After 30 years, there is hope

Chris Bishop and Simon Court announced:

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:

• 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.

The ones in bold are those especially important. If they can turn these principles or design features into law, that will be a very good thing.