RMA replacement Bills near final form after further changes

The Planning Bill (PB) and Natural Environment Bill (NEB) have now completed the Committee of the whole House stage, after about 30 hours of debate under urgency. 

The select committee received 3,204 submissions and heard presentations from 178 submitters. The Bills were reported back by a majority, with each opposition party providing a minority position. 

At a high level, the key features and architecture of the proposed replacement for the Resource Management Act 1991 (RMA) remain largely unchanged from the Bills introduced in December 2025. 

The select committee recommended substantial revisions to the drafting, and further changes and refinements have since been incorporated through Government amendment papers and tabled amendments. While many address drafting and workability, others affect important parts of the new system. 

Two Acts are better than one? 

Perhaps the most obvious and fundamental change from the RMA remains the decision to split it in two. 

The PB would establish a framework for planning and regulating the use, development and enjoyment of land. It broadly covers what are currently district council functions under the RMA. At the select committee stage, its purpose was amended to place greater emphasis on providing for the enjoyment of land. 

The NEB would establish a framework for the use, protection and enhancement of the natural environment, corresponding broadly to current regional council functions. 

The two Bills continue to reflect and cross-reference one another. Both contain goals, primary restrictions identifying activities that require approval, national and regional planning instruments, consenting processes and enforcement provisions. 

The goals of each Act 

In comparison with the expansive purpose of the RMA, the purposes of the Bills are deliberately straightforward and descriptive. High-level substantive direction instead comes from the “goals” of each Bill. 

One of the latest changes narrows who must seek to achieve those goals. Clause 11 of both Bills now provides that “key instruments” must seek to achieve them, rather than imposing that requirement on “all persons”. 

Most of the goals remain as introduced, but several notable changes have been made during the Bills’ passage through Parliament. 

The PB’s infrastructure goal has been amended to “enable infrastructure to be provided to meet and respond to current and future demand”. Its urban land markets goal refers to creating “abundant development opportunities for residential and business use”. 

The PB continues to include a goal of enabling competitive urban land markets. A further amendment provides for an independent statutory officer to monitor their competitiveness. The officer would publish determinations on whether an urban land market is competitive, which councils would be required to respond to. 

Under the NEB, the goal of enabling use and development is no longer qualified by the words “within environmental limits”. It instead refers specifically to the production of food and fibre, including aquaculture. 

The select committee also recommended a new NEB goal: “to support and enable the enhancement of the natural environment”. 

The NEB biodiversity goal has since been changed from “no net loss in indigenous biodiversity” to “to protect significant indigenous biodiversity”. 

Both Bills retain their “funnel provisions”, which prevent decision-makers from looking back to the goals where those goals have already been particularised in higher-order instruments.  

Further amendments clarify how the funnel applies to consenting, including that relevant national rules can be considered alongside rules in plans. 

The purpose of national policy direction has also been refined. It is now to “particularise” all the goals and direct how they are to be achieved, including by identifying and providing for the resolution of conflicts – including conflicts across the goals of the two Bills – as far as practicable. 

The Bills make it clear there is no inherent hierarchy among the goals, and they do not have to be achieved “in all places at all times”. In combination, these features have been seen as consolidating greater power in the hands of the Minister of the day, through national instruments made under the new legislation.  

A narrower spectrum of regulated effects 

One of the most significant departures from the RMA remains the narrower scope of relevant or regulated effects. 

Under the PB, decision-makers will generally be required to disregard matters such as the external layout of buildings, visual amenity, views from private property and effects on landscape.  

Further refinements have been made to the clause listing these “out of scope” effects. The list now includes effects on outstanding natural landscapes or areas of high natural character from activities more than three nautical miles offshore. 

The Bills also contain a new clause 15A in each Bill to clarify how climate change effects are treated. 

Adverse effects of activities on climate change, whether direct or indirect, must not be considered. However, positive effects associated with avoiding, reducing, removing or displacing greenhouse gas emissions may be considered. 

The PB also provides that specified natural hazard rules can override existing use rights. This could open the door to managed retreat rules requiring activities to relocate from land that is increasingly exposed to flooding or erosion. 

Under the NEB, the threshold for statutory water takes for domestic needs and stock drinking water changes from having no adverse effect on the natural resource to having no more than a minor adverse effect. This could allow a greater degree of water take without a permit. 

Planning instruments and approvals 

The proposed taxonomy of planning instruments remains largely unchanged from the Bills as introduced. 

There will be national policy direction and national standards under each Bill, regional spatial plans under the PB, natural environment plans under the NEB and land use plans under the PB.  

Each Bill will have a single national policy direction. National standards would continue to provide much of the detailed regulatory content, including national rules that apply directly. 

Most changes to consenting under the PB and permitting under the NEB concern procedure and workability. The proposed notification thresholds remain broadly as introduced. 

