The two bills to replace the Resource Management Act (RMA) are in their final readings in Parliament tonight.
The Planning Bill focuses on how land is used and developed, and the Natural Environment Bill provides the framework for the use and protection of the natural environment.
The SMC asked experts to comment. Feel free to use these comments in your reporting or follow up with the contact details provided. Please contact the SMC if you need additional expert suggestions. Previous expert comments on the RMA reforms are available here.
Timothy Welch, Senior Lecturer, Faculty of Engineering and Design, University of Auckland, comments:
“The Government is selling these laws on speed: it expects about 45% of current consent and permit applications to go away, while more than 100 planning documents become 17 regional combined plans. Some simplification is certainly overdue, but fewer applications are not, by themselves, an environmental outcome.
“The new system shifts major decisions upstream to national direction and regional plans, while limiting who can participate at the permit level. Of concern is that the statutory National Policy Direction that will determine many of those trade-offs has yet to be finalised. Parliament has passed the legal framework before finalising many of the rules that determine what that framework actually protects.
“An even bigger problem is what counts as a cost under the new reforms. Councils can be required to provide “regulatory relief” when protections for biodiversity, landscapes, heritage or sites significant to Māori significantly constrain land use. Official advice gives a significant range: potential nationwide liabilities of between $7 million and $1.99 billion. The Natural Environment Bill Parliament has now passed also replaces a “no net loss” biodiversity goal with protection of “significant” indigenous biodiversity. Add reduced project-level participation and the removal of Mana Whakahono ā Rohe, and the risk is clear: decisions may be faster, but the safeguards are narrower and harder to apply. A weak environmental floor does not become a strong one because consent is faster.”
Conflict of interest: “No conflicts of interest to declare.”
Dr Joanne Clapcott, President of the New Zealand Freshwater Sciences Society, comments:
“The passage of the Natural Environment Bill and Planning Bill marks a major change in how Aotearoa New Zealand manages its environment. The New Zealand Freshwater Sciences Society supports efforts to make planning clearer and more efficient. However, we are disappointed that the final legislation does not adequately address concerns raised by freshwater scientists and many other submitters.
“Changing legislation does not change how rivers, lakes, wetlands and aquifers work. Freshwater systems have real ecological limits, respond to cumulative pressures and can be extremely difficult and costly to restore once critical thresholds are crossed.
“Environmental limits will be meaningful only if they are based on robust science and mātauranga Māori, backed by strong monitoring, and supported by action that prevents breaches rather than responding after degradation has occurred. We remain concerned that allowing environmental limits to be balanced against social and economic considerations risks repeating the incremental decision-making that has contributed to freshwater decline.
“The passage of the Bills is not the end of the process. Their success will depend heavily on the national instruments, regional plans, implementation arrangements and accountability mechanisms that follow. The Society will continue to contribute its expertise and scrutinise whether the new system delivers measurable improvements in freshwater health.
“New Zealand needs a durable environmental management system that protects freshwater ecosystems while providing certainty for communities and resource users. Healthy freshwater is not a barrier to prosperity; it is essential natural infrastructure underpinning our wellbeing, economy and future.”
Conflict of interest statement: “No COIs.”
Dr Steve Urlich, Senior Lecturer in Environmental Management, Lincoln University, comments:
“The Natural Environment Act (NEA) has a different definition of ‘Environment’ to the Resource Management Act (RMA).
“The NEA has removed ‘people and communities’ in its definition of ‘Natural Environment’ from being a constituent part of ecosystems, as in the RMA.
“The implication is that the ‘natural environment’ is separate to people and is there to serve humans.
“However, we know that our lives and livelihoods depend on, interact with, and take sustenance from freshwater ecosystems, tussock and forest landscapes, and the sea.
“We are an integral part of the ecology and depend on its health and resilience for our economic, social and cultural wellbeing.
“The statutory recognition of this is vital as the profound effects of climate disruption unfold, and therefore the NEA definition is a backwards step in the wrong direction.
“Another important issue is the removal of regional council powers to control fishing for the protection of diverse marine habitats.
“Many are fragile, being formed by living organisms. These support a profusion of life which captures and stores carbon, and provide myriad niches for many species.
“The Ministry of Primary Industries has largely failed to systematically identify and protect habitats of significance over the last 30 years under the Fisheries Act.
“Consequently, in places like the Marlborough Sounds, the seabed has been repeatedly destabilised by trawling and dredging.
“Large plumes of sediment are remobilised as the seafloor is broken up, and these plumes move elsewhere with the tides to smother shellfish beds such as scallops.
“Marlborough District Council has protected many remaining fragile habitats from bottom-contact fishing, but these safeguards may be stripped away when the NEA is fully implemented.
“The Environment Court recently found that the Marlborough Sounds is ecologically degraded.
“Resuspended sediment from fishing and unsustainable land use practices pouring in fresh new sediment loads are key drivers of this.
“It is possible that the new regulatory relief provisions in the Planning Act will make it too expense to address these issues.”
The first part of this comment was updated to improve clarity on 24/09/26 at the expert’s request.
