One food I cannot recall any serious prejudice to, oh apart from some of the more obtuse fillings naturally.

Who can master the making of an omelet without breaking the eggs?

Now there are a few quite reasonable thoughts behind a generalised attitude to RMA reform, however if every generated opposition to building anything is to be given credence then it is a certainty nothing will ever happen.

Much is made in relation to the Pike river mine disaster of interference by DOC and melon types opposition to the establishment of the disaster always only one spark from the explosive result that took the lives of 29 men. When all the technology available and the gaseous coal being sought for financial reward is considered against the vast expanses of Westland Bush, totally unaffected by that one mine, brings a degree of reluctance to accept all the expensive modification in creating the mine that was too deep to contemplate open cast mining to deal with the inherent danger of tunneling to recover the very desirable coal.

Upgraded long entrance tunnel always ensured a battle to get the gas out of the mine, and when combined with prescriptive attitudes to landscape desires to minimise visual impacts it becomes quite likely when something went awry it could be catastrophic, as it turned out to be.

During an economic reset following the Douglas reforms I spent almost a decade in real estate in a successful recovery effort and while in that world enrolled to garner qualifications that led to sitting papers at Polytech level in marketing, law, ethics and town planning, the latter subject left me with a decisive antithesis to the vast opportunity for bungling when theory collides with reason. Add in the entirely human ability to use such process to inhibit competition and manipulate for personal advantage whether economic or ideological comes into play.

The egregious use of planning being used for economic advantage appears with regularity when Supermarkets vie for location and ideological mores generate often gregarious opposition to mundane efforts to prevent progress. During a brief flutter at local government in retirement I sat on hearings and some of the absolute shite employed as evidence was incredible in extreme. One I recall involved an application to quarry in a very minor way to create stone following the closure of the Halswell Quarry that had provided much of the building stock of Christchurch, now of course with many examples destroyed and carried away following the seismic events that began in the spring of 2010.

Prior to those events there was a dearth of stone for simple restorative moves and an entrepreneurial fellow discovered a similar limited source of stone in a valley on Banks Peninsula and applied for a consent to mine.

By morning tea we broke and the Chairman suggested the opponents had a case, what a shallow interpretation of the often loaded evidence we had heard, it was clear a few residents had fears of a mine of Denniston Open Cast proportions when the reality was much nearer an excavation for a domestic swimming pool. Sanity prevailed and the consent approved but the lengths gone to to oppose was revealing indeed.

Yes preserving the past and ensuring a viable future has merit but once a legislative process becomes established, Lawyers get involved and those deciding having little real world experience, who are subject to pressures beyond reasonable, the propensity for disastrous decisions is almost guaranteed.

Coming up with a reasonable and sensible replacement for the abomination that has evolved from the efforts of Ivory Tower educated planners who have not even dug a post hole to anchor a boundary fence is a challenge indeed and it is extremely unlikely to produce a document that will give precedence to building anything near the economic powerhouse this nation will need to make progress to the economic monolith required to fund the welfare dominant society now inhabiting these so favoured in so many ways, islands of New Zealand.

I gravely fear the result will be an inedible omelet and further poverty of spirit beacons.
Who amongst those charged with a creating the solution will have any understanding of what Number eight wire is and was. Today it is duct tape and to muffle sense and sensibility that product will be very effective.