While there’s broad agreement that the RMA needs fixing, there’s growing unease about what its replacement will prioritise – and who it will leave out.
Since 1991, the Resource Management Act has underpinned how we protect and use the whenua. It’s been the legal backbone of everything from subdivisions to sewage schemes — designed to promote “sustainable management of natural and physical resources”. It brought together councils, scientists, developers, communities and mana whenua to weigh decisions using the best available evidence.
It wasn’t perfect. But for more than three decades, it gave us a shared framework to balance development with environmental kaitiakitanga.
Under the Resource Management Act (RMA), most resource management decisions are made by local councils, guided by regional and district plans that reflect national direction and community values. If a proposed activity – like a new subdivision, farm expansion or wastewater discharge – might affect the environment, resource consent is often required. These consents are assessed against environmental standards, mātauranga Māori, local plans, and the potential impact on tangata whenua and the wider community. Mana whenua can be involved as affected parties, submitters, or in joint management roles.
While far from perfect in practice, this system provides a legal pathway for environmental and cultural concerns to be heard – and sometimes acted upon – before irreversible damage is done.
By the time of the 2023 election, it was clear the act’s days were numbered. Labour had just passed two laws – the Natural and Built Environment Act and the Spatial Planning Act – based on years of consultation and the 2020 Randerson Review. But National, Act and NZ First campaigned on scrapping those reforms and starting again.
Within its first 100 days, the coalition government delivered on that promise. The replacement laws were repealed, a new advisory group was formed, and the rhetoric ramped up: fewer consents, faster projects, and the “restoration” of property rights.
What we’ve heard since has been light on detail but heavy on ideology. Resource Management Act (RMA) reform minister Chris Bishop has promised a “radical” overhaul that cuts red tape and prioritises the enjoyment of private property. Many of the tools he’s mentioned – like spatial planning and environmental limits – are already part of the system. But there are some new elements such as a national compliance regulator, blanket zoning rules, and a proposed compensation scheme for landowners who lose value through regulation.
And then there’s the deletion of the Treaty clause.
This wasn’t a recommendation from the expert group. It didn’t come from Winston Peters’ ongoing review of Treaty clauses across 27 other laws. It came straight from Cabinet.
Māori development minister Tama Potaka temporarily forgot that detail when asked – forcing Bishop to clarify: “I don’t know what’s in Tama’s head,” he said, before claiming that generic Treaty clauses create “more legal risk”.
So far, there’s been no explanation of what exactly that risk is – or why te Tiriti, a constitutional foundation of this country, is being surgically removed from environmental law.
At the New Zealand Planning Institute’s conference in Waihōpai on March 28, Simon Court, the undersecretary to the minister overseeing the reforms, accused RMA decision-makers of “regulatory anxiety” – a supposed culture of caution, complexity and delay. The coalition’s solution? Simplify the system. Reduce what planners and councils are required to do. And, in his words, “close the doors to people with concerns”.
That isn’t reform. That’s exclusion.
Federated Farmers are thrilled. They’ve applauded the idea that councils might be forced to compensate landowners for environmental protections, reframing land and water as private commodities first and foremost.
Local Government New Zealand is cautiously supportive of simpler consenting and stronger central direction – so long as communities still get a voice.
Others are far more direct.
Rachel Arnott, Ngāti Ruanui kaiwhakahaere, says “this government has an ideological and political commitment to gut Tiriti-guaranteed rights of iwi, hapū and whānau”.
Graham Young, also of Ngāti Ruanui, calls it an effort to “trample key protections to the benefit of big business”.
Green MP Lan Pham, the party’s RMA spokesperson, warns the country is on track to “gift our most precious waterways to industry to make a quick buck”.
And all of this is happening as our environmental report card grows more dire. Nitrates in groundwater are rising, soil erosion is increasing, and climate change pressures are intensifying.
The government has promised two new bills to replace the RMA: a Planning Act and a Natural Environment Act. They’re expected before the end of 2025 and will likely be rushed through before the next election.
And while there’s broad agreement that the RMA needs fixing, there’s growing unease about what this new framework will prioritise – and who it will leave out.
As parliamentary commissioner for the environment Simon Upton warned when Labour’s reforms were repealed, “Environmental management law that flip-flops following every general election will not be good for either our economy or our environment.”
If you’ve spent time in resource management, you’ll know that even the most basic protections for te taiao are hard-won. In just the past year:
- Hapū fought to stop houses being built on wāhi tapu at Ōnoke, Whangārei.
- A mass tuna kill in Mataura led to a rare sentencing of accountability.
- A fast-tracked reclamation in Whangārei Harbour is cutting hapū off from a key stretch of coastline.
In each case, those resisting harm weren’t doing it for profit. They were doing it for whakapapa, for whenua, for future generations.
And despite the rhetoric, less than 1% of resource consent applications are declined. So much for a “culture of no”.
This new direction suggests something different: a system designed to serve those who are burdened – not by pollution or loss, but by inconvenience. A system that privileges profit over protection. That sees community values, mātauranga Māori and te Tiriti not as essential, but as obstacles.
Based on what we’ve seen, the guiding principle of this reform might as well be: “Let extraction proceed, undisturbed by best practice, local opposition, or anything that makes Aotearoa unique.”
But we can still demand better.
There is a chance to recentre this work in care, in evidence, in equity. To build a future-facing system that remedies the injustices of the past and protects what remains. That honours te Tiriti. That looks after our mokopuna – and their mokopuna – in a climate-uncertain world.
That’s what true reform should do.
