But I well recall the pain caused by the Government legislating for the project to proceed, ignoring local concerns and legal decisions. That legislation was a catalyst for the passing of the Resource Management Act nine years later.
Now we have the opposite problem. The Resource Management Act is the greatest barrier to New Zealand reaching its climate change targets. Labour’s proposed RMA 2.0 laws will only make this worse. A new wind farm can take 10 years to complete — eight years to obtain resource consent, and two years to build.
National wants a future where buses, cars and trains are powered by clean electricity, where industrial processing plants are powered by clean electricity, not coal. But to do that we need to double the amount of renewable electricity we produce from New Zealand’s abundant natural resources — particularly solar, wind and geothermal. National will make it happen.
National’s Electrify NZ plan will cut red tape to significantly increase investment in renewable energy.
We will turbo-charge new renewable power projects including solar, wind and geothermal by requiring decisions on resource consents to be issued in one year and consents to last for 35 years.
We’ll also unleash investment in transmission and local lines by eliminating consents for upgrades to existing infrastructure and most new infrastructure.
While Labour declared "climate change is this generation’s nuclear-free moment" all they have done in six years is triple coal imports and increase emissions.
Our Electrify NZ policy will help double the amount of renewable energy available and put New Zealand on track to reach its climate change goals.
Forty percent of New Zealand’s emissions come from transport and energy. Switching those sectors to clean electricity could deliver almost a third of the emission reductions New Zealand needs to reach net zero by 2050.
More details of the policy can be found at Electrify NZ — New Zealand National Party.
National is committed to meaningful action on climate change while growing the economy and we will be announcing more plans to lower emissions before the election.
