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- Date published:
9:35 am, August 2nd, 2025 - 49 comments
Categories: economy, Environment -
Tags: fast track, fast track approvals bill, Fast Track Bill, fast track legislation
The Herald are reporting… something… about Labour’s intentions around NACTFirst’s Fast-track Approvals Act that was designed to prioritise business and profit well ahead of the environment and communities.
Chris Hipkin’s response to National poking at Labour, is to go tit for tat with Chris Bishop, dismiss some Labour member’s who got carried away on social media, and make a classic Labour statement of reassurance,
“We would make changes to reintroduce some of the protections that were in the previous fast-track regime, such as environmental and community participation, that are not in this one.”
Who knows what that means.
Labour,
Now granted, Labour don’t control MSM articles, and the article isn’t exactly an in depth look at the Opposition’s position on such an important piece of legislation, instead just going oh look another two politicians taking pots shots at each other. Nevertheless, unless Labour come out with something better soon, it’s reasonable to see this as signalling of things to come.
Labour will decide what’s best, then tell the country. Maybe there will be some detail before the election, or maybe there will be another tedious round of tit for tat and hand waving to ‘we’re better than them’.
Can we trust Labour to prioritise communities and the environment whereby the economy and business interests serve that? Or will it be more National-lite, the economy is god, big business runs the show, and we will tag a few environmental and community things on where we can?
It’s all very Labour knows best. Did Labour learn anything from losing over Three Waters and Co-governance? In this case, it’s not pushing big social and economic change without bringing people along, but it still demonstrates an obvious disregard for the citizenry. I don’t expect Labour to have their full response to the Fast Track legislation ready at this time, but I would have hoped for something better than more ‘trust us, we know what we are doing’.
The worst case scenario next year is that NACTFirst get another term. Less bad would be a Labour NZF government that sidelines the Greens again. We all know this, but I’m pointing it out because Labour’s centrist positioning makes a NZ First coalition more likely. We are still being pulled to the right. The environment and our communities will continue to deteriorate even where Labour can slow that down a bit.
Fortunately we have the Greens and Te Pāti Māori to vote for, who do prioritise commitment to the land and people.
We are still being pulled to the right.
I get a sense of that too, but I think Hipkins is going with that flow rather than leading it. Is it mere laziness? Some folks here advocate Labour playing a poker game and not showing their hand until the next campaign. They do so cogently enough for the pragmatist in me to see merit from their perspective, but I feel younger generations deserve better from any Opposition. So much of politics is inspiration-based.
So I suspect the tidal pull to the right is mere inertia – that flow has now chalked up a half-century track record globally and backflow is not yet evident – unless you read polling preferences by age-groups, in which case you can see it starting.
I don't think Hipkins is pulling to the right. Lots of people in Labour want to go left, maybe even Hipkins. I just think the right are so strong now that unless Labour make an internal paradigm shift, they will be perpetually in the harm minimisation position of the centre left.
Tbf, I don't think Labour can initiate such change (in part because of ideology but also because of the pragmatics of running government). It needs strong parties to the left to enable them. But they could be making that easier.
Labour governance is small a authoritarian. They know best, they will probably convince the electorate to put them in power again, and they will continue to do what they want because our three year term allows parties to take winning as a mandate to do that.
Lprent addressed and explained this to you only a few hours ago: https://thestandard.org.nz/can-we-trust-shane-jones/#comment-2040314. You’re a slow learner.
Lynn looks like he is making an argument against detailed policy at this point in the electoral cycle. Which Dennis is both agreeing with and disagreeing with but in a broader sense. That's probably my position too, we had a discussion about it recently
https://thestandard.org.nz/the-time-for-the-left-to-act-is-now/#comment-2039392
Yes, that discussion was a good one.
At present, I’d agree with Lynn; political activism is like ploughing the field, criticising and raising awareness and point to what the problems are. Later on, and closer to the election, it has to shift into what changes could or should be made, plant the seeds and continue to change the narrative. Detailed (and costed) policies complete this with how it’ll be done (if/when elected).
the problem I have is that Labour don't seem to have a position. It's not about detail of changes to the RMA or the FT bill, it's about letting us know their values and priorities. They can wait until next year to do that, but it lessens their trustworthiness. If the it's just about changing the government, it makes sense, the play is all about the win. But on this issue, it's much more fundamental to NZ democracy and long term wellbeing.
