Changes to resource management

Cabinet has agreed that the new resource management system will make it easier to get things done by:

• Unlocking development capacity for housing and business growth.
• Enabling delivery of high-quality infrastructure for the future, including doubling renewable energy.
• Enabling primary sector growth and development, including aquaculture, forestry, pastoral, horticulture, and mining.

The new resource management system must achieve these objectives while also:

• Safeguarding the environment and human health.
• Adapting to the effects of climate change and reducing the risks from natural hazards.
• Improving regulatory quality in the system.
• Upholding Treaty of Waitangi settlements and other related arrangements.

Phase One was the repeal of the Natural and Built Environment Act and the Spatial Planning Act. This was completed in December 2023.

Read more about the repeal of the Natural and Built Environment Act and the Spatial Planning Act

Read the Minister’s speech to the New Zealand Planning Institute conference on 22 March 2024 [Beehive website].

Read the proactively released Cabinet minute and Cabinet paper on the RM Reform roadmap from 22 March 2024.

Fast-track Approvals Act

Phase Two started with the introduction of the Fast-track Approvals Bill. The Bill was introduced to Parliament in March 2024, before going to the Environment Select Committee for scrutiny. It passed its final readings in Parliament and became law in December 2024.

The Fast-track Approvals Act's purpose is to deliver infrastructure and other development projects with significant regional or national benefits.  

The Act’s one-stop-shop approach consolidates and speeds up the multiple approval processes under different legislation which are typically required for large and/or complex projects.

A broad range of projects will have access to the fast-track process if they meet eligibility criteria.  Projects may include infrastructure, housing, resource extraction, aquaculture, renewable energy, and other developments.

The Act proposes a number of protections for Treaty settlements, other arrangements and Māori rights and interests.

Read more about the Fast-track Approvals Act

First resource management amendment Bill passed 

The Resource Management (Freshwater and Other Matters) Amendment Act 2024 was introduced to Parliament in May 2024 and came into force on 25 October 2024.  

The Act amends the Resource Management Act 1991 (RMA) and several national direction instruments.    

The Act has nine key changes that:

1. Exclude the hierarchy of obligations in the National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management (NPS-FM) from resource consenting while a review and replacement of the NPS-FM is undertaken.
2. Repeal the low slope map and associated requirements from stock exclusion regulations.
3. Repeal the permitted and restricted discretionary activity regulations and associated conditions for intensive winter grazing from the National Environmental Standards for Freshwater (NES-F) and replaces these with new regulations for setbacks from waterways and critical source areas
4. Align the provisions for coal mining with other mineral extraction activities under the National Policy Statement for Indigenous Biodiversity (NPS-IB), NPS-FM and NES-F.
5. Suspend for three years requirements under the NPS-IB for councils to identify new Significant Natural Areas (SNAs) and include them in district plans. The Bill also extends some SNA implementation timeframes.
6. Speed up and simplifies the process for preparing and amending national direction, including national environmental standards, national planning standards, national policy statements and the New Zealand Coastal Policy Statement.
7. Clarify councils’ ability to consent discharges that would result in significant adverse effects, provided receiving waters are already subject to such effects, and conditions reduce effects over time.
8. Pause the rollout of freshwater farm plans until work to improve the system is finalised. 
9. Restrict notification of freshwater planning instruments (regional policy statements and plans that give effect to the NPS-FM 2020) until a new NPS-FM takes effect or 31 December 2025. This applies from 22 October 2024.  

Read more about the Resource Management (Freshwater and Other Matters) Amendment Act 2024

Read the Primary Production Select Committee report on the Bill [New Zealand Parliament website]

Earlier announcements on the Bill 

Resource Management (Freshwater and Other Matters) Amendment Bill [New Zealand Legislation website]  

First amendment Bill introduced to Parliament (23 May 2024) [Beehive website] 

Urgent changes to system through first RMA amendment Bill (23 April 2024) [Beehive website] 

Second RMA amendment Bill

The Resource Management (Consenting and Other System Changes) Amendment Bill was introduced to Parliament in December 2024 and has been referred to the Environment Select Committee for consideration.  

Submissions closed on 10 February 2025. Submissions have been published by the committee and can be viewed with information on the progress of the Bill.

View information on the Bill [New Zealand Parliament website].

The Bill can be grouped into four packages.

The infrastructure and energy package: 

• Extends the duration of port coastal permits by a further 20 years and provides requiring authority status to ports to allow them to designate land.
• Gives effect to the Government’s Electrify NZ reforms to make it easier to consent renewable energy, including by:
  • Establishing 35-year default consent duration for renewable energy activities, and certain long-lived infrastructure.
  • Extending the default lapse period of consents associated with renewable energy activities from 5 years to 10 years.
  • Establishing a one-year consent processing timeframe for renewable energy activities.
• Extends the default lapse period of designations from 5 years to 10 years.
• Simplifies information requirements for designating authorities.  

