Resource management update - August 2025 Twenty-Sixth edition
The RM Reform update is for people and organisations with an interest in the reform of the resource management system. If you would like to subscribe to these updates, please click here.
Kia ora koutou,
Welcome to the fourth Resource Management Reform Update of 2025.
As the lead agency for environmental policy, MfE continues to support the Government’s comprehensive resource management system reform.
In our June issue we covered the consultation process for proposed changes to several of the national direction instruments that local government uses to set regulations and plans nationwide.
Consultation was open from May until July, and the Ministry is now analysing submissions before providing advice to Ministers in September.
Our wide-ranging work on replacing the Resource Management Act 1991 with Acts for planning and the natural environment continues across many Ministry work programmes.
The Government’s intention is to not only replace but reset legislation so that it promotes system efficiency, unlocks development capacity for infrastructure and housing and economic growth across several sectors. This will inevitably change how resource use is regulated, how we use data, partner with local government and those involved with resource management and how performance is monitored across the new system.
Another critical component in developing the new resource management system is adaptation, especially in the context of environmental governance and climate resilience.
We look forward to updating you on legislative developments in these and other important areas, and on opportunities to provide feedback, as this work progresses.
Ngā mihi nui, nā
Nadeine Dommisse,
Deputy Secretary, Environment Management and Adaptation
The Government’s second RMA Amendment Bill has received its third reading in Parliament and was passed into law on Wednesday 20 August.
The Resource Management (Consenting and Other System Changes) Amendment Act makes a variety of changes to the Resource Management Act, ahead of the replacement of the RMA, by two new Acts which are expected to be introduced later this year.
There are five areas in the Act:
- infrastructure and energy
- housing
- farming and primary sector
- emergency and natural hazards
- system changes.
Following the first reading of the Bill in December 2024, it was reported back from the Select Committee with some changes to ensure workability.
Key changes introduced in the final stages of the Bill include:
- Greater housing development capacity around key sites on Auckland’s City Rail Link. Auckland Council must now allow:
- At least 15 storeys around Maungawhau (Mt Eden), Kingsland, and Morningside stations.
- At least 10 storeys around Mt Albert and Baldwin Avenue stations.
- Halting council plan and policy development, except where exemptions apply, until the end of 2027. Councils will be required to withdraw plan reviews and changes that haven’t started hearings within 90 days of the Bill’s enactment. (expected to come into effect in September 2025). There will be exemptions for some plan changes and reviews that are either new or already in progress.
- Heritage protection: the process for councils to delist heritage buildings will be streamlined. Heritage protection will be removed from the Gordon Wilson Flats in Wellington, meaning they can be demolished.
- Regulation-making power: a new Ministerial regulation-making power will allow the modification or removal of RMA policy or plan provisions that hinder development capacity, housing affordability, or economic growth. This power will include safeguards to protect Treaty settlement obligations and ensure transparency.
- Changes to discharge rules under Section 70 of the RMA: the Bill broadens what water discharges can be allowed as a permitted activity, provided councils can show that water quality will improve over time. Councils' ability to review marine farm consent conditions will also be constrained until September 2030.
- Freshwater planning in Otago: addressing the unintended consequences of the restriction on notifying freshwater planning instruments in relation to Otago Regional Council’s Regional Plan: Water for Otago.
- Including thermal electricity generation facilities in the one-year consent processing policy.
There were further amendments to the Bill at the Committee of the Whole House stage, including changes to provide for permitted activities where the activity will have effects on freshwater visual colour and clarity, and the suitability of water for consumption by farm animals, provided these effects are already present and the relevant plan can prove these effects will be improved over no more than 10 years.
The Bill also removes the requirement for councils to consider the effects of floatable or suspended materials when providing for permitted activities.
A summary of the Government amendments to the Bill is here, the list and links to all Amendment Papers for this Bill is available on the Legislation NZ website here.
The Minister’s press release is here.
Consultation on proposals to change, or create new, national direction instruments for infrastructure, development and the primary sector and freshwater closed on 27 July.
An overview of the scope of the consultation is available here.
Around 21,300 submissions on the freshwater national direction proposals were received by the close of consultation, with 600 on the infrastructure/development and primary sector packages.
The Ministry is analysing submissions and aims to provide advice to Ministers in September.
Submissions and Ministry advice could be made public after Ministers make decisions on progressing changes to freshwater national direction. If this happens another round of public consultation and submissions on exposure drafts for freshwater legislation will be held later this year.
All information on the national direction consultation is available here:
- Package 1: Infrastructure and development – Discussion document | Ministry for the Environmen
- Package 2: Primary sector – Discussion document | Ministry for the Environment
- Package 3: Freshwater – Discussion document | Ministry for the Environment
Consultation on the Going for Housing Growth Pillar 1 discussion document closed on 17 August.
The consultation is a joint effort between Te Tūāpapa Kura Kāinga – Ministry of Housing and Urban Development and the Ministry for the Environment.
The drafting of bills to replace the Resource Management Act 1991 is well underway.
The Government announced in March that it plans to replace the Act with a Planning Act and Natural Environment Act. It aims to introduce Bills in Parliament in late 2025 and pass these into law in mid-2026.
Ministry for the Environment staff have spent the last few months providing advice to Ministers who are making detailed policy decisions to inform the drafting of legislation.
The Ministry appreciates there is strong interest in how the proposed system will address resource management issues. We recommend that people who are interested in the reforms read the Expert Advisory Group’s blueprint report for replacing the RMA.
Cabinet has agreed that the blueprint report provides a workable basis for a new resource management system. Also, members of the group have been reviewing the policy advice the Ministry is providing to Ministers.
We also recommend you read the Cabinet paper that sets out decisions Cabinet made about key features of the new system in March. This will help you to gauge what policy Cabinet has already determined and what is still to be decided.
The select committee process will be the main opportunity for New Zealanders to have their say on the proposed system.
Further information is available on the Ministry website:
Changes to resource management | Ministry for the Environment
Since the Fast-track Approvals Act 2024 applications process opened on 7 February 2025, 23 substantive applications have been lodged with the Environment Protection Authority. Of these, the Fast-track team is undertaking one completeness assessment and four competing application checks; 14 applications are with expert panels and two are currently with the panel convener (who appoints expert panels to consider projects).
Two further applications have been returned to the applicants, one due to there being an existing consent on the proposed site, with the applicant having since relodged, and a second application was found to be incomplete and was returned to the applicant.
As applications are lodged and progress through the process, Fast-track application documents will be published on the relevant project page of the Fast-track website as soon as possible after the Fast-track team have finished their checks for completeness and competing consents.
Te Poka Pū Māori, a new online hub for iwi and hapū engaging in the Fast-track process, was launched this month.
Te Poka Pū Māori:
- provides information for iwi/Māori invited to comment on a project or are invited to participate in the panel processes
- outlines the role of iwi/Māori in the Fast-track application process
- sets out how Te Tiriti o Waitangi is being upheld
- provides contacts for more information.
The hub was developed by, and is supported by, MfE and the Environmental Protection Authority.