Potaka said he had met with Forest and Bird and the Environmental Defence Society the previous night.
“I will be taking out the disposal and exchange provisions from that bill.”
Potaka said New Zealanders had, over the past few weeks, showed how deeply they cared about nature and conservation.
“I also want you to know that I have heard and listened to you and many, many others. The truth is none of us would be here today if we didn’t care deeply about our taiao [natural world], nature and conservation.
“We might not always agree on how to protect it, we might have different ideas on how we want to modernise the conservation system, and it does need to be modernised.
“I don’t think I’ve spoken to anyone or heard from anyone who has said the conservation system is working so effectively we should just retain it as is. But we all want strong conservation outcomes for Aotearoa.”
Regional Development Minister Shane Jones, who is an advocate for environmental development for economic benefit, said he would need to find a “common ground” with Potaka following the announcement.
Associate Energy Minister Shane Jones during a press conference at Parliament. Photo / Mark Mitchell
He said his party, New Zealand First, was in favour of getting economic outcomes from conservation land.
“It would be a lie for me not to take ownership of that,” he said to the crowd in Auckland.
“I know I’m talking to an audience that may be horrified by that.”
He said if NZ First were in Government after the election, it would continue to push for these economic outcomes. He referred to a “culture of cancellation in New Zealand politics”.
The Labour Party spokeswoman for conservation, Priyanca Radhakrishnan, agreed that current conservation laws were a “dog’s breakfast”, but said the proposed legislation went way further than what was claimed.
Minutes after Potaka made his announcement at the event in Auckland, National Party minister Chris Penk reiterated the announcement to the House in Parliament.
Critics have been fearful over what the potential loosening of existing constraints on selling Crown-owned conservation lands could have meant, and whether it would lead to the large-scale sale of prized conservation sites.
Potaka has always rejected this, saying it would instead involve “bits and bobs” that had little to no real conservation value.
That, however, was not enough comfort for some of the sharpest critics, including Forest and Bird, who recently released a map which they claimed marked the land at risk, and argued that the bill would shift the intention of the legislation “from protection to exploitation”.
Julia Gabel is a Wellington-based political reporter. She joined the Herald in 2020 and has most recently focused on data journalism.