The housing package:

• Enables the first pillar of the Government’s Going for Housing Growth policies by unlocking land for development.
• Requires councils to demonstrate compliance with the 30-year Housing Growth Targets. These targets will be established through revising the National Policy Statement on Urban Development.
• Makes changes to the Streamlined Planning Process (SPP) to allow councils to opt out of, or modify, the Medium Density Residential Standards. Amendments include requiring the use of an SPP panel of independent hearings commissioners, and making the council, rather than the Minister, the final decision maker.  
• Provides the Minister for the Environment with new intervention powers to ensure compliance with national direction, including Housing and Business Development Capacity Assessments required by the National Policy Statement on National Development.  
• Enables councils to use the Streamlined Planning Process to de-list heritage buildings, making it easier for owners to modify or demolish these buildings under appropriate circumstances. 

The farming and primary sector package: 

• Reduces regulatory overlap between the RMA and the Fisheries Act 1996.  
• Provides more flexibility for marine farms by enabling changes to consent conditions for aquaculture. 
• Amends Part 9A of the RMA, to better enable industry bodies to deliver farm plan certification and audit services. 
• Establishes a one-year consent processing timeframe for wood processing activities. 

The system improvements and natural hazards package:  

• Makes changes to emergency provisions under the RMA – including introducing a regulation-making power for the Minister for the Environment to use in the event of an emergency or to assist recovery efforts.
• Clarifies and strengthens councils’ ability to decline land use consents, or impose relevant conditions, where there is significant natural hazard risk.  
• Amends the compliance regime to better deter offences under the RMA.  
• Makes technical amendments to Department of Conservation functions to improve their ability to monitor discharges and engage in compliance and enforcement activities. 
• Provides consenting efficiencies by clarifying the scope of further information requests, reducing the need for hearings where appropriate, and specifying that applicants can request to review draft consent conditions.  
• Changes to sand and shingle royalties under the RMA, to align terminology with other legislation and validate the payment of past royalties. 

After consideration by the Environment Select Committee, it is expected the second RMA amendment bill will be passed into law in mid-2025.

The changes in this Bill will be supported by further changes to national direction instruments. More information on these complementary changes will be available in due course.

Replacing the RMA

The Government is proposing to replace the Resource Management Act 1991 (RMA) with two new laws.

• A Natural Environment Act – focused on managing the natural environment.  
• A Planning Act – focused on planning to enable development and infrastructure. 

The Natural Environment Act will focus on the use, protection, and enhancement of the natural environment. This includes our land, air, freshwater, coastal and marine water, and other natural resources. 

The Planning Act will focus on land-use planning and regulation. It will enable the urban and infrastructure development that New Zealand needs and align with the Government’s Going for Housing Growth plan and the 30-year National Infrastructure Plan.  

Read the Government's Going for Housing Growth plan.

Read the National Infrastructure Plan - Te Waihanga - New Zealand Infrastructure Commission.

The Government aims to introduce Bills in late 2025 and pass Bills into law in mid-2026. The Select Committee process will be the main mechanism for public consultation. 

System shift 

The new legislation will narrow the scope of the resource management system and the effects it controls, with the enjoyment of private property rights as the guiding principle.  

A shift from a precautionary to a more permissive approach will unlock development, streamline processes, and help New Zealand to meet its housing, infrastructure, and environmental objectives. 

Expert Advisory Group

An Expert Advisory Group (EAG) was established in September 2024 to prepare a blueprint to replace the RMA.

Read the EAG’s terms of reference.

The group was made up of experts with relevant technical knowledge covering subjects, including resource management law, planning and te ao Māori. 

Read the RM Reform Expert Advisory Group members' biographies.

Cabinet agreed that the EAG should base its blueprint on 10 principles. 

• Narrow the scope of the effects it controls. 
• Establish two Acts with clear and distinct purposes – one to manage environmental effects arising from activities and another to enable urban development and infrastructure. 
• Strengthen and clarify the role of environmental limits and how they are to be developed. 
• Provide for greater use of national standards to reduce the need for resource consents and to simplify council plans, so that standard-complying activity cannot be subjected to a consent requirement.  
• Shift the system focus from consenting before works are undertaken to strengthened compliance monitoring and enforcement.  
• Use spatial planning and a simplified designation process to lower the cost of future infrastructure.  
• Achieve efficiencies by requiring one regulatory plan per region jointly prepared by regional and district councils. 
• Provide for rapid, low-cost resolution of disputes between neighbours and between property owners and councils, with a Planning Tribunal (or equivalent) providing an accountability mechanism.  
• Uphold Treaty of Waitangi settlements and the Crown’s obligations.  
• Provide faster, cheaper and less litigious processes within shorter, less complex and more accessible legislation. 

