March 25, 2026 • 20 mins
In life, there are few things in which we can all agree. The Resource Management Act (RMA) may be an exception with most New Zealanders agreeing it's in dire need of overhaul.
The 25-year-old legislation governs nearly everything about NZ—our land, air, water—and what we can do with them. A lot has changed since it was enacted, and several governments have tinkered with fixes over the years. The most recent overhaul proposal introduced at the end of last year has some in the primary industry nervous about the impact on our farmers and growers. So, what is in the reform proposals and what does it mean for our industry?
Joining the conversation is Fox Meyer, Political Reporter for Newsrooms who covers this issue.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:11):
Welcome to Egg Wrightson's podcast, The Blue Shirt Diary,
where we talk about the big issues important to New Zealand
farmers and growers. I'm your host and technical team
manager, Nelson Munroe. When it comes to political
issues, there are few in which most people will agree.
But I think it's safe to say that most New Zealanders agree
the Resource Management Act, or RMA, seriously needs a reform.
(00:33):
The law governs about everythingabout New Zealand, our land,
every year, water and what we can do with them.
But a lot has changed since the act came into force 25 years
ago, including the Act itself. And a new proposal for replacing
the current act has summoned theprimary industry nervous about
the impact on our farmers and growers.
Joining me today is Fox Miner, political reporter for Newsroom,
(00:56):
who's been covering this issue. Welcome to the show, Fox.
Thanks for having me. Ohh it is.
Absolutely. Have pleasure.
So let's start reasonably broad here.
Can you give us a little bit of a brief history of how we got
here? I know Labour's made some large
reforms when they were last in government to the RM and now
(01:17):
Nationals repealed that in exchange for something
completely different. Can you give us just a bit of an
overview of how we find ourselves in this predicament?
Sure. So the, the RM came in in 1991
and at the time it was pretty revolutionary, you know, having
a, a governing piece of legislation that covers so many
bits of the environment and, andthe way humans interact with it.
(01:37):
Overtime this has become creaky,I guess a slow and, and sort of
not fit for purpose in a lot of ways.
And I guess that's just sort of the natural life span of any
piece of legislation, especiallyone that is so broad.
But with calls for reform, Yeah,the last Labour government, like
you said, brought in there, their suggested reforms to this.
(01:59):
And now the coalition governmenthas thrown that out and started
over with a new one. And their take on this is a 2
pronged approach. There are two bills for this.
There is the the planning bill and the natural environment
bill. I think it is.
The point being though, is that you're going to take this
massive legislative behemoth andsplit it into sort of two
(02:21):
operational ends to, to sort of try to achieve the same goals.
Their emphasis in this is a, a property rights focused and
development focused regime. It's meant to be more
permissive, accelerate some of the problems that were being
held up by the previous regime and ideally under it, a lot of
the consensus that have been tricky to to attain for, for
(02:44):
farmers, for developers, for anyone should should be easier.
It should be more permissive. But as we're seeing with the
Select Committee process with public feedback, it seems like
there are going to be some some pitfalls here that are going to
need to be ironed out before we bring this in, lest it be even
more of a quagmire than the one that we're in already.
Yeah, it's a good summation of where we are.
So yes, we've got these two new bills, the planning bill and the
(03:06):
natural environment bill. Can you give us a little bit of
detail around what are they going to specifically do and how
do they change probably the process or the design from where
we currently are? Yeah.
So you, you, you, you've got these two bills and I think that
they, on the face of them, they're, they're very long and
(03:27):
complicated. So you may catch me here saying
things like, I don't quite know yet or I don't understand yet.
And I feel like people are goingto be saying that for 20 years.
Having read some of the legislative documents, I am no
clearer at the end of all of that reading than I was at the
start. They are extremely complicated.
(03:47):
Sometimes I come out of those reading sessions feeling like I
understand it less than I did going into it.
But look like an empathise with you there.
