RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop in Parliament. Photo: RNZ / Angus Dreaver
The government has passed legislation to return New Zealand to using the old Resource Management Act, rolling back Labour's resource management reforms.
However, it keeps the fast-track consenting scheme and the spatial planning boards introduced by Labour.
The legislation passed its third reading in Parliament under urgency on Wednesday early afternoon, with governing parties all in favour and opposition parties all opposed.
The Natural and Built Environment and Spatial Planning Acts passed their third readings in August, bringing in a new system that aimed to - over 10 years - streamline consenting processes by front-ending more of the planning and assessments, rather than doing much of that work in the consenting stage.
It also aimed to improve environmental protection compared to the RMA by setting hardline limits and targets on things like pollution levels, rather than carrying out research to estimate the effects of a development every time a consent was needed.
National and ACT had opposed the legislation, however, and promised to repeal it if elected to government. ACT wanted a system based on property rights and NZ First had called for a system resembling Ireland's Town and Country Planning Act.
The solution agreed in the coalition agreements was to temporarily return to the Resource Managament Act 1991, adding the ability for fast-track consenting similar to what the Labour government brought in during the Covid-19 response, and had included in its RMA replacements.
Despite having agreed with the need to replace the RMA - and indeed having attempted to do so in its previous term in government - National questioned whether Labour's solution would really achieve what it was promising it would.
The party criticised the additional planning as an extra layer of bureaucracy - although the new bureaucratic structures set up would in fact reduce the number of plans required across the country - said the law's complexity would lead to costly court cases, and said the long timeframes for the full rollout of the new system was far too long.
National's leader Christopher Luxon at the time said the party would rather see a simpler set of standards with less discretion and capacity for interpretation by bureaucrats and courts, and National would present its own plan ahead of the election.
ACT said Labour's proposal would make things even slower and more complex, and said it should be replaced with a system that would prioritise the rights of property owners - allowing people to develop their own property as they saw fit as long as they were not harming others' enjoyment of their own property or harming the environment.
