Hon Chris Bishop
Minister Responsible for RMA Reform

Good afternoon.

It’s my pleasure to speak to you today about Resource Management Act reform, which intersects nicely with my other important portfolios of Infrastructure and Housing.

Reform of the RMA is fundamental to the coalition Government’s ambitions for a faster growing, more productive economy.

Our reform agenda

I think our plans for the RMA have been well signalled. Across the two coalition documents there are 20 different commitments relating to the RMA which I am responsible for delivering.

All of these commitments follow the same simple objective: we want to make it easier to get things done in New Zealand.

For too long, New Zealanders have often had to wait too long, pay too much, and jump through too many hoops in order to get things done, often on their own land.

We have been taking a phased approach to this reform of the resource management system.

Phase One was to repeal the Natural and Built Environment Act and Spatial Planning Act. We did that before Christmas, just as we campaigned on. I don’t intend to traverse that again today.

Phase Three is our commitment to replace the RMA with legislation predicated on the enjoyment of property rights. You can expect further announcements on this very shortly, but for now let me say this: Our focus is on taking resource management back to basics, and getting those basics right. We are going to be clear about what resource management is for. Plans and consents are important, but they should not run economies.

Phase Two started with the introduction of the Fast Track Approvals Bill to create a one-stop-shop approvals, consenting and permitting regime to speed up the delivery of regionally and nationally significant projects.

We expect to pass the Fast Track Approvals Bill into law by the end of this year.

Interest in Fast Track has been massive, which reflects how constipated our planning system has become and just how hostile it is to growth.

But let’s be real – fast track is basically a band-aid on our wider planning woes. It shouldn’t just be large projects that benefit from a more enabling system.

So the rest of Phase Two also includes targeted changes to the RMA through two amendment bills, focused on relieving the most significant resource management issues in the short term.

We introduced the first Bill containing targeted changes to Parliament in May of this year, and it is currently before select committee. Importantly, one of the key things this Bill will do is speed up and simplify the process for preparing and amending national direction – a term I use generically to refer to things like national policy statements and national environmental standards.

NPS’ and NES’ are where the rubber hits the road for many resource management issues. They are powerful levers for change. Speeding up and simplifying their development is a vital first step to realising a resource management system which lets us get things done.

We expect these changes, as well as the other changes in Bill 1, to be passed before the end of the year.

But we aren’t done there.

Today I am announcing the detail of our second Bill, which will be introduced alongside the single largest package of National Direction changes in New Zealand history.

This national direction package includes seven new national direction instruments, and amendments to fourteen existing ones through one national direction work programme.

Second RMA Amendment Bill and National Direction

We have been careful in how we have designed this suite of reforms.

First, we looked at what commitments we had already signalled in our coalition agreements and manifestos, knowing that these changes would be expected and already factored into some of your thinking.

Second, we have focused on things that were going to have the largest impact in the short term, and which have a lower level of complexity compared to some other more fundamental changes we are looking at making in Phase 3 of our reforms. In other words, we looked for what we have been calling ‘quick wins’.

Third and finally, this series of reforms will be done on a ‘least regrets’ basis. That means that the proposals we are progressing now align with the more-enabling, property-rights and standards-focused direction we expect to take in Phase 3 of RMA reform. The changes we make now will transition to the new system.

Now, as I have indicated, this final stage of RMA reform prior to full replacement will be achieved through another legislative amendment to the RMA, which we are calling “RM Bill 2”, and a package of National Direction.

I expect to introduce RM Bill 2 to Parliament before the end of the year and pass it into law in mid-2025. The National Direction package will follow the same timeline. We have deliberately aligned these reforms so that you do not feel like you’re in a constant loop of consultation after consultation after consultation.

Despite these changes being in two different vehicles the changes in each fit nicely into four different buckets, which are what I would like to go through today. Grouping the packages in this way enables you as well as industry to target involvement to issues that matter most to you.

The first package is Infrastructure and Energy. This package will, amongst other things, include our Electrify NZ changes to supercharge the delivery of renewable energy in this country. You can expect to see the details of this package announced shortly.

Electrifying New Zealand’s economy is a key part of the Coalition Government’s plan to grow our economy and reduce emissions to achieve Net Zero 2050. New Zealand is blessed with abundant renewable energy resources, and regulation is currently getting in the way of us taking full advantage of them. If we want a future where our cars, buses, trains, ferries, and manufacturers are increasingly powered by wind, water, and the sun, and not fossil fuels, we must remove the red tape getting in the way of renewable energy generation.