On the face of it, though, the the idea is fewer and simpler
consents that they want to move the decision making at the plan
level rather than at the consenting level.
So standardised plans is going to be a big part of this.
(04:08):
And as you sort of alluded to earlier, this is something that
people agree on. You know, people do disagree on
a lot of things, but the fact that this needs work and it
needs work to be simplified is pretty much unanimous.
I think that that everybody's going to agree with that.
Looking at the plan approach, you know, I think we have over
100 different types of plans in New Zealand currently.
(04:30):
They want to simplify that down to 17 and build this sort of
funnel. They're calling it like the
funnel approach to consenting where there's going to be a lot
of top down decision making thatbrings these environmental
consents and etcetera into sort of a legislative funnel where,
you know, the further along you go, the less room there is for
moving things around and tinkering with things, which is
(04:51):
why it's important. And I think the first pitfall
that that we can go over if you want to, is that it puts a lot
of emphasis and weight on that first top level process.
Because if that is not done doneright, it gets increasingly
difficult to figure out how to solve problems that come from
that first high level approach. That's a really interesting
(05:13):
point. I mean, I don't know, I guess
when I look at a lot of this is there's a lot of really good
buzz words and things like that.But I think you're quite right.
The devil's gonna lie on the details and, and, and I think,
you know, as much as I may be guilty of using it, we're gonna
go for a funnel approach here. We're gonna start a very broad
context and work our way down toa very fine critical resolution
(05:36):
is just, we've been a corporate offering and and I do think
you're quite right. That initial step, getting that
first piece of scoping and getting that first piece of of
the process right is going to bea lot harder than what we think.
I think on that, just something to to put in there.
There's been a lot of criticism around the legislation coming
(05:57):
out of this government around the, the speed to use Alexa
unism working at pace, you know,and the, the, the problems that
come from that. You know, it's, it's very
difficult once you work through something really quickly for
good reason to try to get it outand then sort of back change it.
And that, you know, that that might be a problem when you're
looking at something like fast track projects.
But when you're looking at something which is going to be
(06:18):
the replacement for the most significant piece of legislation
in the country, there is no other more important time to
make sure that that is absolutely airtight.
You know, and if we're rushing through stuff here, which I
think the Select Committee process is showing us that we,
we have been, there are issues here that that can be sorted
into. Is this like a genuine concern
that we'll need to work through carefully?
(06:39):
Or is this just something that happened because we were working
so quickly on this? You know, the, the fewer of
those second type of problems wehave, the the better, you know,
we, we don't have a lot of time to be talking about this stuff.
And so the, the less time we spend talking on, I guess like
silly mistakes, the better. And, and there's some number of
those silly mistakes are going to end up in the final
(07:00):
legislation. And you know, it's, it's going
to be sort of a how many balls can you keep in the air kind of
game to, to, to reduce that number.
You're not feeling me with a lotof confidence here, Fox.
Let's take a slightly different protect Hell, hell, the new
bills been received. I mean, what is what is industry
coming back with? What feedback are you hearing
(07:21):
out in the across New Zealand about these two belts?
Well, at least from the agricultural sector, which is
where I spend most of my RM a coverage time, it's unanimous
support for the, the, the intentof this, you know, like, and,
and I imagine that extends into other sectors as well.
But everybody agrees, you know, from from farming lobbies to, to
(07:43):
dairy industry, etcetera, that the idea that we need to
streamline consenting process and then speed up development is
good. And, and they know that that's
the point of the bill. It's been very clearly
signalled. But there are these sort of
details that are going to end uppotentially making somethings
worse and more complicated in the long run.
You know, however, I would take some solace if I was in those
(08:03):
industries knowing that the government has very clearly
signalled that it is open to change and is listening.
And once feedback. And you know, there's we can
talk about the quote UN quote, water tax as an example of this
as as we move forward because that was a big one.
