I have several hundred trees on my property. They are mine. I own them. I have paid for them. I owe nothing to anyone for them, not to a bank and especially not to a council or the government.
I own a chainsaw. It is also mine. It is also paid for.
If I wish to introduce the latter to the former it is my decision and no one else's. That apparently is not now the case. I say apparently as it has not altered my behaviour around chainsaws or trees one iota. If I want to cut a tree down on my property I will do so and anyone who thinks differently can obtain some sexual gratification as they leave the building.
It was, therefore, with some delight that I read yesterday that one of the Government's sorely needed amendment to the RMA is to de-deify the common or garden tree. The blanket protection that every weed tree now enjoys is to be removed. And not before bloody time either. Any person who has pohutakawa roots uprooting the floor of his house (as is happening to my ex next door neightbour) will now be able to reach for the Husqvarna and sort the problem out in a sea of noise and 2 stroke. He will no longer have to get the 'permission' of some plonker down at council - which will probably be declined if their track record on these matters is anything to go by. He will no longer have to 'consult' an arborist - paid for by me.
Commonsense has prevailed. But how is this being welcomed by the weird beards whose days of ruling the country are now mercifully at an end? They are of course mortified. The end of the world is nigh (next Thursday looking favorite) Armageddon is just around the corner. We are bring warned that Titirangi and Langholm (nests of stupid plonkers if ever there was) will be turned into lunar landscapes by the end of the month. Developers are this very moment shipping in plane loads of Agent Orange. Napalm is suddenly very popular at Fletcher Construction. Every schoolchild is to be issued with a chainsaw.
Idiots. The proposed entirely sensible placing of trees into their proper station in life does not mean you have to waste every tree you come across. It just means that the current totally stupid blanket rules on every damned tree in the land which places it above your first born child in terms of importance are deservedly consigned to the rubbish bin of history.
I am a great believer that nothing is wholly right or wholly wrong. The last Government did not do everything wrong - very nearly but not quite. The current mob are not going to do everything right but they haven't stuffed up too much yet.
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