This included the removal of a clause requiring that use and development of the environment must be kept “within environmental limits”.<\/p>\n
Changes agreed by Cabinet would also mean existing agreements between councils and iwi – known as Mana Whakahono \u0101 Rohe agreements – would be scrapped and replaced with “new narrowly scoped iwi participation agreements”.<\/p>\n
RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop pointed to independent analysis showing that by 2050, the changes were expected to increase GDP annually by 0.56 percent.<\/p>\n
![\"Transport](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/1784524811_331_4JLRI4L_Image_12_jfif.jpeg\")
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RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop. (File photo)<\/p>\n
RNZ \/ Calvin Samuel<\/p>\n
“A cost benefit analysis estimates $13.3 billion in savings over 30 years through reduced administrative and compliance costs.”<\/p>\n
He said the removal of the existing iwi agreements had been because of the government’s concern about the growing number of agreements, with the legislation previously allowing for existing agreements to continue but preventing new ones.<\/p>\n
“Eight [agreements] existed when the Bills were introduced late last year. Since then, several dozen more have been agreed or initiated,” he said.<\/p>\n
“Instead, councils will have the option of entering into new narrowly scoped iwi participation agreements to record how iwi authorities will participate in statutory planning processes and processes required to give effect to Treaty settlement redress. Clear guardrails will be included in the legislation to prevent scope creep.”<\/p>\n
Changes to the purpose and goals of the legislation would “give stronger recognition to people’s enjoyment of their land and the importance of food and fibre production”, he said.<\/p>\n
Bishop said the current Resource Management Act was too slow, too expensive and too unpredictable, and his overhaul would reduce unnecessary consenting, improve certainty, and make it easier for projects to get started.<\/p>\n
He said changes recommended by the committee kept the basic concepts and architecture of the bills in place, while also ensuring stronger recognition of food and fibre production, “more workable” environmental limits, and put tighter safeguards around natural resource levies.<\/p>\n
Asked about the cycle of repeal-and-replace or revision of resource management legislation, Bishop said National had “worked quite hard” with Labour and the Greens to find common ground, but “they just have a fundamentally different view about a range of things”.<\/p>\n
“It probably would have been possible to kind of find a bunch of things which everyone could kind of compromise on and create a bit of a muddle. I’m not about creating muddle. I’m about creating good law that serves New Zealand and and is in the national interest, and that’s what we’re doing.”<\/p>\n
He said the government was committed to getting the legislation passed before the election.<\/p>\n
Labour in its minority report raised a number of concerns, saying the party supported the legislation – which somewhat resembled the bills it passed in the last Parliament – through its first reading in the hope that improvements could be made.<\/p>\n
“Unfortunately, almost all policy decisions made during the select committee process have made the bills even more unpalatable and unworkable,” the party said.<\/p>\n
“The bills are an embarrassment-National could have worked with us to amend Labour’s legislation but instead they chose to start again with something full of campaign slogans that will end up costing all New Zealanders and the environment.”<\/p>\n
Labour has pulled its support for the legislation.<\/p>\n
The Greens and Te P\u0101ti M\u0101ori raised similar concerns, particularly over what they said was the dismantling of environmental protections and the erosion of M\u0101ori rights and interests.<\/p>\n
Regulatory relief<\/p>\n
The regulatory relief scheme would see councils paying out to landowners where their property was<\/p>\n
The reports show a ministry-commissioned report by consultancy Martin Jenkins puts the cost of that scheme at between $7 million and $1.99 billion – the huge range reflecting “that local authorities may take a range of approaches”.<\/p>\n
Labour said councils had told the committee the regulatory relief scheme would be expensive and they were “unlikely to be able to afford the cost of compensation, particularly in light of other government work that will further restrict councils’ ability to raise funds,” referring to the proposed rates cap of between 2-4 percent a year.<\/p>\n
“Ratepayers would have to pay landowners for protecting something that is not their land – that is, biodiversity,” Labour said.<\/p>\n
The party said this was likely to result in a cottage industry of valuers<\/p>\n
The Greens said they opposed the regulatory relief regime “in its entirety”.<\/p>\n
“We were deeply concerned that despite the only report the committee received on the matter outlining the novelty, uncertainty and potential for crippling costs to local councils and ratepayers of up to two billion dollars, that the committee proceeded to retain regulatory relief.”<\/p>\n
Green Party environment spokesperson Lan Pham singled out the regulatory relief framework as particularly irresponsible.<\/p>\n
“This is not only going to cause a chilling effect in terms of councils simply not being able to meet these costs and therefore unable to protect things that matter to the community like biodiversity, but the costs could actually be much greater.”<\/p>\n
Bishop said regulatory relief was a “bottom line” for the government and the opposition parties disagreed with that idea.<\/p>\n
“That hasn’t been part of New Zealand law, but that’s my point: we are deliberately changing the system. There’s a range of other things they don’t agree with either.”<\/p>\n
![\"Lan](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/4LNBKH4_1P2A9089_jpg.jpeg\")
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Green Party environment spokesperson Lan Pham. (File photo)<\/p>\n
