RMA replacement Bills return from select committee with key changes

The Planning Bill (PB) and Natural Environment Bill (NEB) have been reported back by the Environment Select Committee.

The 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.

However, the committee has recommended substantial revisions to the drafting. Many are described as clarifications or changes intended to improve workability, while others would affect how important parts of the new system operate.

Here are some of the more notable changes.

Two Acts are better than one?

Perhaps the most obvious and fundamental change remains the decision to split the RMA into 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. The committee has recommended revising the purpose of the PB 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, which decision-makers exercising functions or powers under them must seek to achieve.

Most of the goals remain as introduced, but the committee has recommended several notable changes.

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

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

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

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. The committee has recommended clarifying that the national policy direction under each Bill must particularise all the goals to which it relates.

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. The committee has recommended refinements to the clause listing these “out of scope” effects.

It has also recommended 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 committee has also recommended that specified natural hazard rules under the PB should be able to 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 would change 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.

The committee recommends clarifying that there will be one national policy direction under each bill. National standards would continue to provide much of the detailed regulatory content, including national rules that apply directly.

Most recommended 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 committee recommends removing 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 would also be 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. The committee recommends extending this so other activities could also breach a limit in specified circumstances, subject to a public benefit test.

It has also recommended changes to clarify the role of interim limits and to 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 and designations

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, the committee recommends consolidating significant natural areas and terrestrial indigenous biodiversity 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.  

The PB also retains designations as a planning tool. The committee recommends clarifying the new “strategic need” test 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.

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.

The committee recommends extending some of the preparation timeframes.

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 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.

Schedule 11 of the PB would continue to allow specified national rules under the new system to take effect early under the RMA. It would also restrict consideration of many PB ‘out of scope’ effects when certain resource consent applications are assessed.

The committee recommends additional mechanisms allowing district councils to remove out of scope provisions from existing plans during the transition. Activities could also be deemed permitted where they require consent only because of an out of scope rule.

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’ return to the House (and second reading on 4 August) is a significant milestone, but several parliamentary stages remain before they become law.

Some aspects are likely to remain contested. With the general election scheduled for November and Parliament’s final sitting days in September, timing will be tight.

We will provide more detailed analysis of the Acts and their implications once they are passed.

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.