Source: New Zealand Government
Introduction
Thank you for inviting me to speak with you today about the new resource management system the Government is introducing, starting this year. I want to acknowledge Hon Rachel Brooking, opposition spokesperson for RMA Reform, as well as Simon Court, my Under-Secretary, who I will invite to speak after me.
I would like to acknowledge the NZPI, David and Andrea, and the many planners here today, as key and influential players as the Government takes action to replace the Resource Management Act.
You, more than most, will understand the frustration and headwinds that the RMA has caused for everyone involved in the system – from applicants just wanting to get things done, to councils trying to implement and administer the RMA, to planners such as yourselves, and other experts, who are trying to do their best within what is a fundamentally broken system.
I am concerned that the social license of planning is at risk, with some seeing planners as stifling development rather than enabling it.
I accept that you have been working and operating in an uncertain and broken system. A system that encourages too much consultation and too much regulation for fear of landing yourselves court.
We are fixing the planning system. We are doing our part to improve the system, which means you have to do your part, too.
You have to properly balance the protection of the environment with the necessity of development, accepting that things like houses, supermarkets, and quarries are not nice to haves: they are essentials for human life.
We live in a free market economy, and not a planned one. Commerce and trade must happen, and it isn’t the job of the planning system to control or prevent those things.
You all have a critical role to play in New Zealand’s growth journey. We are a country that has been living beyond our means for too long – with an economy our size, that is thirsty for growth, we cannot justify being as restrictive and fragmented as we have been.
As a country, we have to start saying ‘yes’ a lot more, and ‘no’ a lot less. We have accepted our part we play in helping you do that, and I look forward to working with you on the part you need to play as well.
I know the NZPI has thousands of members and a long proud history of providing good advice and advocacy and I look forward to working with you on the replacement for the RMA.
As you know, earlier this week, Cabinet took decisions on a new resource management system. We’ve made some announcements including sharing the Expert Advisory Group report and recommendations, which I have heard has contributed to healthy discussion and debate at your yearly conference down here in Invercargill.
The need for reform
As you know more than most, the RMA is broken and is a handbrake on growth for the country and you can directly trace the onset of our housing affordability crisis to the introduction of the RMA.
It’s also too hard to build renewable energy, it’s too hard to get a road or quarry consented, it’s too hard to get roads built, it’s too hard to do anything.
That’s why it’s critical that over the next two years and beyond, we nail resource management reform.
The Government is committed to reforming the resource management system to drive economic growth and increase productivity by making it easier to get things done in New Zealand.
Our intention is to replace the Resource Management Act with two new acts – one to focus on land-use planning and the second to focus on the natural environment.
The new system will provide a framework that makes it easier to plan and deliver infrastructure as well as protecting the environment. But before I share further detail, I’d like to cover the significant progress we have made already.
As you will be aware, we have taken a phased approach to resource management reform.
Our first phase of resource management reform was the repeal of the Natural and Built Environment Act and Spatial Planning Act in December 2023.
The second phase was to deliver targeted changes to the RMA through two amendment bills, focused on relieving the most significant resource management issues in the short term, as well as fast-track and changes to the suite of national direction.
In October 2024, the first RMA Amendment Bill, came into force. This sought to reduce the regulatory burden on resource consent applicants as well as supporting development in key sectors, including farming and other primary industries.
In December the Fast-track Approvals Bill was enacted, and from February it has been open for referral and substantive applications.
The second of the RMA bills is now before the Environment Select Committee – and is a precursor to full replacement of the Resource Management Act. This Bill will make important changes in the short term to make it quicker and simpler to consent renewable energy, boost housing supply, and reduce red tape. The Select Committee is due to report back in June on this Bill.
Phase three
The third and final phase of the resource management reform programme is the full replacement of the RMA.
Last year, we established the Expert Advisory Group, ably led by Janette Campbell to develop a blueprint for replacing the resource management legislation. The Expert Advisory Group worked at pace, and I would like to congratulate Janette and the Group on the quality of the report and appreciate all their efforts in the later part of last year to deliver the Blueprint.
At the commencement of the reform process, Cabinet set 10 principles for the Expert Advisory Group to consider in the development of the Blueprint. The EAG report provides a broadly workable basis for the new resource management system, and the report has guided Cabinet decision-making on the broad architecture.
I say broadly workable – it is of course obvious to everyone in this room that with any planning system the devil is in the detail, and we do have more work to do.
Today I want to take you through the ten principles Cabinet asked the EAG to ‘build out’, and how they are being carried forward into the next system.
Narrow the scope of the system
The first of these principles was to narrow the scope of the resource management system and the effects it controls. The RMA right now just does far too much.
