wairau, and now Hayes. It makes a joke of the Government's talk on carbon neutrality.

"Given the scale and controversy surrounding Project Hayes, it is almost inevitable that it will end up being referred to the Environment Court once the council's hearings are finished. The only people winning from this drawn-out process will be the lawyers.

"That is why National wants such major projects to be directly referred to the Environment Court".

ENDS

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