Communities Against the Fast Track, a coalition of community organisations that are opposed to the Governments Fast Track Approvals Act, is again questioning the use of the process by so-called Zombie projects - that is projects that have already been rejected via standard processes, and in some cases previous iterations of a Fast Track process (i.e. the Labour COVID-19 Recovery Fast-track Consenting) but are now trying to gain approvals via the Fast Track Approvals Act (FTAA).

As another such proposal, a fish farm in the Foveaux Strait (Project FTAA-2511-1138), makes its way through the process, avoiding community and independent scrutiny - and seemingly any animal welfare considerations, the coalition again questions the inclusion of these proposals that have already been declined.

"We saw in the Trans Tasman Resources application that these companies are not necessarily putting in new applications but are simply trying to push through what has already been rejected, and we can only assume that that is to avoid scrutiny." says Augusta Macassey-Pickard, spokesperson for the group.

"When the FTAA was first proposed, and indeed during the amendments that were pushed through at the end of last year, CAFT continually raised this point; the FTAA, with its absolute lack of public participation, its absolute avoidance of challenges beyond the appointed Panels, is a bad process, that will lead to bad outcomes."

The organisation also noted the recent comments of the EPA around the expense of the process (that it is all costing more than projected), and is concerned about the taxpayer being forced to effectively subsidise this process - the idea was that at the very least the applicants would be covering all the costs, but now it seems that the EPA finds it significantly more expensive that anticipated.

"So in effect, we (taxpayers) appear to be subsidising some unscrupulous developers' applications to rort our system. How much money does this Government expect us to spend subsidising this terrible process?"

CAFT is calling on the Government to remove Zombie projects from the FTAA process, and to introduce some measure that would require applications to be substantively different from the earlier iterations that have already been examined and refused consent.

"Obviously, our preference would be for such proposals to not be allowed, for community participation, wider independent scrutiny and accountability to be provided for beyond that of the expert Panel and greater flexibility added in to the timeframes for decisions, before we are actually locked in to developments that have already been shown to be inappropriate."

© Scoop Media