ACT MP Mark Cameron. Photo: RNZ / Angus Dreaver
The ACT Party has submitted a members' bill seeking to stop regional councils from considering the negative impacts of climate change in consenting decisions.
ACT MP Mark Cameron said it was not feasible to have regional councils trying to save the world's climate, describing their attempts as hopeless.
He said it was about getting local government back to basics.
Speaking to Midday Report, Cameron said council interference was contributing to a productivity crisis.
"We've got a productivity crisis in New Zealand as you'll be well aware. I think we have all seen now everyday New Zealanders finding it exceedingly hard to get ahead for many reasons including this growing consentable regime to do pretty much anything, whether farming, the building industry, the heavy construction industry, you can name all of them, they've all now got this metaphorical ring of fire that they've got to jump through with consenting.
"Now add to that, councils have put a veil of 'thou shall not do' until you can meet, and I'm paraphrasing here, certain emission reduction targets that they operationalise at a council level."
Local councils needed to let Kiwis get back to their everyday life without them interfering in what emissions profiles they had, he said.
"Councils interfering in the backyard of everyday New Zealanders and their emissions profile quite literally down to a farm gate level is problematic.
"It's robbing Peter to give to Paul. We all agree we want to play our part on the global stage as a trading nation at the bottom of the world in reducing emissions, there's no argument there, but it's about what is the right mechanism to do it and if we are stifling productivity for the sake of one council putting onerous constraints on those sort of operations and perhaps another council not..."
Cameron said climate change was a global problem, and when it came to managing it, it had to be done on an international level.
He agreed New Zealand had its role to play internationally and we had "all agreed" to a set of national reduction targets.
But the "onerous nature" of councils intruding was stifling productivity and needed to stop.
Before entering Parliament, Cameron had posted on social media that climate change was "a farce" and that "nut jobs" believe in global warming.
In 2023, Cameron told TVNZ he was not a climate denier.
"People have potentially questioned whether I thought climate change was real or not, I maintain that it is and again I stress the point I represent the interests of rural New Zealand," he said at the time.
Green Party member and Greater Wellington regional councillor Thomas Nash said there was "absolutely no evidence" for Cameron's claims that considering the impact of emissions hampered regional councils' productivity.
"This bill is completely detached from reality."
There was already a national direction in place on how to deal with fossil fuel-powered industrial process heat, he said.
"Telling regional councils to ignore the climate impact of greenhouse gas emissions on, say a new coal-fired boiler, is just telling them to suspend reality, forget about the climate problem and just wave things through. It's completely irresponsible.
"We need every tool we can get to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, including local decision-making to incentivise the transition away from fossil fuels and disincentivise further investment in fossil fuel use.
"Preventing regional councils from making decisions that help reduce regional emissions would just lock in more gross emissions and set New Zealand up for a future where it is more expensive and more cumbersome to reduce emissions nationally. We also don't have time for this."
The idea that regional councils were "going to start going hard on farms around agricultural emissions" was also an unfounded assertion, which was not supported by the work regional councils were doing on that front, Nash said.
