RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop. Photo: RNZ / Nick Monro
The government has sent its legislation to replace the Resource Management Act to the Environment Select Committee.
The Planning Bill and Natural Environment Bill, which set out a new system putting more emphasis on property rights, passed their first readings Tuesday afternoon.
Labour has backed the legislation, saying it plans to debate their differences with the coalition's approach at select committee, but the other opposition parties voted against it.
The coalition says it will mean a more permissive approach and cut the number of consents needed by up to 46 percent.
RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop said it would do this by making much clearer the things that were out of scope for council regulation; standardised zones and rules; a hierarchical structure of decision-making, and clear goals that set the system's objectives.
"This is a decisive shift from the past, ensuring that every decision is anchored in clear, enforceable direction from the top down. It does mean greater responsibility on the government for robust and effective national instruments.
"These are substantial changes... I'm looking forward to consideration by the committee."
The opposition worries about the effect of forcing councils to compensate for impacts on landowners, saying that would have a chilling effect and lead to lower environmental protections.
But much of the system resembles Labour's previous attempt, and the party has said it would opt for amendment rather than repealing and replacing the new system, after the coalition reinstated scrapped that and reinstated the RMA shortly after the 2023 election.
Labour's RMA Reform spokesperson Rachel Brooking. Photo: RNZ / Angus Dreaver
"It was very disappointing to hear the prime minister say last Tuesday that this was the first government to address resource management," Labour's RMA Reform spokesperson Rachel Brooking said.
"There are many similarities with the legislation and this government could have spent perhaps a month or so reviewing what we did to make some changes, but instead they repealed it and amended the RMA time and time again to enable more pollution."
Infrastructure spokesperson Kieran McAnulty also weighed in, criticising previous speakers and saying the reforms were only done in that manner so the coalition could put their own names on it instead of former Labour MP David Parker's.
He called National's Catherine Wedd a "breathing, walking, talking point", noted NZ First's Jamie Arbuckle had criticised a "stop-start attitude", and the speech from ACT's Simon Court - the Parliamentary Undersecretary for RMA Reform - had congratulated the coalition then "left to go and high-five the mirror".
Court had praised the new bills as "fit-for-purpose law, unapologetically focused on preparing and facilitating growth and development".
"This Bill champions that continued human development that has seen generation after generation growing up with greater opportunity than their parents, and it recognises that property rights must be the anchor for this.
"We have raised the bar for what effects are considered material, we have reduced the ability for people to inject themselves into your business, and to resist that outrageous intrusion into property rights that we've seen under the RMA."
Green Party spokesperson Julie Anne Genter said she would be the first to acknowledge urban planning rules were a source of many challenges faced by the country - but the problem was less the RMA itself, and more the lack of national direction under it.
"It was the details of the rules in many of the plans that caused many of the problems ... there's a lot to like in the new system and I see a lot of potential to get better outcomes, nonetheless I think it is at this point difficult for us to support the bill.
"For the Greens it's fundamental to our future as a country that we recognise Te Tiriti o Waitangi and the kaitiaki role of tangata whenua ... secondly I think the goal of the planning bill has to be developing sustainable healthy cities and towns - that would be a much better goal than enabling competitive urban land markets."
Te Pāti Māori co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer said the new system failed to explicitly protect treaty rights, and risked seing taonga turned into commodities for the sake of jobs and economic development.
"We don't oppose reform, but we oppose reform that re-centralises power and weakens Māori authority and sidelines communities. A system that claims to protect environment while limiting community voice is never a model that should be celebrated by any government. It's not transformational, it's actually managerial."
Both bills passed the first reading with support from National, Labour, ACT and NZ First. The Greens, Te Pāti Māori, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi and Tākuta Ferris were opposed.
The Environment Committee will seek public feedback and report back to Parliament by 26 June 2026.
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