But I think I think the reception has been warm in terms
of weak, you know, that those sectors can tell that this is in
(08:24):
a lot of ways geared towards making their lives easier, but
is unanimously pointing out a couple key issues that that
could cause problems. But you know, This is why we're
drafting legislation, right? You need you need this process
to be able to catch those mistakes.
Look, and it's a really interesting point you make and
it doesn't take much reading through the agricultural and
horticultural news to realise how NZ beef and lamb Federated
(08:47):
farmers using pork, Dairynz, they've all sort of come out and
made statements here and in general, you know, supportive of
changes to the RMA. But concerns around will the
current legislation be fit for purpose or is it going to create
some issues out of the primary industry?
(09:09):
What do you think's giving them pause here?
Where do you think the real painpoints they've identified are?
Well, I mean, I think they've talked a lot about freshwater
farm plans, which is an area that I'm starting to look more
into and I can't speak to with total authority yet.
But I know that there's a lot ofconversation going on there
about how that is going to be managed, how that could
potentially be more complicated than less complicated.
(09:30):
You know, theoretically, if you're doing this
standardisation approach, right,you're saying we're going to
come up with a suite of relatively few plans.
You're going to sort of be able to take one of these, apply it
to your operation, and then everything will be standardised
and it should be easier. Well, great.
But, you know, shouldn't you then not necessarily need a
consent for all the stuff that you're doing on it?
If you spend all this time developing a standard, what's
the point of that standard if you then have to go apply for
(09:52):
all the stuff in the standard? You know, and it's these sort of
things that I think are going tobe a highlight of this
submissions process. And I want to also say more from
like, I guess a theoretical angle on this, something I've
been thinking about is that by splitting this into two bills,
you have to make sure that thosebills can talk to each other in
(10:12):
a way that makes sense and don'tconflict with each other.
Like you're not setting up ways that accidentally you're
creating more legislative work. And that's a risk of turning one
thing into two things no matter what.
But I think that that's especially important for farming
and agriculture because if you have a development bill and an
environment bill, farming is an industry that sits perfectly
(10:34):
between those two, right? Like in a way that not a lot of
other stuff does. So that's, you know, it's going
to be important for everybody, but especially important for the
people at that Nexus there. So just something to think about
when we think about cohesivenessand you know, cohesiveness
especially is going to be, in myopinion, the first thing that's
lost by a rush process. So, you know, tightening that up
(10:55):
I think is going to be a major concern of all of those bodies
you've just mentioned. You've already mentioned that
the government is actually taking a bit of a unique
approach here. They're actually a little.
They're actually open to to feedback and they're open to
making changes on the bills regarding concerns.
Do you want to talk a little bitmore around that?
What have they actually said here?
(11:17):
Well, one of the big, the big cries that I was hearing from
those industries was about this water tax.
And that might be a good exampleof where to start here.
You know, there's this thing called market based water
allocation that people were really worried about.
And I think, you know, for good reason, like if you look over at
the Murray Darling River over anoz, like there's a few land
(11:38):
holders that basically control acontrolling supply of the water
there. And it's made it really
difficult for otherwise potentially valuable land to be
developed because this market allocation approach means that
it's all locked up within a few industries.
Essentially. They don't want that to be
replicated here. You know, they and and and for
good reason, I think. But, you know, the way that the
legislation is drafted it, it reads like that might be a
(12:00):
possibility. Everybody got kind of freaked
out about it. Bishop, Chris Bishop in charge
of all this reform, has put out a statement about it.
He reconfirmed to me a few weeksago that that is absolutely not
government policy. It never has been.
And that's not what they want todo.
And I think that that is kind ofa good example of what the
problem is here. You know, you have this
legislation that's drafted at pace and put out and people see
(12:22):
something in it and go wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.
That that's not what we want outof this.
That could be bad. And then the people in charge of
it go, well, that's not what we meant, we're not going to do
that, but it is in there, you know, like that.
