RMA prevented Marsden pipe upgrade
RMA prevented Marsden pipe upgrade
The RMA is the real culprit of the current fuel crisis, says ACT deputy leader Beth Houlbrooke, who worked as PA to the project director during the pipeline’s installation in 1982.
“This is just another example of the infrastructure failure that National has allowed to grow over time, due to their reluctance to tackle flawed regulations like the Resource Management Act (RMA),” says Mrs Houlbrooke.
“The RMA bogs down private operators like Refining NZ in red tape, preventing them from upgrading vital infrastructure.
“When the existing pipeline was built, there was no RMA, and construction only took a year. If someone tried to build the same pipeline today, or a second one as a contingency for failures like this one, it would take a decade, with consents bogged down in a bureaucratic nightmare
“In practice, the upgrade that should have happened years ago has been economically unfeasible due to expensive and time-consuming consent processes.
“We know how vulnerable Auckland Airport’s fuel supply is already and we cannot afford to wait 10 years to deal with today’s crisis. With more MPs, ACT will replace the Resource Management Act with legislation that enables upgrades to the infrastructure National has neglected.”
ENDS