Next stage of the Government's resource
management reform program announced
This will involve a comprehensive review of the Resource
Management Act including how it interacts with other relevant legislation
including the Local Government Act (LGA), the Land Transport Management Act
(LTMA) and the Climate Change Response (Zero Carbon) Amendment Act (once
passed).
The Government's overall objective for the review is to
improve environmental outcomes and enable better and timely urban development
within environmental limits.
The Cabinet Paper
outlining the various options for the review (including the Government's
preferred option, the proposal launched today, and reasons for its selection)
can be viewed here. The draft terms of reference for
the review can be read here.
What
will be addressed by the review?
The review aims
to address the following key issues:
- Unnecessary complexityof the RMA.
- Improving the quality
of plans and the coherence and effectiveness of national direction.
- Clarifying the
roles of central and local government.
- Strengthening environmental
bottom lines.
- Further clarifying the
role of Part 2, including consideration of whether Part 2 matters
should remain within the RMA or sit in a separate piece of legislation.
- Recognising objectives
for development (including housing and urban development).
- Ensuring that processes enable sufficient certainty for major infrastructure.
- Ensuring New Zealand's resource management system is sufficiently
resilient to manage the risks posed by climate
change, and that the RMA aligns with the Climate Change Response
(Zero Carbon) Amendment Act (once passed).
- Urban tree protection.
- Enabling a
new role for spatial planning across the RMA and the LGA and
LTMA to provide better alignment of land use planning and regulation with
infrastructure planning and funding.
- Ensuring that Māori
have an appropriate role in the resource management system,
including giving effect to Treaty of Waitangi settlements and clarifying the
meaning of iwi authority and hapū.
What
won't be addressed?
- Institutional reform is not anticipated but the review will
include considering the roles of the various resource management institutions.
- Matters relating to the marine environment New Zealand's Exclusive
Economic Zone.
- Existing Treaty settlements (except in terms of how any new
resource management system will provide for them).
Who
will undertake the review?
A new Resource
Management Review Panel will be established to carry out the review. Retired
Appeal Court Judge Hon Tony Randerson has been appointed as chair of the Panel,
with Lesley Baddon heading the Ministry for the Environment (MfE) team. Other
Panel members with skills in a wide range of resource management disciplines
will be appointed.
Is
there any opportunity for consultation?
Three phases of
consultation are identified in the Cabinet Paper:
- Phase 1 is consultation with a "targeted group"
including Māori. This group includes EDS, RMLA, NZPI, Forest & Bird, NZLS
and the Farmers Leaders Group.
- Phase 2 will likely involve a wider group, including further
sector and environmental groups, and iwi authorities.
- Phase 3 is public consultation which will begin following Cabinet
consideration of proposals developed by the Panel.
There will be
further opportunities for consultation once the Government has decided how it
will give effect to the Panel's recommendations, which we expect will be
through the introduction of one or more bills proposing amendments to the RMA
and other relevant legislation.
Timeline
for the review
- The Panel will produce an "issues and options" paper by
the end of October 2019, which will be used to solicit public feedback.
- Feedback received from this paper will be considered by the Panel
in preparing its final report.
- The Panel is due to provide a final report to the Minister by the
end of May 2020.
- This report is to include detailed policy proposals and indicative
drafting of key parts of any amendments or new legislation proposed. The
Government will then use the report to determine the way forward for its
resource management reform program in terms of more detailed policy, process
and transitional matters.
The Prime Minister has dubbed 2019 as the year of
"delivery" for the Government, and a comprehensive overhaul of the
RMA is one of the Government's key deliverables. While today's announcement has
been welcomed by many, and provides the first real look at the next stage of
the Government's reform program, the review process and timeline proposed mean
that we are unlikely to see any substantive reforms before the next election in
2020.
The scope of any reforms
that will come out of the review process also remains uncertain. Minister
Parker has said that New Zealand needs "a thorough overhaul of the law.”
It will be interesting to see how the Government grapples with the numerous and
complex issues facing the RMA at present, and how it balances this reform
process against the various other environmental work streams it already has
underway, and the challenging politics of RMA reform in New Zealand