Those are the kind of problems that we're going to be running
into. And there's there's probably
going to be more of them. But obviously the response seems
to signify that it's good that we catch those and bring them up
because that's not what they want to happen, but it's what
(12:45):
we're spending our time talking about.
Well, you and you're quite right.
It's, you know, it's all very good and well to say, well,
that's not what we meet, that's not the intent we've got with
this. But as we know governments
change, people will change in these positions.
And if that is the legislation and that's the law, that will
very quickly become what they need to do or what they want to
(13:05):
do rather than what they meant to do.
So one thing I really quite liketo get your thoughts on here,
Fox, is around biodiversity. I know over the last few years
this has become more and more ofan interest topic for the
primary industry and it's been one we haven't really been able
to grapple with. Do you think this new
(13:26):
legislation is going to give us a really good steer or really
good position on on how our farmers and growers should be
treating biodiversity on their properties?
I think, I think it's unclear atthis point, like a lot of other
stuff is, but I do know that the, the framework it set out is
a known net loss framework. And that the problem that I see
(13:46):
in that personally is that, you know, we're already losing
things. And so if you take our benchmark
of where we are now and we say, okay, no net loss, well, that's
baking in all of the loss that we've already had.
And I think there's we don't necessarily need to do that.
The UK's version of this says isdesigned around a net gain.
And, and I think that it's possible we could do that here
too, without making life too difficult.
(14:07):
But I also think that this conversation on biodiversity and
biodiversity on private lands and farms, in a way, it sort of
creates this picture that, you know, the farming industry or
farmers themselves, like don't understand or don't care, don't
value biodiversity. And I think that's like
obviously untrue. You know, the, the people who
understand how this land works the best are the people who work
(14:29):
with it. And it sort of feeds into this
narrative of an us versus them on biodiversity.
There is common ground here. You know, I think anybody who
suggests otherwise is, is being silly.
But I think that the the approach here that's a little
bit dangerous is this idea of regulatory relief and that if
you're doing something on your private property that that this
legislation would hinder, you can be effectively bailed out
(14:54):
by, by the council, whether that's a cash development or
some sort of other legislative relief.
But it puts the onus on the local council to compensate you
for that. And that works in theory, but in
practise, it could mean that councils that are particularly
cash strapped might just not tryto make some of these
protections because they can't afford to, to bail them out.
(15:18):
And I just don't know if that's necessarily the future we want
to be moving towards. You know, I think that it, it
puts a lot of responsibility on individual landowners to make
those decisions. And as we move forward in a
world that is losing biodiversity, I worry that it's
going to be accelerated in that way.
And I don't necessarily think that's what farmers want.
(15:38):
I probably seem to agree with you there.
I, I think that there's, that isthis is a solution is rife with
some with some very real issues.And I think, yeah, there's
definitely one. I think I'd like to see some
more, some more discussion and some more work on if their
listeners have any concerns around this or if they want to
(15:59):
find out more information aroundthe, the proposed legislation
around the RM A you know, what would your advice to them beat
box? Well, I mean at this stage,
public submissions, you know, the, the submission period has
has closed its before Select Committee as we're recording
this and you know, you can go back and listen to those Select
Committee recordings if you want.
There are also some good resources out there.
I think Russell McVeigh has a good top ten points thing.
(16:21):
It's broken down pretty pretty cleanly.
It's like A1 pager on it that you could read through the
Environmental Defence Society, you know, which is an
environmental lobby group at theend of the day.
But they are also excellent RMA lawyers.
They have they have good resources on this available as
well. You know, they're also concerned
about the intersection of development environment.
You know, you could, all of those agricultural groups that
(16:42):
I've mentioned have put out numerous press releases about
this. But, you know, I think that the
at the end of the day, if you'retalking about complicated
environmental legislation, it's like it's going to be a bit of a
slog no matter which Ave. you take to get involved with this.
And so, you know, just, it's worth it.
It's going to take some time to understand.
