The RMA has defeated its own purpose. It aimed to deliver sustainable management. Instead, it delivered a housing crisis, $1.3 billion a year in infrastructure consenting costs, 1,175 different zoning categories, and declines in freshwater quality and indigenous biodiversity - the environmental outcomes most directly within the planning system's control.
So when the Government set out its ten principles for replacing the RMA in late 2024, there was genuine reason for optimism. The Cabinet paper was clear: the new system's starting point would be the enjoyment of property rights and respect for the rule of law. The scope of what could be regulated would be narrowed. Nationally standardised zones would replace the bewildering patchwork of local rules. Environmental limits would be based on quantitative data and not be overly prescriptive. Consenting would be drastically reduced. It was, for the first time in a generation, the right diagnosis and the right direction.
An Expert Advisory Group turned those principles into a ‘Blueprint’. Cabinet broadly endorsed it. The direction was set. Then the Bills arrived.
The Natural Environment Bill and the Planning Bill, introduced to Parliament in December, follow the Blueprint in their broad architecture. The two-Act structure is there. Standardised zones, environmental limits, spatial planning - the headline features all appear. Much of what The New Zealand Initiative has advocated for over a decade is reflected in their intent. That is worth acknowledging.
But legislation lives in its detail. And in the detail, something has gone wrong. Between the blueprint and the Bills, key disciplines were weakened, removed or deferred to regulations that do not yet exist and may not for years. The reform has not been abandoned – but it is being quietly thwarted.
Consider property rights. The 2024 Cabinet paper said respect for property rights should be the default position under the new system. But neither Bill mentions property rights as a purpose or among its goals. They are only alluded to in limited circumstances. In stark contrast, the Public Works Act embodies the principles that the Crown should not take private property without a good public interest reason and when it does it should pay full compensation, even for damage to property that is not taken. Without safeguards in the legislation, property rights are little more than a pious aspiration.
Some will say, ‘so what’? The international evidence on institutional foundations of prosperity, recognised by the 2024 Nobel Prize in Economics, is unambiguous: secure property rights and constrained state discretion are preconditions for sustained economic development. As for the environment, the Soviet Union had no respect for property rights. Its environmental record was quite literally disastrous.
Exacerbating this failure in follow through, the Bills dropped the need for a net public benefit justification for restrictions by omitting entirely section 32 of the RMA. This provision required an evaluation of whether proposed rules were the most appropriate way to achieve their objectives, and an assessment of their costs and benefits. It was imperfect, often a box-ticking exercise, but the Bills dropped it entirely and replaced it with nothing. The proper response to an ineffective discipline is to strengthen it, not to scrap it.
The Bills confer far too much power on ministers. They will set national policy directions, national standards, standardised zones, and environmental limits. It might be 2029 before all this is in place. Parliament does not know what those decisions will be. It is being asked to build the frame of a house without knowing its floor plan.
The goals of the legislation - the top of the statutory hierarchy from which everything else flows - are multiple, competing, unranked and unconstrained by cost considerations. The Planning Bill lists nine categories of goals pulling in different directions. They have no balancing point where ‘enough is enough’. The Natural Environment Bill adds its own competing ‘nice to have’ objectives. Priorities are anyone’s guess. The Bills offer no guidance about what to do when, for example, enabling development clashes with protecting natural character, as it inevitably will. Unless the legislation is clear on this, the courts will be called on to decide.
Clarity is further undermined by undefined terms like "inappropriate development" and "not unreasonably affect others". These terms sit at the top of the hierarchy. Litigation over their meaning under a new framework is likely here too.
The Bills are currently before the Environment select committee. It can recommend some principled amendments to align the Bills more with Cabinet’s intentions. One could incorporate Cabinet’s explicit and central instruction to protect people’s ability to enjoy their property. Another would require a meaningful net public benefit justification for restrictive measures, including environmental limits. The Public Works Act’s compensation principles could be added. And clearly defined terms should replace the subjective language in their goals.