I understand what you’re saying but I don’t feel the same way about it, at present.
I am a kind of a conservative on how to effect political change. I describe as being a reluctant socialist. My instincts are as individualistic as hell, almost Ubermensch. But when you look at a society and history you realise that cooperation is the only way to move anything towards more opportunities in the longer term. So these are my opinions about this general topic…
I got involved in actual politics, after doing history, science-fiction, military, science and management – all are lessons in caution about over-extension. Specifically in local politics I spent inordinate amounts of time collecting and analysing large amounts of canvassing data over a couple of decades.
That really makes you very cautious about the over-enthusiastic over-reaching. Activists seldom realise just how inherently conservative (with a small c) the bulk of the population really are. More so when times are hard.
If you can't carry enough of the population with you politically, then you get excessive tidal action – of the tsunami level.
The ocean of support empties out and then comes back in a overwhelming reactive wave. We're getting quite a lot of that right now with the populist right across the world.
You get this melange of strange bedfellows forming temporary coalitions like the current ones of libertarians, neoliberals, outright fascists and other authoritarians, weird bigots and evangelicals of many types. Each are trying to use the others to restore something that seldom, if ever, actually existed. They all plan to knife the other fellow travellers when the time is right…
If you've ever closely looked at the history of many nations after WW1, not just Italy, Germany, and Spain – but also the US, France, UK, Japan and others. The pattern is pretty familiar. Especially when you look at the post-pandemic responses from 2019-22 and the early depressions in war-torn recovering nations in the 1920s.
To whom? Should Labour try to speak their values towards activists or the generally conservative population?
As a centrist party you don't win with activists. Activists will be supporting Social Credit, New Labour, Alliance, Greens, TPM etc. The grumpies will have NZF.
There are activists inside Labour, but like National activists, they mostly talk to and argue with other people inside Labour and like minded centrists. Their moves are usually about who gets put up as candidates for various positions – ie the factionalism of direction because they are involved to one of those parties to move the needle longer term and because they are usually not that impatient.
My comment to my activist niece many years ago was that if you want to change anything serious – plan on taking 2 or 3 decades convincing the centre parties, and expect to have to convince people far from your own beliefs. Wayne Mapp effectively said that in the debate a few weeks ago about Keith Locke. He listened to Keith in the house and select committees because about 1 in 10 voters listened to and agreed in at least part with Keith's views. They was because Keith spent his life patiently making sure that people knew what he thought and getting people prepared to hear what he would say.
Activists outside the large centre parties will have a combined support of about between 10 and 20% max on each of the possible coalition sides. But elections are invariably decided by the 60-80% who vote for small c centrist parties leaning Progressive or Conservative.
You win elections in the centre of the population by looking like a safe set of governing hands and usually by looking reasonably moderate compared to other possibilities.
What is interesting with this government, because of the relative sizes of the three parties, they are trying to look like a radical, and yet safe set of hands. They're being pretty incompetent about it because they literally picked exactly the wrong set of policies for the time. Their coalition of convenience is one where they try to knife each others back preparatory to the next election. It makes their decision making as rigid as written constitution.
But the reason why they are in that position was the election result. It was in the general reaction to the pandemic responses and other uncertainties since about 2017/8 when the world economy started to get stretched. It has forced a shift in the relative strengths of different Conservative models, and now they are vying in NZ and elsewhere for supremacy.
The best response from Labour is to continue to look safe and let the coalition of convenience continue to keep making stupid mistakes. There are enough views being expressed by parties, groups and people to highlight failures and possible ways forward. Certainly enough to cherry-pick from for policy, even without whatever they're arguing about internally.
You're assuming that the CoC fast track is faster than the election cycle. National talking about getting spade ready by the end of the year is rhetorical rather than realistic.
Besides, we do have a problem with getting infrastructure projects started and running. The electrical grid and our current capacity issues are a prime case in point. And that is before you realise that 2 out of the 3 Cook strait cables have to be replaced in the early 2030s.
The structural brake on steady infrastructural projects was why the fast-track was put in during the pandemic. Also why it was put in back in 1935/6.