Well, but I'd say, you know, like we're still trying to
(17:04):
understand the RMA. It's been what, 20-5 years, you
know, like, and we're still trying to figure out how that
works. So don't expect to go into this
and come out of it with some, some crystal clear understanding
of, of what's going on here. I think I'm going to some of
those legal groups perhaps and looking at their concerns and
their recommendations is a good place to start.
Definitely seems like it's goingto be, it's going to be an
(17:26):
evolving development. And I think you're right.
Well, everyone agrees we've got to do this quickly.
Speed does bring some problems and I think this is going to be
an evolving scenario certainly over the next few years.
On that just to sort of illustrate that as well, I
believe the the way that the previous government had intended
(17:46):
to roll in their new their new regime for this, but sort of
like a 10 year on ramp for a lotof this stuff.
And this one is looking at like a two year period.
So all of the complications thatare that are coming that come up
from I think someone called it like a ripping off a Band-Aid
approach. You know, it's going to be
condensed and it's going to be messy for those those those that
(18:06):
period of time. I don't know what complications
that's going to lead to, but youknow, the one of the especially
important aspects of that is this national direction approach
that they're taking to this. And what that means is that like
they've got these bills and theyhave a governing structure for
how environment and development works.
And then there's these things called national directions or
national policy statements. I think they are now where you
(18:30):
have like a government document that says here is how we are
going to prioritise housing development.
Here's our, our sheet on what the priorities are here and the
yeses and Nos of it. And it's like a building block
that you can slot in to that wider legislation and like pull
back out and change if you need to, sort of like, you know,
putting Legos into a system and then taking them apart again.
And that's, that's a way to, to work in this system.
(18:52):
That's good. But if you're developing 20 of
these at once and putting them all in at once and then trying
to change them, Well, we remember how complicated the
definition of an inland wetland was, right?
Like you remember how much of a mess that was, like one of these
building blocks and like how long that took to get sorted.
(19:13):
And you, if you're taking heaps of these and doing them all at
once, how are you going to be able to deal with all these
problems at once? They're going to come up whether
you meant them to or not. You know, that's how law making
works. And so there's, it's going to be
chaotic. I think that's the right word
chaotic. And I think we, we, it's, it's
(19:33):
members of the primary industry and design of New Zealand.
We're just going to have to somepart probably going to have to
lie back and relax and ease intothis and just go with the flow.
And I think we'll certainly, certainly look to have you back
on Fox as as things develop and things evolve and we start to
get a little bit more clarity orprobably more likely going to
(19:54):
need more clarity to try and find their way through this.
Okay, thank you. That was it was a pleasure
speaking with you and I would say that throughout all of it,
you know, the the impetus here was to make things easier for
farming and development. That's clearly the goal.
So. That is the goal is on the table
then, you know, I think there's some some encouragement to be
found there for that sector. I think there certainly is
(20:16):
definitely glass is half full. Fantastic.
Thanks folks. Thank you so much.
Thank you for listening to Blue Sheet Diary, PG Writes and
Podcast. For information on how you can
join the conversation, visit ourwebsite@store.pggwrightson.co
dot NZ. We could be found under Tips and
Advice or take a look at our newshow notes.
(20:38):
Here's a link. Until next time, thank you.
Welcome to Egg Wrightson's podcast, The Blue Shirt Diary,
where we talk about the big issues important to New Zealand
farmers and growers. I'm your host and technical team
manager, Nelson Munroe. When it comes to political
issues, there are few in which most people will agree.
But I think it's safe to say that most New Zealanders agree
the Resource Management Act, or RMA, seriously needs a reform.
(00:33):
The law governs about everythingabout New Zealand, our land,
every year, water and what we can do with them.
But a lot has changed since the act came into force 25 years
ago, including the Act itself. And a new proposal for replacing
the current act has summoned theprimary industry nervous about
the impact on our farmers and growers.
Joining me today is Fox Miner, political reporter for Newsroom,
(00:56):
who's been covering this issue. Welcome to the show, Fox.
