National's Paula Bennett agrees a revamp of the Resource Management Act (RMA) is needed, but questions why members of this Government didn't vote for it when National tried to fix the issues.
The coalition Government yesterday announced it is embarking on a major revamp of the RMA .
The latest effort aims are to speed up urban development by cutting complexity and costs, give stronger protection for the environment and ensure everyone affected gets a say.
National’s Deputy Leader told TVNZ1's Breakfast today New Zealand could be "reaping the rewards" if MPs backed the party when they were in Government.
"It's rich for these guys all of a sudden have a Damascus moment and realise that it needs changing but they could have actually voted for those changes just a few years ago, and then they'd be reaping the rewards of that," she said.
The act has been labelled as a major contribution to New Zealand’s housing crisis. (Source: Other)
Ms Bennett said when National were in Government, they tried to get everyone around the table on their changes.
The current Government, she said, have "decided to do a working group yet again just to discuss it". Even Kiwibuild - the Government's programme to fight back against the housing crisis - was coming up against obstacles because of current rules under the RMA, she pointed out.
"It does need reform," she said. "It is holding up good progress that can be made and unnecessarily, but it's another working group when they could've made changes years ago if they'd chosen to get around the table and actually be a bit pragmatic about it."
NZ First MP Shane Jones, on Breakfast as well, said, "there's a good reason why the last regime couldn't find common ground for us - because they had Nick Smith leading the reform. That in itself is a denunciation".
However, he added, "we've created a situation in New Zealand that if you belong to industry, if you're trying to do a big development, then it's almost through the Resource Management process that you're tainted".
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