RMA kills $6.5 million exhibition centre

Do you think National's Tauranga candidate Bob Clarkson knows who introduced the Resource Management Act? Does he realise that it was National's Simon Upton that introduced the RMA, and National's Nick Smith who administered it after Upton left for his sinecure in Paris?

Clarkson built and paid for the $15 million Blue Chip Stadium, "used for conferences, rugby and concerts as well as housing the Baypark speedway," but has just abandoned plans for a $6.5 million exhibition centre next door due to bureaucratic hassles and fourteen months of delays caused by -- you guessed it -- the RMA.

"I have been hit in the pocket. There is actually a bottom to the barrel."

So far, [reports the Herald] pursuing the necessary consent had cost him $100,000 "and we haven't even got started yet"...

He accused "people in places of power" of being small-minded. "I run on adrenalin and I had a passion to get this thing underway. But I can't have my dream interrupted all the bloody time. It's unrelenting."

It's hard to knock a man when he's as all-fired go-getting as Clarkson obviously is, but do you think he knew what he was doing when he signed on to the National Party ticket?

Message to Bob Clarkson: Dump the RMA!