Editorial: Everyone hates the RMA but is the alternative better?

Environment Minister David Parker, pictured flanked by fellow cabinet ministers, says new reforms should make resource management rules more effective and workable. Photo / Mark Mitchell

EDITORIAL

There’s an element of spiteful glee in the commentary around the proposed replacement for the Resource Management Act.

But the rhetoric tends to overlook just how visionary the Resource Management Act (RMA) was, and how it was widely welcomed after being drawn up by the outgoing fourth Labour Government and passed by the incoming fourth National Government in 1991, with slight changes from what Labour had proposed.

The RMA was a big idea; the main law governing how people interact with the natural resources of New Zealand. But in the past decade, a political consensus has emerged that the RMA was broken, largely due to constant challenges mounted by both sides of the battle over natural resources, the developers and the environmentalists.

Court rulings and appeals had eroded the intent of the RMA down in a process environment law expert Richard Brabant described as “abused and misused”. He points out that much-decried delays around the RMA were due to the way it was applied and administered, rather than its content or purpose.

The overriding desire to put a torch to the old RMA has driven the drafting of one major piece of legislation, the Natural and Built Environments Act (NBA), and two more minor pieces in the Spatial Planning Act (SPA) and the Climate Adaptation Act (CAA). The Government aims to pass both pieces of legislation into law by the election next year.

Environment Minister David Parker says the new rules will cut costs by almost $150 million a year and shorten the time to get building consents.

While still a draft, the system is already described as incredibly complex and will require a transition of roughly 10 years, meaning the RMA will live on while different regions transition to the new system.

Another aspect still in the wings is the “national planning framework”, a government-level directive of nationwide objectives. This a document even those welcoming the changes admit will be “contentious”. Under this document will be 15 regional plans where area-specific differences and priorities can be recognised.

So now, in the place of the derided, diluted and disempowered RMA, we will have these three pieces of legislation, informed by an overarching national planning framework, with some exemptions written into regional plans.

One key outcome is the removal of about 100 regional and district plans currently administered and regularly reviewed by territorial local authorities (TLAs). It is another move away from community voice towards centralisation and it is a little surprising to hear no one talking about that. Perhaps the TLAs have also had enough of the RMA to the point of wanting to be rid of it as well.

This time celebrations about vision and circuit-breaking are muted, and most likely, justifiably. The new regime may arrive faster and leaner but bureaucracy loves a fresh desk. Lawyers love a precedent.

Political consensus held that the RMA was a bust but there is no reason to believe the antithetical ambitions of developers and environmentalists will find common ground in the new regime.