Paperwork has taken priority over prosperity in New Zealand, and we are committed to ending it.

But the Infrastructure and Energy package isn’t only about Electrify NZ – it contains several practical changes to assist in the delivery of infrastructure projects.

We will change the NES for Telecommunications Facilities to keep up to date with technological developments and give telcos greater certainty and reduced consenting costs as they upgrade their infrastructure. The industry has been asked for this for years. We will deliver.

I am also pleased to announce today that we will be introducing a new NPS on Infrastructure which will ensure that resource management decisions consistently enable infrastructure to be developed, operated and maintained, whilst also managing its effects on the natural environment.

The new NPS will reduce consenting costs and timeframes and will be based on some work that was being developed under the previous government

We expect that this will better protect existing and planned infrastructure, provide more certainty for the sector, drive efficiencies in approval processes and improve the quality of regulatory decision making. This is a big piece of work, and I have asked Parliamentary Undersecretary for Infrastructure Simon Court to lead this process.

You can’t have infrastructure without concrete, and you can’t have concrete without quarries. And the further away a quarry is from a project, the more expensive that project becomes – with the cost of aggregate doubling after the first 30km it is transported. That is why I am happy to say that we will be delivering something the infrastructure sector has been crying out for: national direction changes to ensure a consistent approach to quarrying across the Resource Management System. We hope this new level of clarity will enable councils to consent more quarries, closer to the projects that rely on them.

We will also improve certainty and simplify designation processes. We will expand the scope of requiring authorities to include port operators and emergency service providers. We will double the default designation lapse period from 5-10 years to support route protection and reduce unnecessary costs by simplifying the test to get a designation.

And as signalled earlier this year, we are also extending of the duration of port coastal permits by a further 20 years. Giving our ports certainty will give them the certainty they need to get on with their work and will boost productivity and enhance economic growth.

The second package of reform is Housing. This package will contain reform needed to enable the first pillar of our Going for Housing Growth policies that I outlined a couple of months ago.

Our Going for Housing Growth policy focuses on the fundamentals that have led to unaffordable housing for New Zealanders. Our programme of reform involves freeing up land for development and removing unnecessary planning barriers, improving infrastructure funding and financing, and providing incentives for communities and councils to support growth.

The first is the establishment of Housing Growth Targets for Tier 1 and 2 councils. These targets will require these Councils to “live-zone” feasible development capacity to provide for at least 30 years of housing demand at any one time. This will flood the market with opportunities for development, and over time, drive down land prices and the cost of housing.

The second are new rules that make it easier for cities to expand outwards at the urban fringe. Our cities must grow up and out. One without the other will never be able to close the supply gap we are currently battling in the housing market. I want to be clear about where we want to end up: if you are a developer who wants to build on the city fringe, and are happy to pay for the infrastructure costs, you should be able to.

The third is strengthening of the intensification provisions in the NPS-UD, and the fourth is new rules requiring councils to enable mixed-use development in our cities. We want our cities to reflect the reality of how people live, or at least want to live, if planning rules didn’t get in the way. We want greater intensification around key public transport corridors. We are also going to make it harder for councils to misuse their ability to exclude areas from intensification – making them offset any areas they exclude for unlisted reasons with housing capacity elsewhere.

The fifth change is the abolition of minimum floor areas and balcony requirements – further enabling housing choice in the market, and the sixth is delivering on something many of you asked for: giving you the flexibility to opt out of the MDRS.

The housing changes in Phase 2 of our RMA reforms don’t stop with our Going for Housing Growth changes.

As you know, we are developing a new NES for Minor Residential Units, also known as granny flats, which we announced earlier this year.

I am also pleased to confirm today that we will be developing new national direction to enable papakāinga housing, requiring that each district plan have provisions to enable more papakāinga housing. The opportunity here is huge – if Māori communities want to build homes for their people on their whenua or indeed general land, we should welcome this with open arms.

Both of these things together – papakāinga and granny flats – will enable greater housing choice in our cities and regions, whilst also adding desperately needed supply.

We are also looking at changing the way we manage heritage in this package of reform. Managing heritage listed buildings is a significant issue for building owners and councils, as highlighted earlier this year when Wellington City Council tried to delist the Gordon Wilson Flats and other heritage buildings.

