Deputy Prime Minister David Seymour has launched a fierce attack on Environment Canterbury, describing the regional council as “dictatorial” and calling for urgent change.
Seymour said after recent visits to Canterbury he became convinced reform of ECAN was unavoidable.
“I’m convinced that actually change is needed and is urgent,” he told chrislynchmedia.com.
The ACT leader spent time in Mid Canterbury meeting farmers, business owners and community members. He said frustration with the regional council was overwhelming.
“The fury with ECAN is just like even people at the Ashburton District Council are angry at the Canterbury Regional Council. Even other councils don’t like them.”
Seymour said the council’s behaviour showed it did not have the best interests of Canterbury residents at heart.
“They’re not applying a common sense public servant approach, they’re applying a dictatorial bureaucratic approach and it needs to stop.”
He criticised ECAN for enforcing the current Resource Management Act despite the Government making clear it would be scrapped before the next election.
“They’re putting people through the ringer costing them hundreds of thousands of dollars to enforce an RMA which is not going to be there,” Seymour said.
He argued ECAN’s approach was backfiring environmentally, with farmers holding back on positive initiatives due to uncertainty.
“They’re just pissing off everybody for no good. Farmers are petrified and pausing, which is actually stopping them doing environmentally friendly stuff.”
Examples Seymour gave included farmers being forced to pay $100,000 to prove information already known, and excessive costs for consents.
“It costs more to get consent for a ditch than it does to plant trees around it and soak up the nitrates that way,” he said.
Seymour proposed two potential long-term fixes: making Christchurch a unitary authority to separate city and rural decision-making, or abolishing regional councils altogether.
In the short term, he urged ECAN to show humility and stop forcing farmers to renew consents until new legislation is passed.
“Give people extensions until we know what’s happening with the RMA,” Seymour said.
He warned that a second-term government may have to legislate to permanently restructure regional governance in Canterbury.
