The government lists all projects that applied to get the economy booming in the pandemic era under its hilarious "Covid Fast Track Consenting Act" 2020 Legislation. That law may, if you're lucky, lead to a few projects being started by the time the next pandemic comes around.
Maybe sleepy Wellington, where few people go into the office anymore, but rather prefer to "work" from home, can tweak the legislation and relaunch it as the "Monkey Pox Fast Track Consenting Act", with Otago University's Vice Chancellor Grant Robertson and his right-hand man, epidemiologist (whatever that is) Professor Michael Baker brought back to advise. Here's the list of projects:
https://www.epa.govt.nz/fast-track-consenting/fast-track-projects/
Many of them didn't apply until last year. Why not? Maybe the requirements are so onerous, that applications need a huge amount of time to prepare? In that sense, this idea of quick decisions from a "fast track" panel maybe a con-trick. Take a project located close to where I live, so I know a lot about what is going on: the Upland Road Retirement Village. Like many, it appears, Covid Fast Track Act 2020 Projects, the application was submitted in 2023. Not one spade, not one shovel, has been put in the ground for that project. Isn't it silly to pretend the economy was being kick-started during and in the immediate aftermath of the pandemic, with legislation dated 2020, when, if someone with the time was able to check up on all the projects that applied under that law, it appear many have not even started work. If nearly five years since Covid started and not a spade has been put in the ground for many of these projects, if that is fast, what is slow? Completed by 2050?
https://www.epa.govt.nz/fast-track-consenting/fast-track-projects/
Many of them didn't apply until last year. Why not? Maybe the requirements are so onerous, that applications need a huge amount of time to prepare? In that sense, this idea of quick decisions from a "fast track" panel maybe a con-trick. Take a project located close to where I live, so I know a lot about what is going on: the Upland Road Retirement Village. Like many, it appears, Covid Fast Track Act 2020 Projects, the application was submitted in 2023. Not one spade, not one shovel, has been put in the ground for that project. Isn't it silly to pretend the economy was being kick-started during and in the immediate aftermath of the pandemic, with legislation dated 2020, when, if someone with the time was able to check up on all the projects that applied under that law, it appear many have not even started work. If nearly five years since Covid started and not a spade has been put in the ground for many of these projects, if that is fast, what is slow? Completed by 2050?
Professor Robert MacCulloch holds the Matthew S. Abel Chair of Macroeconomics at Auckland University. He has previously worked at the Reserve Bank, Oxford University, and the London School of Economics. He runs the blog Down to Earth Kiwi from where this article was sourced.
1 comment:
No different to how National's will likely pan out unless there's a monumental change. Far too much red tape and too many, predominantly part-brown, snouts in the trough on the way through. I challenge anyone to prove it different?
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