The blueprint the EAG developed addresses the main failings of the RMA and provides a workable package of 21 key recommendations that are ambitious and wide ranging 

The EAG’s blueprint addresses the main failings of the RMA and provides a workable package of 21 key recommendations that are ambitious and wide ranging. A system based on the EAG blueprint will be simpler, faster, more effective, and provide proportionate and measured responses to land and resource use.    

Read the EAG’s blueprint report.

Given the short time available for what was a substantial task, the EAG had to limit its advice to what it considered to be the most significant aspects of the proposed replacement legislation.  

It was also unable to discuss some issues in sufficient depth to reach consensus. For that reason, some recommendations were made by majority. Although Paul Melville was a member of the EAG, he is recorded as having his own view. 

Read the minority report.

Narrower scope 

The new system will: 

• manage a narrower scope of effects  
• define more closely what effects may be considered 
• raise the threshold of effects that are permitted 
• not control activities if land use effects are borne solely by the party undertaking the activity. 

This means that there would be a higher bar for regulatory restrictions on property, enabling property owners property owners to use their properties as they see fit. 

National policy direction 

There will be one set of national policy direction under each new act to: 

• provide direction on the purpose of the primary legislation 
• simplify, streamline, and direct local government plans and decision-making 
• declutter the existing set of RMA national policy statements. 

This will help to ensure that councils and others implement the legislation in an efficient and nationally consistent way.  

It will also provide guidance on how to resolve conflicts between competing priorities. 

Direction under the new Natural Environment Act will cover matters including:  

• freshwater   
• indigenous biodiversity   
• coastal policy.   

Direction under the new Planning Act will cover matters including:  

• urban development   
• infrastructure (including renewable energy)   
• natural hazards.   

Standardisation of the system 

The new system will introduce nationally standardised land-use zones that councils select and apply in a combined district plan. This will: 

• help councils to take a similar approach to the same issues faced in other parts of the country  
• maintain local decision-making if bespoke requirements are needed to meet specific community needs or preferences. 
• provide system efficiencies and reduce the financial burden on communities. 

Environmental limits and natural resource allocation  

There is agreement that the RMA’s ‘first in, first served’ approach to allocating natural resources is inefficient and inequitable when resources are scarce.  

It lacks incentives for resources to be used efficiently and does not enable higher value uses.  

The EAG recommended a more deliberate framework for natural resource allocation and charging for use.   

The new system will provide a better legal framework for setting environmental limits to protect natural resources and provide more certainty about where development can and should be enabled.  

Streamlining the system 

Under the new system, there will be one combined plan per region. Each combined plan will include: 

• a spatial planning chapter 
• an environment chapter to regulate natural resource use 
• one planning chapter for each territorial authority district to regulate land use and utilise standard zones.  

This will result in a smaller number of plans that will be simpler to use, and consistent across the country. 

Spatial plans will provide long-term, strategic direction to simplify and streamline the system. This will allow development within constraints, and better align land use, infrastructure planning and investment. 

Cabinet has agreed to reduce the number of plans and policies in the system. A combined plan will include a spatial planning chapter, an environment chapter and planning chapters (one per territorial authority district). Spatial plans will provide long-term, strategic direction to simplify and streamline the system.  This will allow development within constraints, and better align land use, infrastructure planning, and investment.  

Resource consents 

Fewer resource consents will be needed under the new system because there will be more permitted activities, nationally standardised land use zones and more national standards. 

There will also be a smaller number of consent categories, making it simpler and more certain for applicants. 

People who are not directly affected by an activity will not be able to object or relitigate an issue. 

Compliance and enforcement 

The effectiveness of compliance and enforcement varies, depending on the approaches that councils take and the resources they have available. 

There will also be changes to the consent compliance and enforcement regime to reduce variations in how this important function is applied.  

A national compliance and enforcement regulator will be set up to ensure a more consistent and effective approach. This will be done in a separate legislative process and not part of the two new laws. 

The new regulator will reduce the lack of consistency in compliance and enforcement activities across regions and enable a more effective response to non-compliance. 

A new planning tribunal will provide for faster and low-cost dispute resolution and lessen reliance on the courts.

Read an economic impact analysis of the proposed reforms.