When you’re trying to manage for everything, often, you achieve nothing.
The new system will have a narrower approach to effects management based on the economic concept of externalities. Effects that are borne solely by the party undertaking the activity will not be controlled, while financial or competitive matters will be excluded.
For example, under the new system you will be able to change the interior or exterior of a building, which have no impact on neighbours, such as the size or configuration of apartments, the provision of balconies, as well as outdoor open spaces for a private dwelling.
The new legislation will narrow the scope of system, with the enjoyment of property rights as the guiding principle.
Now a lot of people are getting quite worked up about this. People often get obsessed about whether or not something is or is not a human right – and I must admit that a pet peeve of mine is the overuse of this label.
But something that is actually contained in the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights is that “no one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his property”.
When people are stopped from doing what they want on their own property, for no good reason, then in my view: that is arbitrarily depriving them of their property.
We have been very clear that the new system will protect property rights, so long as you are not impacting others. To be even clearer: I see protection of the environment as a fundamental feature of any regime built on these ideals.
Respecting private property rights within the framework of a market economy, while also protecting the environment is exactly what we will do.
Compared to the RMA, the new legislation will more clearly define the types of adverse effects that can be considered and raise the threshold for when those adverse effects must be managed.
This will be a significant transformation of New Zealand’s resource management system and marks a shift from a precautionary to a more permissive approach.
Both Acts will include starting presumptions that a land use is enabled, unless there is a significant enough impact on either the ability of others to use their own land or on the natural environment. This will reduce the scope of effects being regulated and enable more activities to take place as of right.
There will be a requirement for regulatory justification reports if departing from approaches to regulation standardised at the national level.
Subject to further detailed design advice, the legislation will also include protection against regulatory takings. This will allow affected landowners to seek recourse where it is found that unjustified restrictions placed on them.
We are also proposing a smaller number of consent categories that will make it simpler and more certain for applicants.
This includes removing non-complying activities.
8-10% of all resource consent applications every year are for non-complying activities. The gateway test in the RMA, creates a barrier to development even when applicants do everything they can to mitigate effects.
One point that I wanted to make today was in regards to the effects threshold, or the materiality of effects that is addressed by our resource management system. The RMA has led to a system that accounts for and address all effects, with only ‘de minimus’ effects discounted.
The EAG recommended lifting the threshold to ‘minor’ or ‘more than minor’ adverse effects, meaning that land-use is enabled, unless there are minor or more than minor effects on either the ability of others to use their land (in the Planning Act) or on the natural environment in the NEA.
The EAG point out that the RMA requires less than minor effects to be considered, including for who is involved in consenting processes i.e. who may be affected or whether a consent is publicly notified.
Cabinet has agreed to ‘raise the threshold for the level of adverse effects on people and the environment that can be considered in setting rules and determining who is affected by a resource consent’.
We liked where the EAG was going, but we want to take a look at this to make sure that we have the settings right, and that what we do will avoid as much as possible 30 years of litigation about what the proper definition of the thresholds are.
This has a real impact on how people interact and use the resource management system, and how decisions are made, so we do need to do further work here and I look forward to feedback on where we land.
Establish two Acts with clear and distinct purposes
The second principle was to establish two Acts with clear and distinct purposes, one to manage environmental effects arising from activities and another to enable urban development and infrastructure.
Cabinet has now recommitted to this, and can confirm that the new planning system will be made up of two new Acts.
The first act – The Planning Act – will focus on planning and regulating the use, development and enjoyment of land.
It will enable the urban and infrastructure development New Zealand needs and will align with the Government’s Going for Housing Growth plan and 30-year National Infrastructure Plan.
The second act – The Natural Environment Act – will focus on the use, protection, and enhancement of the natural environment. This includes our land, air, freshwater, coastal and marine water, and other natural resources.
Our natural resource management needs a clearer focus on what matters most in regulating the use, protection and enhancement of the environment.
Cabinet has accepted the EAG’s recommendation for only one set of national direction under each act.
National Direction under the Natural Environment Act will cover freshwater, indigenous biodiversity and coastal policy.
National Direction under the new Planning Act will cover urban development, infrastructure – including renewable energy – and natural hazards.
Strengthen the role of environmental limits
The third principle was to strengthen and clarify the role of environmental limits and how they are to be developed.
For environmental limits there will be a clearer legislative basis for setting them for our natural environment. This will provide more certainty around where development can and should be enabled, whilst protecting the environment.
Like I mentioned earlier, things like houses, supermarkets, and quarries are essential to any modern country. They actually aren’t nice to haves – they are must haves. A regime of environmental limits ensures that everyone’s obligations are clear, and developers have understood safe harbours to operate within.