This fast-track run by a little group making decisions without talking outside their little group isn't the right route. That anyone thinks that there is a usable gas field in our near shore basins with current tech clearly hasn't looked at the exploration results. Nor have they factored in the development time and future markets. Feels characteristic of the Shane Jones self-professed economic genius (but I digress).The mess that is our water infrastructure is an immediate issue. Yet that appears to have virtually no real support going into it – so that isn't going to start when it'd be useful economically or environmentally.
Re your last paragraph and comment about the real reason we don't have a gas exploration / extraction industry. Simply that we don't have any gas.
The National "Fast Track" list seems to be a lot of pet projects that have never been able to get enough traction under existing resource management legislation to get going.
The current RMA process is very good at telling developers that their pet project is a dumb idea, and conversely giving potential investors a good idea of the merits of a proposal. Taking the RMA test away is probably going to lead to some angst when some of these less than ideal projects eventually go ahead and then go tits up disappearing considerable private and institutional capital. I'll presume there will then be calls from the capitally impaired for a government bail out because government didn't protect their interests.
We do have gas. But it is in relatively small pockets and because it is mostly offshore, costs too much to extract and use. The fiels sizes are a result of the nature of our fractured geology. We are on two subduction zones on opposite sides (Hikurangi Subduction Zone and the Alpine Fault) with a twist in the middle.
The only reason that this part of the Zealandia plate is above water is because its geology is because plate tectonics keep breaking up and grinding our geology upwards and shoving volcanic fields through it. Not a great place for finding large fields.
So our largest field was Maui at at 100 km3. Its main advantage was proximity to shore and a oil price/supply crisis at the time of its development in the early 1970s. Plus it had oil as well as gas. The other three known fields were 37, 28, and 5.7 km3.
The Gorgon in Australia is 1,100 km3. Other listed worked fields are 930, 570, and 450 km3
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_natural_gas_fields
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maui_gas_field
Yeah, I meant viable. Equally disgusted with the messaging around our energy policy, and every other policy for that matter. It's on the level of a fourth level exploration promoter. Who the heck were they hoping to attract other invest here? Or was it just talking to a small sector of ignorant local voters, the same ones who think re-starting Marsden Point is the country's economic salvation.
It is Shane Jones. Probably wind up with a some tinpot outfit pulled in for scamming local investors with inflated Ponzi scheme while they walk away with taxpayers cash.
Probability of getting a usable strike is virtually nil, and anything commercial will be ready long after the existing gas infrastructure has mouldered in disuse through lack of the cheaply priced commodity from the Taranaki that it was designed to use .
Swing voters. There is criticism to be made about Labour in terms of their centrist positioning esp on climate (even allowing for NZ's small c conservatism, we still poll as most people wanting more action on climate). But the point here is more about perceptions of competency.
For the post, I deliberately only read the NZH piece, because that's reality for many people, they read a thing in their coffee break or hear the news on the way to work. How is Labour coming across? Hipkins seemed vague. I get the keeping the powder dry approach in terms of policy, but another 6 months of no idea what Labour stand for or are doing seems counter productive.
Those of us further to the left are always going to feel frustration about Labour. But Ardern broke out of the inertia, at least for a while.
Not really. I'm assuming that NACTF causing chaos and breaking conventions is part of the trumpian playbook that serves the new right, and will play out over much longer timeframes than this year or this cycle.
The problem isn't trying to sort our infrastructure deficit more efficiently or promptly, it's trying to do it by wrecking other things. NACTF obviously have an agenda well beyond the deficit.
The fast-track legislation is anti-democratic and massively autocratic.
If the reports are true that Hipkins is supporting it, he has to go.
I'm not sure he is supporting so much as taking a pragmatic approach to making changes. However, I can't help but feel that Labour would like to make good use of it now that it is there.
Fast-tracking permits (often massive) developments to be slammed through with almost non-existent public input and with complete disregard for provisions in the Resource Management Act and District Plans, especially environmental and landscape provisions. It is straight out of the Trump playbook.
If Hipkins supports it, he has to go.
RNZ has a better piece from a few days ago.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/568350/way-too-much-flip-flopping-on-resource-management-law-labour
He has some points about the RMA being messed with too much. But typically for Labour, it's just unclear.
