The two new laws that will rule our land
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How will New Zealand’s new planning and environment laws replace the RMA?
Oh, good eye. Just filing the old RMA 91 away in my special filing cabinet, also known as the Shredder.
I'm Alexia Russell, and today on the detail, a crash course on the two pieces of legislation replacing the Resource Management Act.
Parliament is finally getting rid of the RMA. It's gone, burger. We're replacing it with two new pieces of legislation: a planning bill. in a natural environment built. It's gonna make it a lot easier to keep things done in New Zealand. RMA's been a disaster.
This is Chris Bishop, the Minister for RMA reform.
Driven up the cost of housing, it's made it hard to do infrastructure, hard to be a farmer, hard to be a grower. I think most people know that. The new system, it's gonna cut costs, cut red tape, cut the green tape too. It's gonna protect the environment, we're gonna have environmental limits. It's gonna be a lot easier to build housing, a lot easier to build the roads and rail that we need, a lot easier to be a farmer and a grower. It's gonna cut consents, it's gonna cut the number of plans, it's gonna drive economic growth and prosperity. prosperity in short it's gonna set New Zealand up for success in the 2030s.
Sounds great, great for farmers, great for developers, great for construction, but there's a long list of people who say it's not great for anyone else, including Labour's Rachel Brooking.
It is about diminishing Maori involvement in any planning that has happened under the RMA. This act goes backwards from the RMA. This act Will lead to more flooding and more stormwater incidents because of the lack of planning. This act will lead to cell phone towers everywhere.
According to Auckland University planning expert Bill Mackay, the losers include Maori, Local Consultation, the Environment, Climate Change Action and Councils. And that includes ratepayers who may end up funding any council efforts to put the brakes on development. The replacement laws have also been criticised as hasty and incomplete legislation. Green's MP Julianne Genta was on the select committee.
It was a big waste of time. It was a big waste of my time sitting on the select committee because the chair was just like, let's just keep going, let's keep going. Rubber tip like absolute box ticker, absolute box ticker, not doesn't actually care about the outcomes for the country. And that's the problem with this government.
I love the Joel McManus line from a spin-off article a while back. No ordinary person should ever have to think about the Resource Management Act. But here we are thinking about it because the new version of it has just passed its third reading in parliament.
Um yeah, I mean Joel Joel's bang on with it as per usual. It's not uh exactly light bedroom reading or anything like that.
Newsroom political reporter Fox Myers joining me today to give us the guts of what is actually a huge change for the country, but one that many of us won't have to come to grips with.
We might not want to think about the RMA all the time, but we certainly think about all the things that the RMA covers and does. I mean, it really dictates all of the world around us here in New Zealand and the the new planning system will will do much the same. So, you know, consider this maybe a crash course in what's going on behind the scenes that is uh building the scenes you see in front of you.
Okay.
What was the RMA designed to do, and why did it become difficult to use?
Well let's start then with what the RMA was. How long? had this piece of legislation been in place. What what was it all about?
Well I mean the the RMA's been around for decades. I think nineteen ninety one it came in. It was a a pretty groundbreaking piece of piece of legislation at the time designed to dictate how we develop and interact with our the natural world around us. Um But, you know, over the years it's proven to be pretty clunky and slow and people are pretty frustrated by it. I think across the aisle everybody knew that it it needed changing. You know, this is not the first time that a government has tried to change this in The one that's just been passed, you know, is is is the shape that it ended up taking.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
How will New Zealand’s new planning and environment laws replace the RMA?
0:06–3:22
2
What was the RMA designed to do, and why did it become difficult to use?
3:22–6:06
3
Why was RMA reform needed, and how do the new laws prioritize property rights?
6:06–8:48
4
How could regulatory relief lead councils to weaken environmental protections?
8:48–12:39
5
How does the new system shift from restricting development to allowing it by default?
12:39–13:54
6
How much power will ministers have to set planning and environmental priorities?
13:54–16:21
7
When will the new laws take effect, and why has the reform process been criticized?
16:21–19:37
8
Can individuals and corporations be trusted to protect New Zealand’s environment under the new laws?
19:37–22:53