RNZ \/ Nate McKinnon<\/p>\n
Environmental protections<\/p>\n
Labour’s previous legislation aimed to set system-wide bottom limits for the degradation of the environment – for things like air pollution or water quality – based on scientific assessment.<\/p>\n
The party said that although the legislation looked to retain that approach, the methods used would rely on national standards which “must not determine an ecosystem health limit itself”.<\/p>\n
“This does not make much sense and presumably comes from a desire to appease lobbyists who do not want nationally applied limits – yet they will likely get them through all the methodologies and minimum acceptable levels.”<\/p>\n
They also raised concern about the removal of the environmental limit clause.<\/p>\n
“The Natural Environment Bill’s goal of ‘no net loss’ of indigenous biodiversity is unworkable and lacks ambition. There is no definition of or baseline for measuring ‘no net loss’,” the party said of the replacement.<\/p>\n
The Greens said this was dismantling the environmental protections under the current system.<\/p>\n
They said the Minister now had discretion over whether developments needed to be within environmental limits or not, and another clause requiring caution when the science was uncertain had also been removed.<\/p>\n
“The ecosystem health limits do not even have to be set at a level that would ‘prevent significant or irreversible harm’, in the way that human health limits must be,” the party said.<\/p>\n
The Greens also raised concern about timeframes for achieving interim limits had been shortened to five years, that Freshwater Farm plans were set to become self-certified, and mechanisms to address the overallocation of freshwater had been scrapped.<\/p>\n
Pham said the changes to environmental limits were “beyond a joke”.<\/p>\n
“For the government to insist this is going to be an enduring framework, it’s absolutely laughable,” she said.<\/p>\n
“They’ve not only removed the environmental limit thing, but they’ve also put in place essentially a shout-out to their favourite lobby groups – you know, big agriculture and aquaculture – and they’ve inserted them in the goals instead.<\/p>\n
“This is an outrage and it certainly has no standing for a decent future for the country.”<\/p>\n
Te P\u0101ti M\u0101ori said the bills appeared set to lead to poorer environmental outcomes, and environmental limits would be watered down.<\/p>\n
“We disagree with the committee’s view that ‘measures to protect the natural environment remain the same or similar to the RMA’. Instead, the way the proposed system is configured, as two distinct bills, will affect levels of protection.”<\/p>\n
The party also said it rejected the idea of the new system providing more flexibility for the minister “and which relies on the Minister to set the appropriate amount of protection through national instruments”.<\/p>\n
Bishop agreed the changes moved away from environmental limits towards more of a cost-benefit approach.<\/p>\n
“The setting of limits, on one level it’s a scientific exercise obviously and you’ve got to be grounded in the science and the data and the evidence … but the science and the data also has to be weighed against what the impact of setting those limits might be on society and the economy that we live in.”<\/p>\n
In a statement, Associate Environment Minister Andrew Hoggard (ACT Party) said the removal of audits from freshwater farm plans would support a “risk-based and practical approach”.<\/p>\n
“Only those farms undertaking activities with a higher identified risk to freshwater will be required to have a certified and audited freshwater farm plan,” he said.<\/p>\n
“Farm plans will be straightforward for most farmers to develop, giving them a practical way to identify, manage, and reduce the impacts of farming on their land and freshwater.<\/p>\n
“We’ve heard from farmers that they want a system that’s cost-effective, restores certainty, and provides environmental protections without the delays of the old RMA. I believe we’ve achieved that.”<\/p>\n
Conflicting goals and ministerial overrides<\/p>\n
Labour and the Greens both pointed to the legislation being split into two bills, saying the overarching goals and purpose of them appeared to be at odds in some places.<\/p>\n
Labour said there had been “no cogent explanation” for the separation.<\/p>\n
“We suspect the reason is an attempt to end the ‘integrated management’ approach of the RMA. This is both dangerous and foolish. Our environment exists everywhere; including urban environments.”<\/p>\n
The party – which also had its reforms split into two – said its approach did not affect integrated management and had been split to ensure the spatial plans in their legislation could work with different infrastructure development approaches.<\/p>\n
“These two replacement bills will result in a lot of duplication and cause unnecessary uncertainty and inefficiency.”<\/p>\n
Labour pointed to the “funnel” approach taken under the new version which would see lower-level planning overruled by higher-level planning, with national directions from the ministers able to override council plans, for example.<\/p>\n
“When goals conflict with each other, the Minister will determine how the conflict is resolved – this is in effect the Minister establishing a hierarchy. This is a lot of power and leaves no wiggle room should a poor decision be made at the top of the funnel.”<\/p>\n
The Greens echoed the concerns of the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment, saying the powers granted to ministers had the potential for “endless church following every change of government”, and with Te R\u016bnanga o Toa Rangatira which said the new system would be top heavy and centralise decision making.<\/p>\n
Te P\u0101ti M\u0101ori said it agreed with those who presented to the select committee that the two bills were “conceptually different and it is difficult to understand how they would integrate”, and said the focus on enjoyment of land “promotes aggressive development” under ideological values of private property and extraction.<\/p>\n