However, the Bills no longer contain the proposed resource allocation tools based on market mechanisms, including auctions and tenders, as well as the comparative assessment of competing applications. 

Controlled activity status has also been reinstated under the NEB, but not the PB. 

The proposed Planning Tribunal remains part of the new system. As a division of the Environment Court, it would review specified procedural decisions by local authorities and resolve disputes such as the interpretation of consent conditions. 

Environmental limits and wildlife approvals 

Environmental limits remain a central feature of the NEB. 

As introduced, the Bill allowed national standards to provide for departures from environmental limits for significant infrastructure.  

That framework has been further revised. Formal requirements for setting “caps” on resource use have been removed, although this is not intended to prevent caps from being set. 

The provision allowing the Minister to authorise activities that would breach environmental limits has also been amended. It now includes a “net public benefit” test, together with additional requirements and considerations. 

Earlier changes also clarify the role of interim limits and provide that there is no hierarchy between environmental, social and economic factors when limits are set. 

A new optional process would allow an NEB permit authority, generally a regional council, to consider a wildlife approval alongside an application for a natural resource permit. 

The pathway would be available where an activity requires a natural resource permit and may affect protected wildlife. It would avoid the need for an entirely separate approval process under the Wildlife Act in qualifying cases. 

Regulatory relief  

The new regulatory relief framework has been retained. 

Councils would be required to assess the effect of proposed rules on the reasonable use of private land and provide relief where the impact is significant. 

The specified topics include historic heritage, outstanding natural landscapes and features, areas of high natural character and sites of significance to Māori under the PB. 

Under the NEB, significant natural areas and terrestrial indigenous biodiversity have been consolidated as “terrestrial indigenous biodiversity to the extent it relates to an identified area”. 

It has also been clarified that the regulatory relief system will apply to any RMA restrictions that are carried over to plans under the new system, but that landowners will not be eligible for relief if they acquired that land when the restriction already applied to it.   

Designations  

The PB also retains designations as a planning tool. The new “strategic need” test has been clarified so the assessment focuses on whether a designation would enable the designating authority to meet its objectives. That assessment could be undertaken by reference to the general location proposed rather than a precisely defined route or site. 

Changes to iwi participation arrangements 

One significant late change concerns Mana Whakahono ā Rohe, the iwi participation arrangements available under the RMA. 

Earlier versions of the Bills provided for existing arrangements to carry over into the new system. Under a Government amendment, all Mana Whakahono ā Rohe – whether already in force or initiated – will instead cease to have legal effect on the day after royal assent. 

The PB has been amended to provide for more narrowly scoped “iwi participation agreements” between iwi and councils. 

What will the transition look like? 

The Bills continue to propose a transition lasting several years. During that period, much of the RMA would remain in force while national instruments and regional plans under the new system are prepared. 

National policy direction would be required within 12 months of enactment rather than nine months. Mandatory national standards would be required within nine, 18 or 21 months, depending on the instrument. 

Further detail has also now been added about how a regional rollout of the new system could operate, if the country does not move to the new system on a single specified transition date. 

The transitional framework has been further developed and will begin changing how the existing RMA operates before the new system is fully in place. A transitional consenting regime is expected to apply from one month after royal assent until the specified transition date, currently likely to be around 2030. 

Among the changes are amendments to sections 70 and 107 of the RMA dealing with discharges. Rules and consents will be able to enable specified effects – such as conspicuous oil or grease films or changes in colour – where the effect is already occurring in the receiving waters and conditions will drive improvement over time. 

One of the most significant immediate changes to the RMA is that a number of matters will be treated as “out of scope” when considering district land-use consents and designations during the transition period. These transitional exclusions will be narrower than the out-of-scope matters applying under the PB itself and have been refined during their passage through Parliament. 

The regime allowing elements of the new system to take effect early under the RMA has also been expanded. What are now called “initial national standards” will be able to include not only rules but other content relevant to decision-making. 

Most existing resource consents will, subject to qualifications, be extended until two years after the specified transition date, although resource consents relating to wastewater will not receive that further extension. 

The Bills also make direct amendments affecting the Waikato Regional Plan and Horizons One Plan, including transitional arrangements relating to Plan Change 1 and Plan Change 2 respectively. 

The revised timeframes suggest that earlier estimates for completing the transition should be treated cautiously. Much will depend on how quickly the required national instruments and regional plans can be prepared. 

Next steps 

The Bills have now completed the Committee of the whole House stage. Third reading is expected before the end of September, with royal assent to follow shortly afterwards. While further amendments remain possible, substantive changes at this point are unlikely. 

Attention will then turn to implementation and, in particular, the transition from the RMA to the new system. We will provide further analysis of what changes when, including the amendments to the RMA that will take effect shortly after royal assent. 

Note: Ezekiel Hudspith has been assisting the Ministry for the Environment, now the Ministry for Cities, Environment, Regions and Transport, with the development of the Bills.