The Government deserves real credit for getting RMA reform to this point in under three years. Unfortunately, the Bills do not adequately embody its intentions.
The select committee has an important opportunity to put this right. It should take it.
Nick is a Senior Fellow at The New Zealand Initiative, focusing on local government, resource management, and economic policy. This article was sourced HERE
An Expert Advisory Group turned those principles into a ‘Blueprint’. Cabinet broadly endorsed it. The direction was set. Then the Bills arrived.
The Natural Environment Bill and the Planning Bill, introduced to Parliament in December, follow the Blueprint in their broad architecture. The two-Act structure is there. Standardised zones, environmental limits, spatial planning - the headline features all appear. Much of what The New Zealand Initiative has advocated for over a decade is reflected in their intent. That is worth acknowledging.
But legislation lives in its detail. And in the detail, something has gone wrong. Between the blueprint and the Bills, key disciplines were weakened, removed or deferred to regulations that do not yet exist and may not for years. The reform has not been abandoned – but it is being quietly thwarted.
Consider property rights. The 2024 Cabinet paper said respect for property rights should be the default position under the new system. But neither Bill mentions property rights as a purpose or among its goals. They are only alluded to in limited circumstances. In stark contrast, the Public Works Act embodies the principles that the Crown should not take private property without a good public interest reason and when it does it should pay full compensation, even for damage to property that is not taken. Without safeguards in the legislation, property rights are little more than a pious aspiration.
Some will say, ‘so what’? The international evidence on institutional foundations of prosperity, recognised by the 2024 Nobel Prize in Economics, is unambiguous: secure property rights and constrained state discretion are preconditions for sustained economic development. As for the environment, the Soviet Union had no respect for property rights. Its environmental record was quite literally disastrous.
Exacerbating this failure in follow through, the Bills dropped the need for a net public benefit justification for restrictions by omitting entirely section 32 of the RMA. This provision required an evaluation of whether proposed rules were the most appropriate way to achieve their objectives, and an assessment of their costs and benefits. It was imperfect, often a box-ticking exercise, but the Bills dropped it entirely and replaced it with nothing. The proper response to an ineffective discipline is to strengthen it, not to scrap it.
The Bills confer far too much power on ministers. They will set national policy directions, national standards, standardised zones, and environmental limits. It might be 2029 before all this is in place. Parliament does not know what those decisions will be. It is being asked to build the frame of a house without knowing its floor plan.
The goals of the legislation - the top of the statutory hierarchy from which everything else flows - are multiple, competing, unranked and unconstrained by cost considerations. The Planning Bill lists nine categories of goals pulling in different directions. They have no balancing point where ‘enough is enough’. The Natural Environment Bill adds its own competing ‘nice to have’ objectives. Priorities are anyone’s guess. The Bills offer no guidance about what to do when, for example, enabling development clashes with protecting natural character, as it inevitably will. Unless the legislation is clear on this, the courts will be called on to decide.
Clarity is further undermined by undefined terms like "inappropriate development" and "not unreasonably affect others". These terms sit at the top of the hierarchy. Litigation over their meaning under a new framework is likely here too.
The Bills are currently before the Environment select committee. It can recommend some principled amendments to align the Bills more with Cabinet’s intentions. One could incorporate Cabinet’s explicit and central instruction to protect people’s ability to enjoy their property. Another would require a meaningful net public benefit justification for restrictive measures, including environmental limits. The Public Works Act’s compensation principles could be added. And clearly defined terms should replace the subjective language in their goals.
The Government deserves real credit for getting RMA reform to this point in under three years. Unfortunately, the Bills do not adequately embody its intentions.
The select committee has an important opportunity to put this right. It should take it.
Nick is a Senior Fellow at The New Zealand Initiative, focusing on local government, resource management, and economic policy. This article was sourced HERE
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