September 2024

The Government is continuing its phased approach to its promised resource management reform. Phase One of the reform repealed the Natural and Built Environment Act and Spatial Planning Act in December 2023.

Phase Two

Phase Two aims to reduce the ‘regulatory burden’ by means of targeted amendments to the Resource Management Act 1991 (RMA). The Resource Management (Freshwater and Other Matters) Amendment Bill (Bill) is one of two new bills that have been introduced.

The proposed key changes are expected to achieve the following:

National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management 2020 (NPS-FM)

• The hierarchy of obligations (known as Te Mana o Te Wai) within the National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management 2020 will not need to be considered in new resource consent applications (unless the regional council has included this hierarchy in its regional plan). The NPS-FM will eventually be replaced.

Mining Activities

• Align the National Policy Statement for Indigenous Biodiversity 2023 (NPS-IB), NPS-FM, and the National Environmental Standards for Freshwater 2020 with a consenting pathway for coal mining and other mining activities.

National Policy Statement for Indigenous Biodiversity 2023

• Extend the time for councils to identify and notify new Significant Natural Areas (SNAs) to 31 December 2030. The rest of the NPS-IB continues to apply and SNAs already identified are not affected.

Resource Management (Stock Exclusion) Regulations 2020

• Modify the regulations relating to stock exclusion. This means the current maps are repealed and stock will be excluded from waterways in accordance with regional plans and freshwater farm plans.
• Remove a majority of the requirements under the National Environmental Standards for Freshwater 2020 for winter grazing by 2025 (conditions to ground cover and pugging will remain).

National Directions

• If national directions (such as national environmental standards, national planning standards, national policy statements etc) under the Resource Management Act 1991 need to be amended, that process will be sped up by this Bill. The Bill speeds up the process by:
  • removing the Board of Inquiry process;
  • providing the Minister with the power to amend national directions; and
  • not requiring a full section 32 evaluation report, but a simplified report.

What do you need to know?

Submissions on this matter closed on 30 June. The select committee report on the Bill is due on 30 September 2024.

If you have any questions about this Bill, please contact your lawyer.