Dear Friend,

It must be an election year as it seems most of the political world has descended on Mystery Creek ahead of October's vote.

As we continue to wind our way up the country on our nationwide Hands Off Our Homes: Stop Central Planning Committees roadshow tour to raise awareness about the Government's latest power grab, the Taxpayers' Union is stopping off at the National Fieldays until Saturday. 

The team – and Porky! – would love to meet you if you are planning a trip to the biggest agricultural event in the Southern Hemisphere. Our stall is in the Rural Living Marquee at site RM125

We have lots of yard signs and banners for sale to help spread the word about the Government's Resource Management reforms. You can also come and pick up free bumper stickers on our Central Planning Committees, Three Waters and Ute Tax campaigns.

Click here to watch me explain in 60 seconds why the RMA reforms are so bad

One of the best parts of this job is getting to meet so many of our supporters across the length and breadth of the country and events like Fieldays always provide a great opportunity to have a chat about the ever increasing number of challenges facing New Zealand.

We look forward to seeing you there.

Jordan @ Taxpayers' Union

From: Jordan Williams <[email protected]>
Date: Friday, 9 June 2023 at 3:01 PM
To:   <[email protected]>
Subject: Stop Parker's Planning Power Grab

Dear Friend,

David Parker's new Soviet-style central-planning regime is Three Waters 2.0. Despite jettisoning many of Jacinda Ardern's policies to improve Labour's chance of re-election in October, the Government is ploughing ahead with reforms to the Resource Management Act. 

We're now half way through our nation-wide 'Hands Off Our Homes  – Stop Central Planning Committees' Roadshow Tour. We're in Palmerston North tonight for an event being co-hosted with our friends at Federated Farmers. Then we head to Whanganui, Hawke's Bay and Taupo over the next few days followed by National Fieldays at Mystery Creek. All the event details are listed at www.taxpayersroadshow.nz

You can read some of the local news coverage and watch the video of the Invercargill event here.

Just like we did for Three Waters, we need to show the Government the strength of feeling against these reforms. You can sign our petition here.

Yes, the RMA is a terrible piece of legislation that has fuelled a housing and infrastructure crisis by restricting what people can and cannot do on their own land. But these reforms will make the situation much, much worse.

David Parker proposes to seize powers to set planning rules from local councils and transfer them to unelected, unaccountable regional planning committees working under the direction of the Minister of the Environment in Wellington and a new, unelected National Māori Entity.

Friend, between this and Three Waters, if the Government gets its way, the only thing left for local councils will be libraries and organising the Santa parade! The power won't be in the hands of those who are democratically accountable.

Centralised 'Regional Planning Committees' will have to balance 18 contradictory 'system objectives' while also taking account of 'Te Oranga o te Taiao' (environmental wellbeing) statements when developing their plans. Competing interpretations of these concepts will likely end up in court.

All this will lead to higher building costs, more red tape, no local control and more co-governance. If you want to stop these reforms in our tracks, add your name to our petition.

Our economist, Ray Deacon, and I presented to the Environment Committee earlier in the year to outline our concerns with the reforms and ask for the bills to be withdrawn. You can watch our submission here. 

And we were not alone in our opposition. We have been our working through the thousands of submissions that have been made on the bill from pressures groups like ours to industry organisations, councils to community groups, charities to individuals. The overwhelming majority of the submitters have raised concerns about the bills.

But yet the Government is still pressing ahead. 

As we ramp up our fight to stop Labour's central planning committees, I am asking you to add your support by signing our petition.

Thank you for your support.

Jordan Williams Executive Director New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union.

PS. this effort is 100% people powered. To chip-in  and help us spread the word click here to make a secure donation.