Environment Minister David Parker this morning released, as expected, that the 30-year-old RMA will be repealed and replaced over the course of the next three years, starting with a new Natural and Built Environments Act (NBA).
The NBA, as it is being called, will be introduced to Parliament late this year for passage into law by the end of 2022.
Two other new laws – a Strategic Planning Act and a Climate Change Adaptation Act – are scheduled for introduction to Parliament late this year with the “aim” of passing them ahead of the election scheduled for late 2023.
The reforms announced today follow the broad outline of an 800-page review of the RMA, led by retired Environment Court Judge Tony Randerson, released last July.
However, Parker has not accepted the Randerson review’s draft replacement legislation and today outlined a complex process of parallel decision-making that will occur from now until the NBA bill is introduced.
Instead, officials are currently working on an ‘exposure draft’ of the bill, which will be ready for consideration by a special Cabinet committee with decision-making powers in April, for release in May for public consultation.
A special select committee process will occur between May and September.
However, at the same time as the select committee is deliberating on public submissions, the Cabinet committee will be continuing between June and December to work up the detailed implementation of some of the most important elements of the planning processes that the new NBA will govern and make final policy decisions.
These include: consenting processes, designations, proposals of national significance, Environment Court workings, water conservation, allocation methods, compliance, monitoring and enforcement and transitional arrangements.
Among the most significant areas of debate is likely to be the final wording of the new ‘purpose’ clause of the NBA, to replace Section 2 of the RMA, which the Parliamentary commissioner for the environment Simon Upton has suggested has achieved quasi-constitutional status.
Upton shepherded the RMA into being in 1991 as minister for the environment in the Bolger National government, having inherited it from its original architect, Labour’s Geoffrey Palmer.
“The new legislation will focus on identifying and promoting positive outcomes for people, the natural environment and our urban spaces, and setting goals for achieving these outcomes, rather than focusing, as the RMA has, on preventing individual adverse effects,” notes accompanying today’s announcement said.
“It will also set out a series of biophysical limits to protect and recognise the concept of Te Mana o Te Taiao – the fundamental significance of the natural environment and the importance of prioritising its health and wellbeing” and making the Treaty of Waitangi a “critical consideration within the resource management system.”
“The purpose and supporting provisions of the NBA set out the essential premise of the legislation, drive the outcomes it will achieve, and guide the National Planning Framework and, in turn, local government plans.
“Getting this part right is essential to making sure that the legislation enables development within environmental/biophysical limits as intended. We will, therefore, continue to revise these ideas with input from New Zealanders as the reform progresses,” the reform briefing said.
The notes also warn the process of transition from the RMA to the new three-Act legislative framework “is expected to take a number of years”.
“It is likely there will be transitional provisions to ensure that the planning standards, other national direction, and the RMA as a whole, remains in effect until their replacements are developed,” the notes said.
“These provisions will provide clarity on what needs to be transitioned, when this needs to occur, and the mechanisms for doing so.
“For the moment, we encourage councils to continue with business-as-usual, with an emphasis on gathering evidence/data on the performance of their plans and establishing implementation practices that could be carried over into a future system.
“As the process for system reform is likely to span a number of years, there are risks of poor outcomes in the interim if councils do not continue to implement national direction requirements and other requirements under the RMA.
“It is important to ensure that the current system keeps operating, and that councils continue to implement key pieces of national direction” such as last year’s National Policy Statement on Urban Development – a key direction intended to increase the pace and availability of affordable housing.
The Ministry for the Environment (MfE) would work with councils “to ensure that no resources are wasted on processes and plans that are not timely or relevant to the new system”.
Often derided – both fairly and unreasonably – as a roadblock to economic development, the RMA was repeatedly reformed before a political consensus emerged around the middle of the last decade that there was a need to start again.
The major point of agreement was that NZ’s natural environment had continued to deteriorate, despite the RMA’s intention to promote economic and environmental sustainability.
Parker said today the new three-Act package would “improve the natural environment, enable more development within environmental limits, provide an effective role for Māori, and improve housing supply and affordability.
“Planning processes will be simplified and costs and times reduced,” Parker said.
“Other key changes include stronger national direction and one single combined plan per region. There will be more focus on natural environmental outcomes and less on subjective amenity matters that favour the status quo. Better urban design will be pursued.”