Conflict of interest statement: “I was an independent (unpaid) expert witness to the Environment Court on behalf of the Environmental Defence Society in the Environment Court decision mentioned.”
Associate Professor Linda Te Aho, School of Law, Politics, and Philosophy, University of Waikato, comments:
“The Natural Environment Act and the Planning Act, now both enacted, form part of a complete reset of resource management and local government frameworks in Aotearoa New Zealand. The two new statutes prioritise the use and enjoyment of property rights. They replace the Resource Management Act 1991, once celebrated as world-leading for its focus on sustainable management and recognition of Māori laws and values, including kaitiakitanga.
“Māori have opposed a wave of legislative reforms and policy proposals that dilute references to the Treaty of Waitangi and undermine long-held rights and responsibilities of tangata whenua to participate in key decisions affecting environmental taonga that are central to Māori culture.
“Although the government says Treaty settlements will be protected, those settlements repeatedly acknowledge and apologise for excluding Māori from environmental decision-making – an exclusion that tangata whenua say has contributed to widespread degradation of the natural world. Historical accounts also support claims that Māori continue to experience disadvantage relative to the non- Indigenous population across a range of indicators.
“References to kaitiakitanga have been removed from the legislation. In recent months, the government has also retrospectively removed provisions for Mana Whakahono ā Rohe – local government mechanisms for iwi and hapū participation – undermining the coalition’s own Regulatory Standards.
“Another recent change concerns Te Ture Whaimana, a key mechanism in the Waikato River settlements. After months of negotiation, this primary direction-setting document for Waikato River decision-making has been included in the new legislation. However, the government has also deferred implementation of Plan Change 1 in the Waikato Region, overriding a court decision that followed decades of litigation. This deferral weakens protections for the Waikato River’s health and wellbeing and, in turn, the overarching purpose of the settlements.
“Other significant elements of the legal and policy reset include new fast-track processes, provisions affecting the conservation estate, changes to the test for establishing customary marine title, and proposals to amend the National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management (Te Mana o te Wai). Together, these changes pose serious risks to the health and wellbeing of our shared waterways, vital ecosystems, and the wider environment.
“The regulatory relief scheme in the new legislation, which requires councils to compensate landowners for changes that affect them, shifts the dial towards a ‘protector pays’ regime.
“Prioritising individual property rights and weakening Māori rights and responsibilities to participate in decisions affecting our taonga are presented as measures that promote economic development. Yet economic success and kaitiakitanga are not mutually exclusive. Māori have a record of world-leading business achievement – of being astute, and responsive to global consumer demand, while remaining grounded in their role as kaitiaki and caring deeply for people and the wellbeing of the environment for present and future generations.”
Conflict of interest statement: No conflict of interest.
Associate Professor Hamish Rennie, Environmental Management & Planning, and Head of Department, Lincoln University, comments:
“The passing of the Planning Bill and the Natural Environment Bill completes the destruction of integrated planning law exemplified by the world leading Resource Management Act 1991 (RMA). This process commenced under the previous Labour-led Government and so it is not surprising that Labour has indicated it would not repeal, but simply amend the legislation if it gains power. Having two Acts instead of one and having no clear relationships established between them and conflicting purposes is not the integrated approach that planners generally seek, however many of the integrative mechanisms that were in the RMA are renamed and reappear in the new legislation.
“The major problem with the RMA was in implementation. When it was implemented properly, the effective action of powerful lobby groups like the farmers in getting amendments to water down or remove the protections in the RMA essentially knee-capped it. The extent to which a Labour-led government would amend these new Acts will be the key issue and whether and to what extent it happens is dependent on the results of the election.
” The purpose of the Planning Act “to provide for the enjoyment of land “reflects a hedonistic disregard for the future and for the common good or public interest.
“The set of goals that are the foundations for this Act will be interpreted in light of that private enjoyment and this will involve a costly process of establishing new case law.
“Many planners, especially those trained or experienced in other countries, will enjoy the opportunity to be directive through spatial planning documents. This is a bit of a throwback to the 1970s when central government played a much more significant role in dictating the future development of the country based on its presumptions of what was high or low value.
“Ironically, both Labor and National Governments of the 1990s saw the weaknesses in this and opted for a market led approach to how planning would develop and built the RMA around forcing developers to invest in management practices or the technology (e.g. better cattle shed effluent treatment systems) to minimise their adverse effects on common goods like water.
“Hence the effects based spatial planning system of the RMA which is now giving way to governments determining what activities will take place and where they will take place. This goes counter to the market-led, rights-based neoliberalism that underpinned the RMA.
“In many aspects the new legislation retains environmental safeguards of the Resource Management Act, but these have been much weakened, for instance with descriptors like ‘high’ natural character that move the bar to achieve protection higher.
“The removal of the ability to control the effects of fishing activities on the environment is a significant step backwards. This will be a slap in the face of hapu who have found the instruments available under fisheries legislation are not fit for purpose.
“The transition will be messy, as transitions always are, but I am confident planners will rise to the challenges posed.”
Conflict of interest: “No known conflict of interest.”