Two new laws will be developed to replace the Resource Management Act (RMA), with the enjoyment of property rights as their guiding principle, RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop and Parliamentary Under-Secretary Simon Court say.
“The RMA was passed with good intentions in 1991 but has proved a failure in practice.
Finally, there is hope. It has been clear for decades the RMA is extremely flawed. The only thing worse than the RMA was Labour’s replacement law in 2023 which was so terrible it made the RMA look great.
The 10 core design features on the new laws are:
The 10 core design features on the new laws are:
- Narrow the scope of the resource management system to focus on managing actual effects on the environment.
- Establish two Acts with clear and distinct purposes – one to manage environmental effects arising from activities, and another to enable urban development and infrastructure.
- Strengthen and clarify the role of environmental limits and how they are to be developed.
- Provide for greater use of national standards to reduce the need for resource consents and simplify council plans. This would mean that an activity which complies with the standards cannot be subject to a consent requirement.
- Shift the focus away from consenting before activities can get underway, and towards compliance, monitoring and enforcement of activities’ compliance with national standards.
- Use spatial planning and a simplified designation process to lower the cost of future infrastructure.
- Realise efficiencies by requiring one regulatory plan per region, jointly prepared by regional and district councils.
- Provide for a rapid, low-cost resolution of disputes between neighbours and between property owners and councils, with the potential for a new Planning Tribunal (or equivalent).
- Uphold Treaty of Waitangi settlements and the Crown’s obligations.
- Provide faster and cheaper processes with less reliance on litigation, contained within shorter and simpler legislation that is more accessible.
David Farrar runs Curia Market Research, a specialist opinion polling and research agency, and the popular Kiwiblog where this article was sourced. He previously worked in the Parliament for eight years, serving two National Party Prime Ministers and three Opposition Leaders.
1 comment:
David says: "Finally, there is hope" and cites the 10 core design features of the new laws. One of the "especially important" ones mentions shifting the focus away from consenting before activities towards compliance, monitoring and enforcement (CME) of activities’ compliance with national standards. David is absolutely correct, however as I pointed out in a recent post, New Zealand has an endemic problem when it comes to CME. Why? Well, put simply there is currently an almost complete lack of CME capability in this Country - I know, I spent almost my entire career doing it elsewhere. Here, rules and/or standards are established with a naive assumption on the part of politicians, etc. that simply by putting in place a rule or law it will be followed. As rules in NZ are established with very little if any consideration or provision for CME, it does not take long for those in our society (I won't say who as it is pretty well obvious) who are very adept at exploiting this failing to capture the regulations and move on to do just what they want since they know there will be little chance of facing any consequence. Aside from lacking expertise in CME, NZ is full of regulatory capture to the extent that effective CME is a complete joke.
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