New roads not the answer: Hague

Nelson needs to consider what sort of future it wants when cheap oil ends, says Green MP Kevin Hague.

Building new roads was "quaint and misguided", said the list MP who was in Nelson yesterday.

The Greens Nelson office will be Mr Hague's out of Parliament office, and he is the Greens representative for the Nelson, West Coast Tasman and Kaikoura electorates.

Mr Hague said he was greatly impressed with what was going on at the Victory Community Centre, saying it was model for how a school and a community could integrate.

In stark contrast was the southern link proposal to build a highway along the neighbouring Railway Reserve which would have major consequences for the community, he said.

The thinking behind the proposal was poorly developed and in response to a poorly defined problem, he said.

If there was a traffic congestion problem, it was disappearing as traffic was decreasing.

"If there is a problem it is going away and it is not a very big problem to start with," he said.

While the economic crisis had depressed the price of oil, in the longer term, when the economy picked up, oil prices would rapidly increase again.

That would require communities to think about how they were going to get people and goods around, he said.

Equating infrastructure development with building new roads was "quaint and misguided" because there would be less traffic in future, he said.

It was smarter to think about what kind of infrastructure communities were going to need in a lower energy environment, he said.

Mr Hague said he hoped to talk with Nelson Mayor Kerry Marshall about the issue.

The end of cheap oil would have some profound implications and there was a need to look at some scenarios for Nelson in the future and what the community wanted.

Mr Hague said he hoped Nelson MP and Environment Minister Nick Smith was not targeting changes to the Resource Management Act as a way to advance a pet project in Nelson.

"I have a suspicion that is the case," he said.

National was sending a double message about changes to the RMA by telling environmentalists and general audiences that protections for the environment wouldn't change, but at the same time giving "a nod and a wink" to developers wanting to get their projects through that it was going to be a lot easier in the future, said Mr Hague.

"We need to work out what kind of future we want, especially in a place like this (Victory) which is a vibrant and strengthening community. That will be decimated by this process," he said.

The Government had an incredible opportunity in dealing with the economic crisis to also tackle climate change issues.

However, the National Government was struggling with the Green New Deal concept of dealing with two crises at one time, he said.

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