This kind of thing pisses me off,
That's not what the argument is Chris, the legislation is bad because of how it undermines democracy. It would be bad if Labour did it too.
this is also a worry.
August 2024, Labour are refusing to say they will honour consents,
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/526435/labour-refuses-to-commit-to-honouring-future-consents-under-coalition-s-fast-track-laws
Today, Hipkins is saying,
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/politics/labour-confirms-fast-track-position-after-national-accuses-party-of-flip-flopping/HDO4FCXIRFFCHM2CAGJUTYBJM4/
I would consider a consent to be different from a contract.
So "reports" ok
Why do we always attack our own, and act like they are to blame?
I have never seen a government so undemocratic, rolling out change after change without pause or consultation, and we can not keep up with the submissions.
Yet you expect Chris Hipkins and Labour to be on top of it all.?
Talking about "what is Labour going to do?"
What are we doing? Joined yet? contributing yet? going to meetings? Supporting good writing on the left?
Just asking, as this behaviour happens every time, like children playing parents off against each other. Let us settle on the most crucial problem. The wrecking of Democracy by this cabal. Not so secret now!!
https://newsroom.co.nz/2025/03/01/the-secret-diary-of-the-hosking-luxon-trainwreck/
Drowsy M Kram, thank you for marvellous clarification of issues.
No. Did you read the post?
I can't join Labour because I'm a GP member.
I'm an author at The Standard and help run the website 🤷♀️ Does that count?
There's an important conversation here about political strategy. It's been debated across a number of posts, with people taking various positions. This is what TS exists for beyond the posts themselves.
From a leftist and deep green perspective, it's not enough to just win the next election. Again, did you read the post?
On climate alone, simply acting to get rid of NACTF will be a fail.
Dear Weka, I was not being critical of the topic or the author. Sorry I did not make that clear.
It was a reply to those who decide they want a different Leader of the Opposition, rather than discussing what this CoC crowd are doing to our Democracy.
I support Labour and the Greens and Ti Parti Maori with donations and am Labour.
As I am able, I support The Standard Mountain Tui Nick Rockel and Bernard Hickey. I share others. I am impressed by the mountain of work you do.
Ad challenged me to become an author at one juncture. A small stroke and age mean that is in the past. I have however encouraged Left voices to publish on the Standard.
I do think the government cabal of misogynist racists are doing huge damage to our social fabric, and worse damage to our democratic systems including enrolling and voting.
As a rule I speak to a topic and not individuals, but anyone who thinks the answer is "Throw out so and so" is not involved in serious discussion of the current issues or strategies of this cabal imo.
The comments were not aimed at your post or yourself, but at some throw away comments by others under the post. I should have made that more clear.
Hi Patricia, thanks for clarifying
The problem is that the climate and ecological crises can't be put off for another time, and Labour aren't leading on this. In this sense Hipkins is a backwards step from Ardern, and that has serious implications beyond the chaos NACTF are creating. It's only going to get worse, the longer we delay. Politically worse as well as in terms of climate/ecology.
Most Kiwi voters will (at best) support only baby steps towards a livable future – planetary limits be damned. Pointing out how objectively shit the CoC are at serving all Kiwis may briefly banish NAct, but the sorted ones will be back – dangling tax cuts as the only solution for all our ills. Too bleak?
Careful now RNZ.
What we don't yet know is if that would change if a large party presented a vision and plan that addressed both immediate concerns like CoL/health/jobs and made the necessary changes for mitigation and adaptation.
Transition only works if you do both. The great thing is that we can do both, they are part of the same thing. We have a failure of imagination across society, and thus no leadership.
https://thespinoff.co.nz/society/16-08-2022/the-side-eyes-two-new-zealands-the-table
If only it could be otherwise.
https://thestandard.org.nz/imported-culture-wars/#comment-2040118
how is it a big ask?
How is doing both – addressing manifold immediate concerns and making changes for CC mitigation / adaptation – not a big / huge ask?
My thinking is that most Kiwis – some on the left, and many to the right of The Table who (by the design of others) might be struggling to make ends meet – will (not unreasonably) continue to focus on immediate concerns for their own and their family / friend's welfare.
