Govt cuts red-tape in quake recovery efforts

The government has, in consultation with opposition parties, approved nine orders in council to cut red-tape and help speed up the recovery process after the Christchurch earthquake, Earthquake Recovery Minister Gerry Brownlee announced today.

"This process of removing legislative barriers has proved effective since the initial quake in September," Mr Brownlee said.

Four of the approved orders in council are reinstatements of orders that had expired since the first Canterbury earthquake on 4 September 2010.

Three relate to the Resource Management Act, one of which streamlines the resource consent application process for land remediation work in Canterbury.

"Any notified resource consent in a normal situation can take six months or more to decide with any appeals potentially taking more than a year to resolve. We simply don't have that time to spare," Mr Brownlee said.

"We are committed to enabling Canterbury to get on and rebuild as quickly as possible.”

The nine orders in council were made under the Canterbury Earthquake Response and Recovery Act 2010. All the orders take effect from the date of the aftershock of 22 February 2011 and most will expire on 31 March 2012.

The government has also approved two regulation changes that ensure payments from the Red Cross Earthquake Commission fund will not affect applications for hardship support.

The other change exempts interest payments made by the Earthquake Commission (EQC), insurance companies and the Red Cross Earthquake Commission fund from income testing for hardship and other social assistance.

The orders in council approved are:

1. Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act Order 2011 – this order repeats and extends an expired order. It enables councils to issue incomplete Land Information Memoranda (LIMs) where information is not available. It also extends the time councils have to respond to a LIM request.

2. Social Security Act Order 2011 – this order repeats and extends an existing order which expired on 28 February 2011. For Canterbury residents it defers unemployment benefit reapplication requirements until 30 November 2011.

3. Transport Legislation Order – this order repeats a previous order which expired on 30 November 2010. It will ensure that, within reason, authorised vehicles that carry additional weight to help with the clean up effort are not penalised. (This order expires on 31 October 2011).

4. Resource Management Act Amendment Order 2011 – this order reactivates provisions that had expired in a previous order relating to administrative, record keeping and monitoring and enforcement obligations on councils. It also allows for the Kate Valley Landfill to operate outside the conditions of its resource consent, where required to help respond to the aftershocks of the Canterbury earthquake.

5. Resource Management Act Permitted Activities Order 2011 – this order provides for temporary and activities such as housing, depots and storage facilities as permitted activities, removing the need for a resource consent. These will be subject to standards and requirements set by the Council to manage environmental effects.

6. Resource Management Act Order 2011 – this order streamlines the consultation process for resource consent applications for land remediation works; and council infrastructure and flood protection works in Canterbury. It removes the requirement for the public notification of applications. However it does provide for consultation with adversely affected parties, and they will be able to make written comments over a 10 day working day period. The order also removes appeal rights, except on the part of the applicant.

7. Education Act 1989 Order 2011 – this order enables the Education Minister and Secretary for Education to manage the location of schools, direct boards of trustees, manage the relocation of students, amend school opening hours, and be flexible around licensing requirements for early childhood centres.

8. Tax Administration Act Order 2011 – this order amends secrecy rules and will enable IRD to share taxpayer specific information with other government agencies that would assist them to respond to the earthquake.

9. Accident Compensation Act 2001 Order 2011 – this order allows ACC to pay the first week of weekly compensation to any eligible person injured in the 22 February earthquake, who will be on weekly compensation for more than a week, irrespective of whether they were at work when they were injured. This means employers will not have to make the first week's payment as they would under normal circumstances and employees, who would not normally receive compensation for the first week for a non-work accident, will receive income compensation from 22 February.