There are two rounds of reform. Stage 1 is relatively minor or technical changes which generally reverse changes made by the previous government. Stage 2 will look at more comprehensive reforms.
Stage 1
- Removing the Minister’s power to directly override regional or district rules. We strongly opposed this power when it was introduced in 2017.
- Enabling the Environment Court to review resource consent notification decision. This is fantastic, as at present we can only challenge notification decisions by judicial review in the High Court, which is high cost, high risk, and outside the specialist RMA jurisdiction.
- Reinstatement of the ability to appeal subdivision consent decisions.
- Repeal of a restriction on the ability of submitters to appeal matters that were not raised in their original submission (e.g: matters raised by other submitters). Forest & Bird established the law on this in a 2014 decision (Forest & Bird v Simon's Pass Station) but the 2017 changes narrowed our scope down to matters raised in our original submission. The Simon's Pass approach will be reinstated.
- Reinstating the ability to charge financial contributions.
- Enabling review of conditions of multiple consents (e.g: all consents in a sub-catchment). This will help in land and water planning, to ensure consents don’t lock in degradation prior to limits being set.
- Enabling the regulation of high-risk land use activities to achieve water quality outcomes - This could pave the way for things the government is already considering like a moratorium on new dairy conversions in at-risk catchments.
- Enabling the new RMA oversight unit at the EPA to take enforcement action.
Stage 2
- Introducing a “strong and specific” direction to take into account the effects of activities on climate change.
- Reviewing urban tree protection.