Mike's Minute: One of the worst cases of red tape idiocy

The Mike Hosking Breakfast

If you ever want an example of why the new fast track legislation is not only a good idea, but badly needed, I give you Northport.

Northport want to expand. Why? To grow.

We need to grow because what we do is sell stuff to the world and for that we need ports.

Northport has been denied resource consents. Independent commissioners looked at the application, as sent to the local councils, and turned it all down. They are now off to the Environment Court.

One of the owners of Northport is Tauranga Port. They too have been in the Environment Court because they too wanted to expand, and they too were tied up by locals in a seemingly never-ending series of red tape and obfuscation.

The Tauranga case has been going on for years.

Both examples would provide jobs, and income, and tax, and growth and yet as a country currently on its knees economically, we still can't seem to find the wherewithal to give ourselves the uppercut required to get our act together.

Enter the Fast-track Approvals Bill.

Northport has applied to be one of the cases. It would go to a group of experts and then if they tick it off it heads directly to the minister, who makes the decision.

Remarkably, we have opposition from some who argue about democracy and having our say. What they mean is there are nitpickers in councils and single-issue zealots who hire lawyers to tie things up in courts.

In other words, we have the current model, it doesn’t work, it's inefficient, it's slow, it's expensive, it's anti-growth - and yet they defend it.

Just like the military academies, the health service, like the sanctions on Jobseeker, it's about trying to fix failed systems that are defended for no other reason than bloody mindedness.

When a business can't do business because of rules and bureaucrats the system is broken.

When a country, through rules, stymies growth you've got to wonder about the future.

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