Faster Than the Fast Track: Farewell, RMA.

OPINION / ENVIRONMENT / ISSUE 5

The Coalition Government’s hatred for resource stewardship reaches new heights in sweeping reforms, putting the interests of the owning class once again ahead of people and planet, Jenna Kelly writes:

In three very short years, each and every corner of our island paradise, Aotearoa, has been surveyed, appraised, valued, and measured up like a prized cattle. The land we stand on, the seas we rely on, the air we breathe, the rivers and lakes we drink from, live near, love. These are all under threat. The threat of profit incentives. Of greed. Of short-sighted and immediate gains. Of blinkered and narrow-minded planning. The future of our country's world-renowned greenery, biodiversity, and beauty is all at stake. It is being divided up and sold off to the highest bidder. No tree is safe, no spring free from the danger of contamination. Every corner can be exploited to suit someone's dreams of productivity and development. 

And looming above all this potential violence, a bureaucratic shadow foretelling habitat loss and mass destruction, is environmental legislation. We live in a time of corporate murder. Of legislated evil and on-the-book pollution and harm, cleverly marketed as “economic growth” and “development opportunities”. Where there is no “net loss” of biodiversity, but centuries-old forests lay felled with the starved corpses of hundreds of species among them. Where the rivers aren't harmful to drink if you filter the water, but local species slowly disappear from them. The losses are slow, the changes benign on the surface. The language is precise and misleading, muddling goals and facts to appear beneficial in one way, while below the clean and technical words lies material differences in reality.

This government launched its war on nature with its Fast-track Approvals Act, now approaching two years ago. The legislation allows for projects deemed significant to the economic prosperity of the region or country to bypass certain consenting processes, making it easier for extractive industries such as mining to leave their indelible marks on the natural environment (read: “Dig, Baby, Dig!”, Issue 1, July/August 2024). Come 2025, and their latest assaults are the wide reaching reforms to the already undermined Resource Management Act, a cornerstone of environmental policy for decades. Let's take a look at this mammoth Act, its past, and its future.

In the 1990s, Labour introduced the RMA, which National later passed in 1991. Its purpose was to combine over 70 laws from across the country into one concise, clear Act with logical rules and regulations governing resource management, consenting, and development. Fast forward 30 years and the sixth Labour government had had enough. They introduced two replacements in 2023: the National and Built Environment Act, and the Spatial Planning Act. Brand-spanking new, tidy legislation to clear up once and for all the mess of consents, rules, delays and cost increases that the frequently amended RMA had caused over its long life.

Then came three-way Coalition. After repealing Labour's behemoth Acts that they lamented were longer than the RMA itself, they proudly announced their totally original all-encompassing solution: two new Bills, again. The Natural Environment Bill and the Planning Bill. Vaguely reminiscent of the pair Labour proposed, bar a few “unimportant” details. It would propel the country into an era of economic growth, unencumbered development, and all the granny flats Chris Bishop ever dreamt of.

Minus the obligation to uphold the principles of te Tiriti, of course. And a couple extra titbits including regulatory relief, even easier consents for mines and quarries, and shoddy environmental protections overseen by a Planning Tribunal (bets on who will be appointed to that…) But hey, anything for our almighty overlord The Economy, right?

The Natural Environment Bill and Planning Bill allow for faster building and easier development. According to the National Party, it will reduce consents by an estimated 46% and apparently save us over $13bn over the next 30 years (which bear in mind is how long the RMA has been around). Saving who exactly? The Bill also involves expensive “regulatory relief” whereby councils have to compensate land owners for infringing on their God-given property rights by way of extra development rights, reduced rates, cash payments, or the like. Paired with an upcoming rates cap, councils are bound to have a ball finding spare cash for this kind of thing. This relief is required for “infringements” like creating a Significant Natural Area, heritage protections, sites of outstanding natural features or significant sites for iwi Māori. Think beautiful waterfalls, ancient streams, or someone's ancestral pā (village). All things your local council has to pay up for protecting—whether to the neighbour down the street or to, say, a large mining corporation if they want to buy a pretty patch of beech forest for a new hole in the ground. It could mean less spending on road repairs, local services, park maintenance, public transport, repairing leaky pipes and all the other bits that keep our cities not only liveable but comfortable.

This elevation of property rights over environmental protection and common services highlights the foundation of this reform: the continued emphasis on economic gain over care of our people and environment. Gains felt only by the wealthy few with the power and political influence to push such reforms. The rest of us will be left no better off, and surrounded by an increasingly frail natural world. 

It's common knowledge that we need a healthy environment to live. Not only that, but we need thriving ecosystems of other creatures to maintain those healthy environments. This doesn't come for free. We have to invest (to use an economic term) in our environment's health in order to maintain it. Strong bottom lines. An emphasis on restoring and maintaining it. Regulations that mean something—not just able to be bought off by the richest businesses. And a genuine effort to look after fragile spaces and at-risk species, not just to appease the (hard-working) tree huggers or tick a box. We don't have the time or the spare land to muck about digging up one-of-a-kind habitats like the South Island's Denniston Plateau. Places like this are home to rare, unique species like the Roroa, spotted kiwi, that live only in the north-western part of the South Island. Countless other endemic plant and animal species reside within this particular area. Due to its unique blend of soil, geography, and weather patterns it has been called one of the top 50 most ecologically valuable sites in New Zealand—according to DOC itself. What this reform proposes is to label sites like this as secondary to economic growth. It claims that this status is meaningless; you can simply relocate a few critters and plant trees elsewhere and she'll be right.

But you can't replace millennia of evolution. The slow and iterative balance of ecosystems, the blend of water, rock, soil, sun and wind that forms a home for particular species. There is no amount of technology that can replicate the random circumstances of nature at the same scale and detail. In a country as stunning, as unique as ours, we can't forsake our natural beauty for a quick buck. There are real solutions to our economic woes, ones that centre wellbeing of people and planet. Ones that understand the importance of the only planet we have and respecting its limits. Instead of funnelling money into the pockets of the already rich, draining our social programmes to pour money into our meaningless military and propping up harmful programmes like mouldy school lunches for children, we need to push back against this arrogant, heartless government and demand equity and justice for our people and Earth. We need to be included in the decisions that shape our surroundings, consulted on every detail so that we can stop the harm before it is too late. Environment and people first. Then economy.

As many wise people have gracefully stated, there’s no economy on a dead planet.