Lifting Our Game - Rodney Hide
act-new-zealand
Sat Feb 21 2009 13:00:00 GMT+1300 (New Zealand Daylight Time)
Lifting Our Game - Rodney Hide
Saturday, 21 February 2009, 12:59 pm
Press Release: ACT New Zealand
Lifting Our Game
Hon Rodney Hide, Minister of Local Government
Friday, February 20 2009
Speech to the Skyline Buildings Ltd distributors meeting; Hotel Grand Chancellor, Airport Oaks, Auckland Airport, Auckland; Friday, February 20 2009.
Good afternoon.
Since I became Minister of Local Government, and let it be known what changes I wanted to see in relation to Councils and the way they operate, I've been flat out.
And so has my staff.
When I went on TVNZ's 'Close Up' late last year, I asked viewers to write to me about the problems they'd been having with their Councils.
I got literally a sackful of mail.
I've had around 1,100 people letters so far, and more come in each day.
And everyone who wrote is getting a reply.
But that's just the tip of the iceberg in terms of the extent of the problems
people are having with Councils.
I'm sure each of you has your own horror story - about spiralling costs, and
increasingly complicated and unnecessary demands for information before
granting a consent.
Which are driving up the costs of putting up a garage - and threatening your businesses' viability, as well as driving ordinary Kiwis crazy.
I'm in touch with many different companies and sectors about the costs of getting consents and the red tape involved.
Simply trying to carrying out their everyday business is now a nightmare.
It can cost $10,000 for a consent to put in a small cable car to help an old lady in Oriental Bay get up and down her steep cliff slope.
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And nine months to get the consent.
I understand that just to put in a Para Pool in your backyard for the kids will take months to get the paperwork done, and can cost thousands of dollars.
That's just for the Council consent alone - which can cost up to 50 percent as much as the pool itself.
Families can't afford a Para Pool because of the Council costs - and if they do they may not get the consent through in time for a swim until next summer.
Earlier this week I visited a fantastic Hutt Valley business that makes the cable cars I referred to earlier.
It has 11 workers, it's very successful, very entrepreneurial and it exports.
But it's in trouble.
It's being driven into the ground by the increasing demands, and costs of, Council consents.
There are many companies like it.
Simply trying to carrying out their everyday business is now a nightmare.
The power that Council officials have accumulated is frightening.
They are now paranoid about the possibility of being considered - or found - negligent some time in the future about any decision they make on minor, as well as major, building projects.
It is appropriate that they're stringent and demanding in many areas involving safety and reliability of structures - to prevent leaky buildings for example.
And there should be a desire to continually improve our communities.
But it's gone too far.
It's all control freak behaviour, and it's got to stop.
I know there's a widespread problem - so what are we going to do about it? What can we do about it?
We can make things easier, and we're going to.
I accept that much of the overbearing regulations and petty restrictions imposed by Councils come from government legislation such as the Resource Management and the Building Acts.
And that's why we're making changes to both.
The first changes to the RMA were announced earlier this month.
There will be more work on the RMA and related issues.
There have also been so many more new rules and regulations under the recent Labour Government - all of which meant more costs and more complexity.
No wonder people are giving up on projects like putting up a simple garage - and saying "the hell with it."
The practice of imposing more and more obligations on Councils, which pass on the costs to ratepayers and consent applicants, must stop.
Another source of problems is the Building Act, and its regulations and requirements.
We'll be reviewing the Act in the future to make it less prescriptive and restrictive.
But that's not all.
We're also going to be sweeping through a whole raft of petty rules and regulations that are unnecessary, small minded and completely outdated, and affect things such as swimming pools.
That's one of my major goals in my role as Regulatory Reform Minister.
The Local Government Act is another piece of legislation we're targeting for improvements.
We want more transparency and accountability, and reduced costs passed on to local government because those costs are ultimately passed on.
However, although these pieces of legislation are responsible for the much of the absurdities, Councils themselves must bear part of the blame.
They have become very risk-averse and over zealous - particularly Council planners and the way they interpret legislation and extend the ridiculous controls into micro areas of a project.
In addition, costs and charges and fees keep being raised far beyond what is reasonable.
Three thousand dollars for a consent to build a $10,000 Skyline garage is absurd.
The paperwork's gone crazy too.
I'm told up to 50 pages of paperwork is needed for Councils to approve a garage - whereas two or three used to be enough.
When ACT went into its support agreement with National after the election, I took on my two Ministerial portfolios: Local Government and Regulatory Reform ... because these are important areas that affect people and their communities in so many ways.
I also took them on because this is an area in real need of change.
Red tape is strangling businesses like Skyline, and it's driving ordinary people and homeowners crazy.
I want to see fewer of the absurd compliance demands in the regulatory area.
I want to see the financial burden placed by central government on local government reduced.
My view is that we should take Councils out of the picture and, for work on large building projects of any size, should hold the builder or tradesperson responsible.
If something should go wrong at some time in the future, whoever built it should bear the liability through their insurer.
Make no mistake: I accept Councils do a lot of good work, but they have become a block on growth in this country.
We are in a very tough situation economically and we must do everything we can to help businesses flourish and grow.
The country's got to go faster.
We need to lift our game substantially, and I believe there are very real gains to be made in the regulatory area.
Reform is needed, and change is going to come.
Thank you.
ENDS
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