While local variation will still be possible, designing the system around default pathways like this will provide greater investment certainty, and improve the timeliness of decision-making.
National standards
And that nicely brings me to the fourth principle, to provide for greater use of national standards to reduce the need for resource consents and to simplify council plans, so that standard-complying activity cannot be subjected to a consent requirement.
Nationally set standards, including standardised land use zones, will provide significant system benefits and efficiencies. The new legislation will provide for greater standardisation and ensure that policy setting happens at the national level, while local decision is enabled for the things that matter.
New Zealand does not need 1175 different types of zones. In Japan, which uses standardised planning, they have only 13 zones.
Standardised zones will significantly reduce the cost of plan development borne by councils.
Across New Zealand local government incurs costs of $90 million per year, developing consulting and implementing regional and district plans.
Under the new system, council costs for developing their own zones, definitions, policies, objectives, rules and overlays will significantly reduce, as these would be set at the national level. They will focus on where the zones developed by central government will apply, and develop bespoke zones, if needed.
An economic analysis of the EAG report estimated a halving in the overall costs of plan making and implementation, across the country. This could save an estimated $14.8 billion in council administrative and compliance costs, over a 30-year period.
A standardised system will also provide much more consistency for users working across multiple local government borders, a benefit that should not be underestimated. Inconsistent rules cause frustration and added cost for resource consent applicants who have to redo otherwise identical proposals to match local plan requirements.
In addition to cost savings, standardised zones will be more flexible and permissive than many of the zones applied by local councils. This will improve economic efficiency and provide more choice for businesses and consumers. I would expect, for example, this to help drive down the cost of building a house.
We will be looking to international examples of standardised zones. While we hope to go somewhat further in terms of standardisation than some of the Australian states have done, they provide a useful cross reference for us. Victoria replaced 2,870 zones with 25 standardised zones which enable a wider range of land uses and development.
Resource consents will still be needed under the new system, but with the new nationally standardized land use zones and more national standards, there will be much fewer resource consents required and more permitted activities.
Compliance monitoring and enforcement
The fifth principle was the agreement that the new system would see a shift from consenting before any works are undertaken, to strengthened compliance monitoring and enforcement after the activity.
We are acutely aware that if we truly want an enduring system that is enabling of development, we need to show Kiwis that this can exist at the same time as good environmental protection.
All users of the system need to be aware that while we will be enabling them, we expect them to follow the rules. And if they don’t, there will be consequences.
The new system will improve the consistency and strength of environmental monitoring and enforcement. This will ensure that whilst the new system will be more enabling, the rules for environmental protection will be clear and consistent across the country, and anyone seen to be flouting the rules will be more likely to have enforcement action taken against them.
This work will involve consideration of an entity like the Environmental Protection Authority to perform compliance and enforcement functions, and environmental monitoring functions centrally, removing these functions from councils.
This will be done in a separate legislative process and is not part of the two new Acts.
This, combined with other system changes (ie, national standards and zones) would involve a reduction in the role of local government which if progressed, could have wider implications for the structure of local government in New Zealand. The Minister of Local Government and I are working through these issues now, and expect to have more to say later this year.
Council plans
Each Act will require one combined plan per region – including spatial planning – with plan chapters being developed by each local authority, combined for each region, then presented as a national e-plan as per Cabinet principles six and seven.
This will result in a smaller number of plans overall, that will be simpler to use, and consistent across the country.
Spatial planning done right will enable housing and business development in places where constraints can be avoided or appropriately managed, as well as support early protection of infrastructure corridors and strategic sites, lowering the cost of infrastructure.
Cabinet has also agreed to establish a new planning tribunal for low-cost dispute resolution, as per the eight principle.
Uphold Treaty of Waitangi settlements
Critically, the ninth principle was to uphold Treaty settlements and the crowns obligations.
In the last few days, some people have been mischaracterising the Government’s position by saying there would be no treaty clause at all in the new planning system. This is untrue.
As per our coalition agreements, there will not be a generic Treaty clause that says that the act must give effect to or take account of the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi. The Government’s intent is that there will be a descriptive clause instead, that will recognise the Treaty of Waitangi and the uniqueness of the settlements entered into by Iwi with the Crown.
The problem with generic treaty principles clauses is they are open ended and amorphous, and they create uncertainty and legal risk for everybody. There is an opportunity through the development of more descriptive treaty clauses to really spell out everyone’s specific roles in the new system.
This may include refreshing provisions that provide for Māori participation in the RMA, making sure they are relevant in modern New Zealand and are achieving their underlying purpose.
