The Voice of Heritage
For New Zealand
Patron Dame Anna Salmond, DBR, FRSNZ, FBA
11 February 2023
The Engagement Lead, Treaty Settlements
Ministry for the Environment
Wellington
Tēnā koe
Historic Places Aotearoa thanks you for this opportunity to provide feed-back on the proposed Fast
Track Consenting Bill, which is intended to enable the prioritisation of locally, regionally, and
nationally significant infrastructure and development projects.
and communities. It includes places and landscapes with historic, cultural, social, scientific,
archaeological, architectural and technological significance as well as sites of significance to Māori,
for example wāhi tapu and wāhi tupuna. It is concerned with identity and cultural matters that are
deeply important to society and may be controversial. Consequently, it is essential that the expert
panel have the ability to effectively mitigate any impacts on heritage from the development of fast-
track projects. This means providing the panel with explicit requirements:
It is acknowledged that not everything with cultural heritage value can be saved.
• But all the factors involved, not just the economic factors, must be carefully weighed
because many of the attributes of heritage are not included in economic analysis, e.g. historic, cultural
and social, and consequently communities of interest must be involved.
Nāku noa, nā
President