If immediate concerns were addressed by some means – for example by wealth redistribution (NZ being a relatively wealthy country) and / or the provision of high-quality 'free' public services – then and only then might more Kiwis feel in a position to consider the long-term benefits (to all) of committing resources to mitigation efforts.
I'm sold on Doughnut Economics and the absolute need to respect planetary boundaries – the 'big ask' is convincing (enough) voters.
I think it's a big task rather than a big ask. You know this image?
(ignoring the covid bit for the moment), if people accept the truth of that, and also understand that we can both reduce the height of the waves and find a a bigger boat to ride over them, and are presented with the instructions, tools and materials to both lessen their height and build the bigger boat, it's not a big ask, it's a big task.
That's about being real about the nature of the crisis: size and proximity, but also that there are some things that can mitigate that and some things that we can adapt.
But also another conceptual way of looking at this, is that the tools to lessen the wave size and the building of the bigger boat both lead to cheaper butter and better lives. This is the missing bit from the mainstream. The transition cultures are way ahead, but there is a large gap between them and the rest of society.
yes, but I wouldn't start with them, I'd start with the middle classes who might be feeling some pinch but are otherwise well off. They're the ones with the resources to make rapid transition possible.
However I will say that people who have been struggling, especially those who've been doing it a long time, have a bunch of skills for transition that the middles classes don't have. Resiliency, adaptation, getting on with it and so on.
Yeah, I just don't think it will work like that. If we were going to redistribute wealth because it's a good thing to do, we'd be doing it by now. I also think that linear timeline, do these other things and then we'll get to climate, fails, because we are running out of time with climate, it's just not something that can be put off until later. Climate transition is a long term project, but it's not something in the distant future, it's here, now.
Transition by definition improves the lives of people who are struggling. Not inevitably, but because you can't solve climate without solving poverty. Partly for the reasons you are talking about (motivation), but also because transition needs whole communities.
The big conversation is around what we give up, and imo it's the middle classes, not the poor, who are the block to that conversation. It largely stems from a lack of imagination, and a fear of nasty, brutish and short. But people do want things like more time with family, less stress, better community, resilience. And increasingly we can add to that list, security in the face of extreme weather events.
If they are presented with futures that make sure people are looked after even if house prices or insurance companies collapse then why would they not choose those. Atm, most people are still neck deep in TINA.
If I can recommend one person to follow on this it's Rob Hopkins. This is what he does for a living, presenting futures that mitigate the disasters and created better/good lives for people.
Yes – no need to convince me, but it's a big ask for many, let alone most voters to get real and commit to the big task. There are few non-Greens in my small circle of friends who would even consider voting Green, and imho there are many voters and politicians in NZ, and elsewhere, who are actively opposed to committing resources to GHG mitigation efforts.
Humanity can't wait for these politicians, but progress on the big tasks will be fitful at best unless they and / or many more voters get onboard.
so in the transition circles there is the same kind of frustration about active deniers. However the approach is different. Rather than focussing on the people that can't be moved, the general gist is to look at what can be done and present those alternatives.
We don't have convince Peters or Luxon or voters who are hardcore against commitment of resources. We need people that are already on board but not acting.
There's some good stuff in here from MfE. NZ's concern about climate is high, in the 70 percent or more.
https://environment.govt.nz/publications/new-zealanders-perception-of-climate-change-information-audit/
Just checking that I'm following – "people that are already on board" accept the expert consensus on the magnitude and consequences of anthropogenic global warming, but are not acting to curb emissions?
What does "not acting" mean in this context? Not voting Green, not voting 'left', and / or not being willing (or able?) to lower their personal environmental footprint?
At least NZ has plenty of room for improvement.
https://climateactiontracker.org/countries/
Thank goodness Luxon is hanging in there – for all the right reasons!
https://climateactiontracker.org/global/emissions-pathways/
Absolutely!
For God's sake, Labour, stand for something we on the left can vote for.
Hipkins hasn't spelled out what he would amend of the fast track legislation.
It's not hard.
Come on Hipkins, show us a firm position on something, anything.
We should be able to vote FOR something by now.
Agree, mid-term is a good time to send a significant signal, so people can orient themselves to that possible future. Whilst being cagey is often good tactics, it doesn't really work on the level of strategy. There's more to politics than the partisan stance: there's also mutuality, common ground, which even the right needs to factor in…
What do you regard as a 'firm' commitment?
