Levi Gibbs

Published: June 1, 2023

Submitting To: Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE)

Issue for Business: The Government has announced two new National Policy Statements on the national direction for renewable electricity and transmission. The Problem: the existing statements have failed to provide national direction, due to weaker or missing language. This ineffectiveness is compounded by stronger policy statements in competing areas, like NPS-FM or NPS-HPL. National direction and additional emphasis on nation significance must be provided to reduce consenting uncertainty, and provide decision-makers more weight to consider and grant consent for new renewable electricity and transmission infrastructure. BEC is pleased that the Government understands, and acknowledges, the increasing need to build this infrastructure to help meet New Zealand's climate targets. In some places, the NPS is an improvement. In others, it is a step-backwards. BEC outlines several problems with the proposed statements. This submission outlines several problems with the statements wording that must be addressed if New Zealand is to have an effective NPS-REG & ET. However, fundamentally, BEC notes that an NPS is limited in its ability to speed up and reduce the cost of NZ's costly and cumbersome consenting process. The RMA itself must be reformed. BEC refers to BusinessNZ's submission outlining the problems with the RMA's replacements - SPB and NBE, and how they can be improved.