We will also work with post-settlement governance entities to ensure that historical Treaty settlements and other arrangements, including rights acknowledged under Takutai Moana legislation, are upheld.
It is a bottom line for this government that we uphold and honour Treaty settlements that the Crown has entered into in good faith, and this includes in these reforms.
Having outlined the above nine principles, I hope you can agree that principle ten has clearly been achieved, which was to provide faster, cheaper and less litigious processes within shorter, less complex and more accessible legislation.
As I have said: the devil will be in the detail, and there is still water to go under the bridge. But with the EAG’s blueprint, I feel confident that we are going to get this done, achieving better outcomes for all New Zealanders.
Changes to Phase 2 national direction programme
Now those eagled-eyed viewers of government policy will remember the Government has an ambitious plan in Phase 2 of our reforms to update and modernize a series of National Direction to ensure New Zealanders experience gains in the short term from a more enabling system.
Our previously announced national direction program included 21 instruments, which collectively would have substantial implementation requirements of local government.
In light of the significance of the phase 3 reform, the Government has decided to relook at our Phase 2 national direction program and focus it to deliver on Government priorities while minimizing disruption to the resource management system.
Today I am confirming that we will still be progressing most of what was previously announced.
As promised, the planned freshwater package will continue, as well as changes to both national policy statements (known as NPSs) and national environmental standards (known as NESs).
Specifically: for freshwater – the package will include amendments to the NPS-Freshwater Management, NES for freshwater, the stock exclusion regulations, drinking water proposals and enabling vegetable growing and water storage.
In fact, all NES proposals will continue as planned. This includes new national standards on granny flats, pakakāinga, and amendments to existing standards on electricity transmission, telecoms, aquaculture, and commercial forestry.
Targeted changes to selected national policy statements (NPSs) will also continue, and will have immediate effect to support better decision making on the ground.
These include more enabling policies in the NPS Infrastructure, NPS-Renewable Electricity Generation, NPS-Electricity Transmission and the New Zealand Coastal Policy Statement.
Also as promised, we will also be progressing quarrying and mining consistency changes across NPS-Freshwater Management, NPS-Indigenous Biodiversity and NPS-Highly Productive Land.
We will do a narrow change to the NPS-Highly Productive Land – to remove Land Use Capability (LUC) class 3 from the definition of highly productive land, to help support cities expand but still protect key soils under LUC 1 and 2.
And finally a scaled back national direction on managing natural hazard risk to support councils managing significant risk from hazards.
Some of you may be disappointed that we aren’t progressing some policies, for example changes to the effects management hierarchy for things like electricity and infrastructure development, as well as more substantial changes to things like the NPS-Indigenous Biodiversity, and some changes to the NPS-Urban Development.
Last year I announced changes we intended to progress on the NPS-Urban Development. We are committed to progressing housing growth targets and strengthening density requirements. But if we made changes now to the NPS-UD, this would require councils undertaking substantive plan changes, which considering the new planning system will be up and running by 2027, forcing councils to undertake a costly and lengthy plan change now wasn’t really feasible.
So as part of the consultation on national direction we will include a package on housing and urban development, focused on how our proposals will port into the new system.
The new system provides opportunities to achieve greater urban outcomes, through standardized zones and spatial planning, so this is a little short-term pain for massive long-term gain.
I expect to release the detail of these changes in the next 2 months, and have them in place by the end of the year.
Conclusion
We’re acutely conscious that the Government is moving fast and we’re making a lot of changes to resource management law.
But we want to settle on a system that is enduring, so that we can get on with implementing it.
The Government wants a rapid transition to the new system.
Our intention is that both new acts are put in place together, along with prioritised sets of new national direction, as I outlined earlier.
We anticipate turning on the new system at a fixed date, rather than the 10-year timeframe under the previous Government’s reforms. Local government entities are expected to be able to begin implementing the new system from 2027.
We also recognize that in order to transition quickly to the new system, with minimal disruption, local government and others in the system will require implementation support, which we have started work on already.
What we are doing is difficult and complicated, but it will create a more enabling framework, one that protects the environment and sets environmental bottom lines.
As members of the planning community, you have a huge part to play in providing feedback and ideas on how the new system can work, along with supporting councils and others with implementation.
We need a resource management system that will help drive economic growth and increase productivity by making it easier to get things done in New Zealand.
I look forward to your feedback and to discussing your ideas, as we continue to create a better resource management system for everyone.
Thank you for the opportunity to speak with you today. I will now hand over to my Under-Secretary, Simon Court, who is assisting me with these reforms.
