Latest news with #approvalprocess
RNZ News
2 days ago
- Politics
- RNZ News
ACT sets out plan to party faithful: "Keep the government and make it better"
ACT is holding their annual rally in Auckland on Sunday. Shown: ACT leader David Seymour at the 2023 party rally. Photo: RNZ / Mohammad Alafeshat ACT has unveiled its pitch to lure a new supermarket player into New Zealand through a new fast-track approval process. It's part of the party's bid to focus on "problem solving" rather than "finger-pointing" as it looks toward the next election, to "keep the government" and make it "better". Leader David Seymour made the announcement at the party's annual rally on Sunday, in Auckland, where it considered its half-time "report card" of its performance in government . Seymour outlined the party's wins through the past year and a half - including in efforts on law and order and reducing co-governance - while signalling to the campaign ahead and the voters he wanted to claim. A key focus of Seymour's speech were the voters who he said had been treated as a "scapegoat" by the previous government. He suggested Labour chose landlords as a scapegoat for the issue of high rents. He said Labour did this because of "politics." "There are three million voters and only 120,000 are landlords so there's 23 other voters per landlord. They say the most important skill in politics is the ability to count." Along with landlords, Seymour said firearm owners, farmers and employers were affected by policies Labour put in place, as well as groups of people he said Labour had left out in the cold. "Blaming someone might feel good. We think that building something feels better," he said. "Whether you rent or own, farm or teach, build or tend, your future depends on solving the same problems, not blaming different people." His coalition partners weren't left unscathed tough, as he pointed to efforts to target big corporations as a way of making things easier for New Zealand, and targeting the cost of living. "You can understand people wanting to go after the banks or the supermarkets or the power companies. "It would be the easiest thing in the world for me to give a speech saying they're crooked and need to be punished somehow. "They should be taxed somehow, have their businesses broken up, or be watched over by even toothier watchdogs. It's the curse of zero sum thinking." His solution to the "biggest challenge we face" - the cost of living - was to loosen up what Seymour called "outdated planning and consenting rules", which were the biggest barriers to international supermarket players setting up shop in the country. "With the cost of living, the solution is not regulation but competition. Business should fear competition, not their own government." A new ACT party proposal - rather than government policy - would introduce a fast-track approval process that would streamline rezoning, consenting and investment approvals to build new supermarkets at scale. Seymour said this would allow new entrants or smaller grocers to get approval within months, not years. There was no mention in the speech of a specific player who had shown interest in setting up in New Zealand, but Seymour said he hoped it would bring a "serious extra chain to retail in New Zealand.' "Even if it doesn't, just the possibility of a new competitor can help keep competitive pressure on the incumbents," he said. "If it doesn't work, we'll know that either our market is more competitive than we thought, or we have some other problem." Ultimately, he told the audience, "if you're looking for finger pointing, don't look here. We are interested in problem solving." "If you want to find a scapegoat, you can, but it still won't work. We tried it with landlords, we tried it with oil and gas, we tried it with farmers, employers, and licensed firearm owners. "Every time government goes after a group in society, the problem gets worse." As part of his speech he also acknowledged the failure of the Treaty Principles Bill to pass into law. "Our partners abandoned us defining the Treaty Principles, so we lost the vote. "That's a shame, but there's something more important than winning the vote. We won the argument." It's a key policy that differentiates ACT from its coalition partners, and the party has indicated it will continue to try and pass it in some form. "It is now a matter of time before the Treaty Principles Bill or something like it passes," Seymour told the gathering. At the half-way mark of this term in government, Seymour said the party's focus from here would be "campaigning to keep the government and keep making it better." Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero, a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
CBC
15-06-2025
- Business
- CBC
Alberta premier says she likes Ottawa's speedy plan for infrastructure project approvals
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith says she likes the federal government's plan to reduce the approval times of major infrastructure projects down to two years, and she hopes Canada can revise other legislation to "improve investor confidence." "I think part of [Prime Minister Mark Carney's] job is to create an investment climate that tells the investor community 'welcome back to Canada' because it hasn't done that for the last 10 years," Smith said during an interview on Rosemary Barton Live that aired Sunday. Carney and his Liberal government have been charging ahead with plans to speed up nation-building infrastructure projects — a central plank of the party's election platform. Earlier in June, the Liberals tabled the One Canadian Economy Act, which Carney said at the time is a bill designed to create one Canadian economy out of 13 and build "a stronger, more resilient Canadian economy" that works for everyone. The prime minister said the bill will speed up the approval process of major infrastructure projects — reducing approval times from five years to two by introducing a "one-project, one-review" approach instead of having federal and provincial approval processes happen sequentially. Smith told host Rosemary Barton that the fact Carney wants a two-year time frame to approve national projects "is a demonstration he knows the federal process is broken," and Alberta is eager to hit the ground running on resource projects. The Alberta premier is also calling on Ottawa to "substantially" revise Bill C-69, also known as the Impact Assessment Act. The bill, which came into force in 2019, allowed federal regulators to consider potential environmental and social impacts of resource and infrastructure projects. Some sections of the law were amended after the Supreme Court of Canada ruled in 2023 that portions of the Impact Assessment Act (IAA) were unconstitutional. The Alberta government said the changes were insufficient and called the revised bill "unconstitutional." Smith said Ottawa has jurisdiction over projects that cross borders, but there are requirements in the IAA that are ideological and difficult to measure. The act needs revisions, she said, because "we've got to keep up with the Americans and they're changing their regulatory processes to be that fast as well. If we don't keep up, we're going to lose this window of investment." Is Canada moving too fast? Critics of the One Canadian Economy Act say the legislation interferes with Indigenous rights and environmental protections. They also argue that the bill confers king-like powers to rush to completion projects deemed in Canada's national interest. Proposed legislation grants the federal government the authority to exempt pipelines, mines or other listed projects from any law or government regulation. Near the very end of the 18-page bill, it states that cabinet can exempt national-interest projects from not only environmental laws but also acts of Parliament. Intergovernmental Affairs Minister Dominic LeBlanc, who's also responsible for One Canadian Economy and Canada-U.S. trade, defended the bill on Rosemary Barton Live and said Canadians shouldn't be surprised the Liberals put forward legislation to expedite projects deemed in the national interest. "We got a mandate from Canadians. It's on page 1 of the Liberal platform to talk about one Canadian economy — not 13 — and to build big national projects again," LeBlanc told Barton. Canada is trying to work with U.S. President Donald Trump's team to end the Canada-U.S. trade war, but things are not moving fast enough, he said. Because of that, the country needs to do things "that perhaps previously were taking too long or the process was incoherent." Carney is to meet with Trump on Monday morning in Alberta, before main talks at the G7 leaders' summit get underway, according to an official in his office. Smith said that since her province is hosting the G7 summit in Kananaskis, Alta., she can ask for a bilateral meeting with one of the world leaders and has requested Trump, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba.
