Thursday, September 16, 2021



Pattern recognition

Government defers introducing tougher winter grazing rules - again, RNZ, 26 August 2021:

The government has pushed intensive winter grazing rules back by another six months.

Intensive winter grazing is when livestock are feed fodder crops - when done poorly it can create a muddy mess leading to animal welfare and environmental issues.

Regulations aimed at improving intensive winter grazing practices were supposed to come into effect from May this year, but were recently deferred until May 2022.

The government has pushed them back another six months until November 2022.

Government’s climate plan delayed five months, Newsroom, 15 September 2021:
The Government's plan to tackle the climate crisis has been pushed back five months due to the Covid-19 pandemic and to align it with next year's budget, Climate Change Minister James Shaw announced on Wednesday.

The Zero Carbon Act currently requires the Government to release its Emissions Reduction Plan by the end of the year, but Shaw said the Government would move the deadline back to May 2022.

Mines, landfills near wetlands possible under Government walk-back of environmental rules, Stuff, 16 September 2021:
Mines, landfills, and housing developments could be built in or around wetlands under a proposed Government walk-back of environmental rules.

Those rules were only passed a year ago, but the Government was told “almost immediately” that they were preventing the development of housing and infrastructure in some areas, according to an impact analysis produced by the Ministry for the Environment (MfE) last month.

One rule in particular banned all but the most important projects – such as flood protection and critical infrastructure – from being built if they would drain, or partially drain, a wetland.

But in a discussion document released earlier this month, the Government proposed widening the scope of those important projects to include mines, landfills, quarries, and significant housing developments, on the condition they meet stringent resource consent requirements and other provisions.

Is anyone else seeing a pattern here? It looks like the Labour government are orcs, just like their predecessors. So why are the Greens cooperating with them? Is this the positive change they promised from being in government?