RMA is Used for Extortion

The RMA is being used to extort millions of dollars from New Zealand businesses, ACT Rural Affairs Spokesman Gerry Eckhoff said today.

"Anti-development environmental groups, business competitors and iwi are making a mint out of objections under the Resource Management Act. These groups' objections aim to blackmail businesses into paying them out, or gain a commercial advantage by tying up their competitors in red tape. This is nothing short of legalised extortion and corruption.

"I totally concur with the views of Wellington businessman Bill Day, who is the first entrepreneur brave enough to state the obvious. Unless more business owners are prepared to come forward as courageously as Bill Day, very little will change. Although ACT New Zealand has warned of the blackmail the RMA has spawned, the Labour Government remain wilfully blind to this extortion.

"The RMA is a serious impediment to development. It must be reined in if we want to end the rotten pervasion of unethical practice, corruption and extortion that faces every entrepreneur and innovator," Mr Eckhoff said.

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