EDS Addresses Questions On Resource Management Reforms

Tuesday, 18 March 2025, 5:06 pm
Press Release: EDS

EDS has published two new reports that address key questions facing policy makers in ‘phase 3’ of the government’s resource management reforms. Phase 3 involves replacing the Resource Management Act 1991 (RMA) with two new statutes based on the ‘enjoyment of property rights’ and is a key pillar of the coalition agreement between National and ACT. The RMA replacement Bills will be introduced later this year, with high level policy decisions to be taken soon.

The reports are part of EDS’s project on a Durable Resource Management System. The first report outlines the context in which reform is happening, while the second explores questions about the scope of the resource management system.

“Scope is about what kinds of activities and effects the resource management system should manage. It is a fundamental question that policy makers should confront,” said EDS Reform Director and report author Dr Greg Severinsen.

“The Government says that the current system is too broad in its scope and needs to be limited to deal with ‘actual’ or ‘material’ effects. This would narrow RMA concepts like ‘effect’ and ‘environment’, which are currently broadly defined, and possibly reduce regional and district council functions.

“The paper provides a framework for approaching questions of scope by looking at four distinct things that a future resource management system will need to do.

“First, it needs to protect and provide some way of allocating rights to use the ‘commons’ (aspects of the environment which lack, or have contested, property rights). For the most part, that’s an uncontroversial proposition.

“Secondly, it needs to address impacts that people can have on each other, notably in the urban context. A lot of this is about protecting, or at least defining, people’s property rights where they conflict. But people’s rights and interests, including those of Māori, don’t just arise from the ownership of land.

“Thirdly, it will need to protect the broader notion of the ‘environment’. This is about more than safeguarding common pool resources, like water, and addresses the appropriate scope of regulatory intervention on private land. There is significant public and intergenerational interest in land itself, including in the protection of indigenous biodiversity, elite soils and landscapes.

“Finally, the system will need to pursue positive effects, not just mitigate bad ones. Our natural environment has already been heavily degraded in places and needs restoration. Climate change will require proactive change. Urban planning is also a fundamentally positive approach to shaping places and communities, not just a framework for minimising conflicts and resolving disputes.

“Overall, we conclude that scope of the resource management system could be refined. Some things, like trade competition arguments and purely subjective effects, should be excluded. But constraints on scope need to be carefully targeted to where there are demonstrable problems with how the RMA has been implemented.

“Sometimes, what seem like unjustified regulatory intrusions into property rights are reasonable when put in context. For example, the purpose might be to mitigate flooding, reduce urban heating, improve energy efficiency or address impacts on other people’s property. While property rights are undoubtedly important, they are not absolute when there is a compelling public interest at stake.

“So while the RMA needs significant change, its problems are less about scope and more about process – how we get to a decision, how much it costs, and how certain outcomes are. This is a key message in numerous reports, including from the Randerson Panel and the Infrastructure Commission.

“We examine these issues, and others, in further reports that will be released shortly. To inform our thinking we are reviewing relevant international comparators, notably Singapore, Ireland, the United Kingdom and Australia.

“It has been a tumultuous time for resource management laws in recent years. Our work is intended to explore foundational questions about what a new system should look like and set the groundwork for a durable system in the future. Stability is now required,” concluded Dr Severinsen.

EDS is grateful to Forest and Bird and the Borrin Foundation for supporting its work on resource management reform.

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Environmental Defence Society

EDS speaks for the environment. It has influence.

Since 1971, EDS has been driving environmental protection in Aotearoa New Zealand through law and policy change. That's why it's one of this country's most influential non- profit organisations when it comes to achieving better environmental outcomes.

EDS has expertise in key disciplines including law, planning, landscape and science. It operates as a policy think-tank, a litigation advocate, and a collaborator – bringing together the private and public sectors for constructive engagement.

EDS runs conferences and seminars on topical issues, including an annual Environmental Summit and the Climate Change and Business Conference.

EDS is a registered charity and donations to it are tax-deductible.

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