The Resource Management Act (RMA) is responsible for serious delays to the eradication of the Painted Apple Moth, ACT Conservation Spokesman MP Gerry Eckhoff said today.

"Clearly the Government is highly embarrassed at the spread that has taken place while the bureaucracy tried to figure out how to get around the RMA.

"This serious pest has the potential to decimate not just the Waitakere ranges, but much of the North Island's forests.

"The moth has spread over a much wider area, purely because spraying programmes cannot be enacted due to the RMA and district plans which prohibit low-level flying.

"The Minister, at long last, now plans to exempt the eradication programme from the RMA.

"Delays and cost over-runs are commonplace with the RMA. It does appear the bureaucrats are finally learning just how useless the RMA is when timely responses are essential.

"It appears there are two RMA's - one for the bureaucrats, and one for private individuals who receive no assistance by way of Ministerial intervention when they need help.

Ends

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Gordon Campbell: On the Sony cyber attack

Given the layers of meta-irony involved, the saga of the Sony cyber attack seemed at the outset more like a snarky European art film than a popcorn entry at the multiplex.

Yet now with (a) President Barack Obama weighing in on the side of artistic freedom and calling for the US to make a ‘proportionate response’quickly followed by (b) North Korea’s entire Internet service going down, and with both these events being followed by (c) Sony deciding to backtrack and release The Interview film that had made it a target for the dastardly North Koreans in the first place, then ay caramba…the whole world will now be watching how this affair pans out. More>>