Minister of the Environment David Parker hails Resource Management Act reform, opposition vows to replace it

Two of the three big reforms to the Resource Management Act (RMA) have passed their third readings in Parliament. 

They are the Spatial Planning Act and the Natural and Built Environment Act.

The Government says they will speed up and simplify the process of getting approval for projects such as housing estates or new business or industrial premises. 

But the National Party says the opposite is the case and has vowed to repeal the changes if elected in October. 

In pushing the reform process, the Minister of the Environment David Parker, says the RMA is well past its use-by date. 

"Today, the RMA is repealed and replaced by new legislation that is faster, cheaper and better," he says.

"It will save home owners and infrastructure providers a lot of money - hundreds of millions of dollars a year - and will have better environmental outcomes as well."

The RMA was passed in 1991 and was intended to be a comprehensive law governing the environment, land use practices and other issues such as zoning and sustainability. But it had many unintended consequences and at one point could even be used by companies to block competition.   

There were multiple efforts to reform the law but these were widely accused of making things worse. The RMA was regularly condemned as being anti-business and being a roadblock to economic development. But some environmental groups took a contrary view, saying it did not protect the environment enough.   

Parker says everyone agrees that the old act needed to be reformed and a new one put in its place. 

"The real test is how much money will (the new law) save," he says.

"That has been modelled by consultants....and it will save many hundreds of million of dollars every year.

"There will be more permitted activities, there will be less delay in both plans and consents.......the system is going to save a lot of time, frustration and money."

Parker says many applications will be fast-tracked and that could knock 15 months off the time needed to create a sub division for housing.    

Meanwhile he says the whole process of reform is not yet done. The Spatial Planning Act and the Natural and Built Environment Act were passed but the third leg of the reforms, the Climate Adaptation Act, will have to wait until after the election.   

The National Party, for its part, has repeatedly condemned the Government's reforms for being counter productive, and making the whole system slower and more expensive, rather than speeding things up.   

Both National and Act have vowed to repeal the reforms.

In a statement, the Act Party's Simon Court says the Government is wasting New Zealanders' time and money.

“Labour’s RMA re-tread commits all the same mistakes as the old system did, and will be scrapped by the next Government," he says. 

"Thankfully, Act has proposed a comprehensive replacement based on property rights that allows Kiwis to develop more and get things done." 

Court also says the Government has also adds "more divisive co-Governance" to the planning system.

"The Spatial Planning Bill .... lets Regional Planning Committees allow unelected officials to colour in maps showing where you can and can’t build," Court asks.

"What happened to the system where communities get to vote out councils that ignore them? Under this approach it's central planning by co-governed committees and goodbye to property rights."

But Parker celebrates the passage of the reform as a "once in a generation change."  And he says it gives applicants more certainty in dealing with iwi, not less.

"The RMA had great potential - it just did not work the way it was supposed to."  

He says the new laws that replace the RMA were five years in the making, and were supported by many lobby groups, public submitters  and an expert review panel.   

He says they deal with soaring costs, such as council fees for consents increasing by between 66% and 124% in four years, which pushed the total level well above that in comparable countries. 

"A cost-benefit analysis commissioned by the Ministry for the Environment estimates that, over 30 years, the new system is expected to deliver between $2.58 and $4.90 in benefits for every dollar spent," Parker says.

"System users will enjoy a 19% reduction in costs, or around $150 million per year.  The holding costs of delay also reduce.”