ACT has pledged to ban resource consent conditions requiring people to take part in or pay for religious or spiritual ceremonies, such as karakia, if elected.
On Saturday, ACT’s Infrastructure, Energy and Climate Change spokesperson Simon Court announced the party would introduce a rule banning compulsory spiritual observances, such as karakia, meaning people could not be required to fund, take part in, arrange or perform blessings or other religious observances. However, they would remain voluntary for those who wanted them.
Another rule would also exclude purely religious or spiritual beliefs from being treated, on their own, as an adverse effect.
The rule would apply equally to all religions and belief systems and prevent such claims alone from being used to refuse or restrict consent, request further information, or impose consent conditions.
“Planning law should regulate effects that can be identified, measured and tested, and protect rights recognised by law. It should not require planners, councils or judges to rule on spiritual or religious beliefs.
“Unfortunately, emerging litigation has seen spiritual effects increasingly become part of our resource management system,” he said.
Court only used examples of times when iwi and mana whenua groups performed karakia and ceremonies in his statement.
“For example, some housing developments must invite iwi to perform a karakia before construction begins, with the developer paying for it. IKEA’s Sylvia Park consent requires invitations to seven mana whenua groups to attend karakia and ceremonies at specified construction milestones. Solar farms at Ongaonga and Ōpunake have similar conditions. The Ōtākiri water-bottling dispute reached the Supreme Court, where evidence about te mauri o te wai was considered.”
He said that the new Planning Act and Natural Environment Act was a significant improvement, it did not carry over the RMA’s spiritual-value requirement.
“Leaving a requirement out is not the same as ruling it out. Without a clear boundary, people can still bring spiritual matters back in under broader cultural-effects provisions, leaving councils and courts to draw the line case by case.”
ACT also plans to replace Te Mana o te Wai with “measurable freshwater outcomes”, so that “councils would work to clear, testable standards for water quality, ecosystem health and human health”.
Court does make it clear that these new rules would not take any protection away from heritage sites, urupā, archaeological sites, customary physical uses, water quality, ecosystems and rights in Treaty settlement legislation.
“The test is simple. Is there an identifiable physical effect, place, resource or legal right? If there is, deal with it. If the claimed effect exists only as a spiritual proposition, it isn’t the planning system’s job,” he said.
