Wellington  - New Zealand's new conservative government took the axe Tuesday to the country's main environmental protection laws, saying they contained "suffocating red tape" blocking recovery from the year-long economic recession.

Prime Minister John Key, who heads a business-friendly administration elected in November after nine years of social-democrat rule, said the Resource Management Act (RMA) was a "handbrake on growth."

"We need to remove the barriers that stand in the way of improving New Zealand's infrastructure and the creation of new industries and jobs," he said.

Key announced that more than 100 amendments to the 17-year-old RMA would be introduced when parliament resumes after the summer break next week, fulfilling a campaign pledge to streamline the laws in his government's first 100 days in office.

Environment Minister Nick Smith said: "The costs, uncertainty and delays of the current act are adversely affecting New Zealand jobs, infrastructure and productivity and causing economic frustrations for homeowners, small businesses and farmers."

He said a lengthy appeals process which has blocked some developments for up to 15 years would be streamlined to impose a nine-month deadline for decisions on major projects of national significance.

Judges will be empowered to throw out "frivolous and vexatious" objections to projects and to penalise companies objecting to rival developments purely to defend anti-competitive positions.

Home owners will be freed of the requirement to get permission from local councils to trim or remove trees in their gardens that have been designated as of significant importance.

Key said the government would honour its environmental responsibilities by establishing a protection authority "to achieve national environmental goals."

While business leaders welcomed the announcement, Greenpeace, an environment pressure group, said the government was looking isolated as Britain's opposition Conservative Party leader David Cameron and new US President Barack Obama were making environmental action a priority.

Greenpeace spokesman Geoff Keey said that weakening New Zealand's environmental laws would weaken the country's "clean green brand image" its tourism and food production industries depended on at a time of economic crisis.

The opposition Labour Party's environment spokeswoman Nanaia Mahuta said the reforms were the result of a post-election pact between the ruling National Party and the right-wing ACT Party, which supports the government.

"Both these parties have a history of trying to ram through pet projects for their developer mates with scant regard for the public good," she said. (dpa)