RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop says the proposed changes are complex and technical but have a big impact on the economy. Photo: VNP/Louis Collins
The government's proposed Resource Management Act changes have been met with jubilation from some quarters, and dismay from others.
Public consultation has opened on a suite of different national directions across infrastructure, primary sector development, and freshwater.
Announcing the proposals, RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop described National Policy Statements as "the meat on the bones" of the RMA.
"The changes are technical and complex, but they do have a big impact on the economy," he said.
The changes would all sit under the RMA as it currently stands.
The government was aiming to replace the Act next year.
But it was confident these changes, despite their technical and complicated nature, would be able to transition into the new system.
The proposed reforms were designed to be more practical and regionally-adaptable.
The government's proposed replacing the NPS for Freshwater Management entirely, and "rebalancing" Te Mana o te Wai.
The government wants to replace the Resource Management Act next year. Photo: Bill McKay
It is a concept that puts the mauri of the water first, but the government said a rebalance towards all water users would give councils more flexibility in how they manage freshwater, and tailor monitoring and management to local conditions.
Agriculture minister Todd McClay said councils had become frustrated by "burdensome" processes they had to go through, but working together would lead to better outcomes for freshwater and for productivity.
Farmers were onboard, but environmentalists were concerned it could be an open invite to pollution.
Farmers hailing end of 'unworkable' rules
Federated Farmers welcomed the proposals, saying the previous government's freshwater rules were "completely unworkable" for farmers.
Vice president and freshwater spokesperson Colin Hurst said councils were unclear on how they should interpret Te Mana o Te Wai.
"It's very hard to work out exactly what that meant, certainly from the wider communities around the country," he said.
Hurst said Federated Farmers was still digesting the proposals, but said it was important to strike a balance between water quality and economic activity.
"We're looking forward to having a system that's more enabling, but still have a framework of the rules set up, a sort of national standard that if you meet the standard you should be able to carry on farming, but still conscious we're not degrading the environment and that kind of thing."
'Things are going to get worse' - ecologist
Freshwater expert Dr Mike Joy said the consenting changes felt like half a lifetime's amount of work thrown out overnight.
He said freshwater was getting worse and worse, but Te Mana o Te Wai - a key part of the 2020 National Policy Statement - was about putting freshwater ahead of big business.
"It's basically being thrown out along with the rest of the protections in the Resource Management Act.
"Most of our lowland rivers are not swimmable or fishable anymore" he said, and "things are going to get worse".
He said the changes would not be friendly to farmers, and would instead make them "pariahs" for environmental failures.
Dr Mike Joy is particularly alarmed at one proposed change in the RMA. Photo: supplied
Joy was particularly alarmed at a change that would remove restrictions on non-intensive wetland grazing.
"If you think of it as a human analogy, it's like we've lost 90 percent of our kidneys, and then we've only got 10 percent left, and then they want to destroy them by allowing cattle grazing on it.
"If you think of it from a human health perspective, we would know that it's suicidal to do that."
Councils keen on simplicity
Tasman's mayor said the proposed RMA changes would take time to digest, but it was good the detail could now be debated.
Tim King said people could now take a look, determine what their view was, and provide feedback.
"People just want to understand what it is they can do and the process they go through for that what they can't do. And if this brings more clarity to people, then that'd be a good thing," he said.
King believed people would welcome the simplicity, given the system had become "very complex and tends to require the use of consultants".
He said councils would have to work under whatever "national direction" was decided, but could be the connection between that and the local communities.
"We may well be the connection between the community, whether that's farmers, other landowners, the community in general, between these suggested changes and actually implementing them on the ground.
"So obviously, we're going to have a really key focus on how that part of it might work."
Opposition parties denounce proposals
The Green Party, meanwhile, was angry and disheartened.
Its environment spokesperson Lan Pham said it was a "comprehensive dismantling" of major protections that were in place.
"It feels like we've been working for decades, literally, to get some basic functional environmental protections in place, and now this government is announcing these sweeping changes, which are essentially this comprehensive dismantling of these very meagre protections that we even had in place."
Green Party environment spokesperson Lan Pham. Photo: RNZ / Conan Young
She said the concerning thing about the changes was they touched on "every single environmental domain".
"Everything from our forests to our fresh water to our oceans.
"The power of the national direction is that it can basically enable this wholesale pollution, wholesale degradation, wholesale exploitation under the guise of growth, which this government is entirely blinkered in their thinking, and it's all for a quick buck."
She said the current and future generations would be the ones who "pay the price" of this "environmental degradation and exploitation".
Labour's environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said the government was undoing all the work Labour did to ensure rivers were clean enough to swim in.
"Labour had a goal of swimmable rivers within a generation to deal with pollution, so that your kids and grandkids wouldn't get sick just from going swimming," she said.
"National seem determined to allow polluters to profit from our environment while also destroying it."
Brooking did however say it was good the community would get to have a say, unlike with projects approved by fast-track legislation.
ACT wants Te Mana o Te Wai dumped
Coalition partner ACT wants Te Mana o te Wai and national bottom lines scrapped entirely, leaving regional councils free to set their own standards.
Rebalancing Te Mana o te Wai is a coalition commitment, but ACT leader David Seymour said consultation would be a chance for those who want to get rid of it altogether to have their say.
"This is an opportunity for people who basically think Te Mana o Te Wai is nonsensical, it's vague, it really stops ironically people from building their mana, from using the land in a responsible way to grow our prosperity as a country.
"We believe it's time for such a concept to be dumped."
'Quite significant' - Quarry Association
There were also proposals to amend provisions to allow for wetland quarrying and mining provisions.
Essentially, in order to build and maintain infrastructure, the government wants quarries and mines but the RMA had made consenting the projects too difficult.
Aggregate and Quarry association CEO Wayne Scott said the National Policy Statements for Indigenous Biodiversity and for Highly Productive Land used terms like "aggregate extraction," which were undefined, as opposed to "quarrying activities," which was the National Planning Standards definition for what they do.
"The difference is that aggregate extraction is just actually extracting material out of the ground. It doesn't take any other ancillary activities that are associated with quarrying," he said.
"So we've seen that resource consent applications have been unable to be lodged because the activity was more than just extracting aggregate.
"So that change is going to be quite significant."
He also pointed to "some superfluous words" used in the land NPS that said the exemption did not apply if it could be otherwise sourced in New Zealand.
"We're not quite sure what those words meant, but the interpretation was that if you can source it elsewhere, then the development can't proceed, and that has stifled a number of core applications around the country."
Scott said it was important to have aggregate sources close to the market, but said they do not "just pop quarries anywhere for the sake of it" and there would only be quarries where there was demand.
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