Hipkins has said that Labour would reverse the pay equity changes made by the government in May. He has, however, said that he wouldn't yet commit to returning the near $13 billion cuts that the government has taken from the scheme until he sees their actual calculations.
In July, Hipkins has also said that,
You answered your own question.
Hipkins is the PM that set all Ardern's progressive policies that hadn't landed onto a bonfire and did not give a fuck.
Unless Hipkins displays hitherto unseen moral courage, he clearly doesn't believe in Labour values.
Yeah. It's weirdly vague.
I genuinely don't think labour should announce policy to closer to the election so it can't be bashed, hijacked and defined or stolen by the national party.
I think they should be sending signals though.
It's a shame the journalist covering this story was so shallow because there's questions to be asked.
There is merit in having the ability to fast track certain infrastructure and housing projects while ensuring environmental impact is low and building materials and standards are high.
The consent process for housing and infrastructure can be tedious in NZ and with NZ parliamentary terms ridiculously short being able to push through much needed infrastructure and housing wins (with adequate protections) isn't crazy.
However I don't want rich pricks and corporates being able to smash through red tape and screw up the country with badly built infrastructure and housing
We're on the ring of fire and as someone whose house fell down in the chch quakes part of me is deeply concerned about the quality of some projects rushed through.
Also as for mandates and terms. I think terms should be four years, I think we should have a Senate (we have a gorgeous upper house building gathering dust) elected mid way through parliamentary term and I think we should probably have provincial governments like Canada/Aussie
Our unicameral parliament is way too powerful and with MMP we can have parties with less than 15% forcing their will on the country, MMP was supposed to protect us from the tyranny of rule by executive and prevent another Muldoon but this government has shown we need more than just MMP to protect kiwis because radical nutty parties can get 5% and bully weak Pm's like Luxon into letting them run the show
I'm not ok with that.
I also think the next Labour/Green government needs to make a written, formal NZ constitution, it's crazy that in 2025 our constitution is not all in one place but in random standing orders and conventions, Westminster acts.
We also need to formally make it so supermajorities or referendums are needed to change voting laws.
If you're going to remove suffrage from people or make it harder to vote for hundreds of thousands, you should need 80 seats not 68.
Bollocks Corey…the RMA does sod all to stop housing development.
I have lived in the Queenstown Lakes District since 1990…coincidentally the exact year that the RMA became law.
Over those 35 years development, including residential development, has gone frickin' bananas throughout the District, especially around Wānaka and Queenstown.
The RMA has done nothing to stop this. The District has many thousands of consented or zoned and soon to be consented residences in progress that will supply residential needs into the 2060's.
Years ago I heard that Queenstown locals reckoned the council town planning document was just one word – "YES".
Events since then appear to have confirmed that view.
I visited Arrowtown in 1990. I won't be going back.
Hunter-the traffic can be akin to Auckland driving into Queenstown now…and this will get worse.
This! Reinstate election-day voter enrolment, re-enfranchise short-term (preferably all) prisoners (in line with the NZBORA 1990), then introduce the requirement that “supermajorities or referendums are needed to change voting laws.”
We see what happens when NActF play hardball – hope left-leaning MPs can too.
Re fast-tracking: "Right now, the ACT Party is pushing to remove critical safety checks on hazardous chemicals in Aotearoa. They want to fast-track pesticide approvals…"
“Sign the open letter to stop this dangerous plan” – https://greenpeace.nz/008ghg
I don't trust Labour. The Three Waters effort was an attempt to bring in major constitutional change under the cloak of environmental reform.
Remember the entrenchment clause in the legislation? Once the media got onto it, this clause was said to be a mistake: https://www.beehive.govt.nz/release/government-remove-entrenchment-three-waters-legislation
Oh sure.
Water Done Well has a lot of Three Waters characteristics. Except most water corporates don't involve stormwater.
there was a typo in your username holding back the comment.
Maybe instead of bashing Labour (yet again) we should turn our attention to the actual threat to the environment, the National Party:
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/568836/forest-and-bird-slams-reform-as-conservation-retreat-but-minister-defends-economic-push