I’m emailing to update you on the campaign to stop the new district plan applying blanket vague and arbitrary rules across the whole Gore District.
Gore is one of the first councils to have this kind of approach in its new district plan, but it’s coming to other councils and yours could be next. We’re fighting to stop this in Gore so there’s a precedent for the rest of New Zealand against the bureaucratic land grab expanding with these tactics.
Groundswell presented to a meeting of the Gore District Council on Tuesday, setting out how they have a duty to their ratepayers to protect property rights and prevent arbitrary, vague, and intrusive rules.
To recap, you may remember that the proposed Gore District Plan, currently out for consultation, includes a chapter applying the Sites and Areas of Significance to Maori part of Section 6 of the Resource Management Act to the entire Gore District, because the local branch of Ngai Tahu said that all land and water was significant to them.
The currently proposed text is:
“All land, waterbodies, natural features, and marae within Gore District are recognised as sites and areas of cultural significance to mana whenua and/or tangata whenua, and are afforded appropriate considerations in relation to their management, development, and use.”
If this goes ahead, all landowners could have their land subject to the kind of counterproductive, unworkable, and intrusive bureaucracy that RMA Section 6 classifications bring. Protests from some that the actual use of these rules would be rare is cold comfort, as we have no way of knowing when or why a bureaucrat will rule that what a landowner wants to do on their land will trigger these “appropriate considerations”.
We know the pressure is getting to the Gore District Council, as they’re trying to point to potential rewrites of the district plan to allay the fears of locals asking why their council is going ahead with this. Gore Mayor Ben Bell recently wrote to us saying this chapter may be rewritten as a “Ngai Tahu Cultural Values” chapter and that the cultural values would only be considered for “specific high-risk activities”. But the list of these activities includes “activities close to rivers/streams” and “subdivision in Development Areas 1 and 2, or impacting notable trees”.
You can watch Bryce and Laurie’s presentation to the council here
As we’ve said, putting aside the politics of iwi consultation rights as a general idea, when did we get to the point where there would be consultation on the cultural values affected by what someone does on their own land near a stream? It’s one thing to say that the local iwi should be consulted about a pa or burial ground, but quite another to push forward with this kind of vague and arbitrary attack on property rights.
It's good to see that the reaction to the Sites and Areas of Significance to Maori chapter has made the council feel like they have to at least make it look like they’re making changes, but it’s entirely unclear that this will be any better. We’re yet to see what the actual wording for the new chapter would be and if it’s still a blanket rule for the entire district with vague and arbitrary criteria for whether different pieces of land or activities will be affected, it will be much the same as the current proposal.
It’s your support that means we can put politicians on notice and get changes made. We will keep you updated on where the campaign to protect property rights goes next.
In the meantime, if you live in Gore and haven’t signed the pledge, or know someone who should, click here to sign up.
Council elections are less than a year away. If you or someone you know has thought about standing for election to your council, we encourage you to have a go. The only way we’ll get the change we need is by electing people willing to rock the boat and push for it.
Thank you again for your support.
Kind regards,
Bryce, Laurie, Mel and the Team at Groundswell NZ
