Otago regional councillor Gary Kelliher says there is a glimmer of hope on the horizon for a new land and water regional plan (LWRP) that provides for both the economy and the environment.

Ministers involved in the new National Policy Statement - Fresh Water Management are (NPS-FM) planning to meet Otago regional councillors in late January.

This follows the decision by the Government in October 2024 to amend legislation to halt freshwater plans, stopping the regional council from notifying its LWRP.

The council was divided 7-5 all throughout 2024 on whether to notify its draft plan, and the new National Government came in and warned councils to halt all work until the NPS-FM was underway, before intervening at the eleventh hour.

The new national policy framework was expected to take effect on December 31, 2025. In the meantime, Otago’s draft land and water regional plan was not an official document and had no legal effect.

Cr Kelliher said regional council staff and the original seven councillors (now six after Cr Bryan Scott resigned in protest of the Government’s intervention), were “hell bent” on killing the economy with the draft plan.

“They were pipped at the post by a government determined not to sit and watch regional and local government continue the Labour/Green crusade. I think the government would be entitled to just tell Otago what it plans for a new NPS-FM given the recent history,” he

said.

Constituents he engaged with wanted a plan that told those councillors that their ideology was not suited to Otago’s future.  

“Unfortunately I think the government will be battling the ORC staff and those six councillors who will want as much of their nonsense as possible influencing the new NPS-FM.”

Cr Kelliher thought the more the Government told the Otago Regional Council and the less involvement the council had in telling the Government, the better everyone’s chances were.

Dunstan ward councillor Michael Laws also backed Cr Kelliher, but Cr Alexa Forbes, of Queenstown - one of the seven councillors in support of notifying the plan - said the regional council was prevented from playing its part in democracy and its future.

She said the Government had made it loud and clear when it intervened, that if regional councils around New Zealand didn’t do as the Government recommended, they would suffer the consequences.

Read more: ORC land and water vote canned

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