The continued existence of Gordon Wilson Flats is an ugly scar on the Wellington skyline. The property owners want it gone. The community want it gone. Even the council want it gone. But still it stands – held up only by crumbling walls and a crumbling heritage system that values the preservation of falling-down eyesores over growth and modernity.

Something else I am doing a bit of work on is how local authorities’ police urban design. Whilst changes here won’t be included in this package of reform, it is something I am interested in progressing this term.

I am a believer in urban design done well and see it as a critical part of establishing the social license needed for greater density in our cities.

However, these requirements need to be consistent, and not based entirely on subjective opinions by council staff. There needs to be recognition that these things have a real-world cost, that invariably gets passed on to the consumer.

The stories I have heard from developers who are constantly battling with council urban design teams are enough to make you want to pull your hair out. One developer told me that they were told by council to cluster their doors in one development to create a sense of community, but in another development shortly after, they were told to separate the doors to create a sense of privacy.

Another developer told me how they were forced to provide small Juliette balconies for each apartment in their social housing complex, massively raising the cost of the social housing units.

Another has told me that despite fighting with council for months over the planned urban design of one development, the council proceeded to put a photo of that same development on the front cover of one of the council brochures heralding its design!

This is all just total madness. There needs to be consistency for developers when it comes to urban design. We need to stop enabling subjective opinions and ‘nice-to-haves’.

The third package of reform is Farming and the Primary Sector. Our first Resource Management Bill that is at Select Committee right now is predominantly related to making it easier to Kiwis to get on and farm – however there is more reform to come in this second tranche of changes. You can expect further announcements from our Agriculture and Primary Sector team on what this package looks like shortly – it won’t surprise any of you to learn that this package will largely give effect to a collection of promises in the National Party manifesto, and the coalition agreements – all with the goal of unlocking productivity in our primary sectors.

We are, however, making some immediate national direction changes which will be of interest to the primary sector, as well as those wanting to build new renewable energy on their land. Until we can implement further changes to the NPS-Highly Productive Land through the Housing Phase 2 package, I am announcing today that we will be immediately amending this piece of national direction to fix up a few issues that have arisen since its introduction. The last government kicked off the consultation on these changes, and we will be implementing them.

We will be making it clear that you can have indoor primary production and greenhouses on highly productive land, as well as specifying that if a farmer wants to construct new specified pieces of infrastructure, such as solar farms, these are allowed. These new changes will be in place within the next month once gazetted.

The fourth and final package is on Emergencies and Natural Hazards.

I can confirm today that we will be issuing new national direction on natural hazards, which will provide a comprehensive, nationally consistent framework for addressing the risks posed by these hazards, including increased risk from climate change.

The previous government sought public feedback on a proposed National Policy Statement for Natural Hazard Decision-making last year. At the time this was intended to be a first step in a two-step national direction process, with this new piece of national direction providing interim guidance while detailed and comprehensive national direction on natural hazards was developed.

Many submitters on that proposal considered that the national direction would be more effective if advanced as a single instrument. We agree.

The new natural hazards NPS will provide direction to councils on how to identify natural hazards, assess the risk they pose, and how to respond to that risk through planning controls. After Aucklanders and West Coast residents have suffered through floods, Tairāwhiti, and Hawkes Bay and Northland residents bore the brunt of Cyclone Gabrielle, I am glad that we are taking the lessons learnt from these disasters to manage our risk better going forward.

In a crisis, often quick decisions under the RMA are required to urgently speed up flood protection works, add temporary accommodation, and manage waste or contaminated soils. To ensure we are better enabling rapid responses to disasters, we will also be improving emergency provisions, including a new regulation making power for emergency responses.

Alongside these four packages we will also be introducing a range of technical changes to make the resource management system function better and improve its coherence.

Conclusion

I know these seem like a lot of changes all at once, and you are right, they are. We are unashamedly ambitious in reforming New Zealand’s broken planning system. As I have said, we have developed this suite of targeted changes with you at the forefront of our minds.

I want to finish with this final ask of you: we need and want your input into this process. Local government are the key implementers of the resource management system, and we need your expertise and your advice – and we need the expertise and the advice of your teams –as we begin consultation on these changes and begin to frame them up.

I look forward to your feedback and to discussing your ideas, as we continue to create a better planning system for everyone.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak with you today.

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