Thanks for having me. Ohh it is.
Absolutely. Have pleasure.
So let's start reasonably broad here.
Can you give us a little bit of a brief history of how we got
here? I know Labour's made some large
reforms when they were last in government to the RM and now
(01:17):
Nationals repealed that in exchange for something
completely different. Can you give us just a bit of an
overview of how we find ourselves in this predicament?
Sure. So the, the RM came in in 1991
and at the time it was pretty revolutionary, you know, having
a, a governing piece of legislation that covers so many
bits of the environment and, andthe way humans interact with it.
(01:37):
Overtime this has become creaky,I guess a slow and, and sort of
not fit for purpose in a lot of ways.
And I guess that's just sort of the natural life span of any
piece of legislation, especiallyone that is so broad.
But with calls for reform, Yeah,the last Labour government, like
you said, brought in there, their suggested reforms to this.
(01:59):
And now the coalition governmenthas thrown that out and started
over with a new one. And their take on this is a 2
pronged approach. There are two bills for this.
There is the the planning bill and the natural environment
bill. I think it is.
The point being though, is that you're going to take this
massive legislative behemoth andsplit it into sort of two
(02:21):
operational ends to, to sort of try to achieve the same goals.
Their emphasis in this is a, a property rights focused and
development focused regime. It's meant to be more
permissive, accelerate some of the problems that were being
held up by the previous regime and ideally under it, a lot of
the consensus that have been tricky to to attain for, for
(02:44):
farmers, for developers, for anyone should should be easier.
It should be more permissive. But as we're seeing with the
Select Committee process with public feedback, it seems like
there are going to be some some pitfalls here that are going to
need to be ironed out before we bring this in, lest it be even
more of a quagmire than the one that we're in already.
Yeah, it's a good summation of where we are.
So yes, we've got these two new bills, the planning bill and the
(03:06):
natural environment bill. Can you give us a little bit of
detail around what are they going to specifically do and how
do they change probably the process or the design from where
we currently are? Yeah.
So you, you, you, you've got these two bills and I think that
they, on the face of them, they're, they're very long and
(03:27):
complicated. So you may catch me here saying
things like, I don't quite know yet or I don't understand yet.
And I feel like people are goingto be saying that for 20 years.
Having read some of the legislative documents, I am no
clearer at the end of all of that reading than I was at the
start. They are extremely complicated.
(03:47):
Sometimes I come out of those reading sessions feeling like I
understand it less than I did going into it.
But look like an empathise with you there.
On the face of it, though, the the idea is fewer and simpler
consents that they want to move the decision making at the plan
level rather than at the consenting level.
So standardised plans is going to be a big part of this.
(04:08):
And as you sort of alluded to earlier, this is something that
people agree on. You know, people do disagree on
a lot of things, but the fact that this needs work and it
needs work to be simplified is pretty much unanimous.
I think that that everybody's going to agree with that.
Looking at the plan approach, you know, I think we have over
100 different types of plans in New Zealand currently.
(04:30):
They want to simplify that down to 17 and build this sort of
funnel. They're calling it like the
funnel approach to consenting where there's going to be a lot
of top down decision making thatbrings these environmental
consents and etcetera into sort of a legislative funnel where,
you know, the further along you go, the less room there is for
moving things around and tinkering with things, which is
(04:51):
why it's important. And I think the first pitfall
that that we can go over if you want to, is that it puts a lot
of emphasis and weight on that first top level process.
Because if that is not done doneright, it gets increasingly
difficult to figure out how to solve problems that come from
that first high level approach. That's a really interesting
(05:13):
point. I mean, I don't know, I guess
when I look at a lot of this is there's a lot of really good
buzz words and things like that.But I think you're quite right.
The devil's gonna lie on the details and, and, and I think,
you know, as much as I may be guilty of using it, we're gonna
go for a funnel approach here. We're gonna start a very broad
context and work our way down toa very fine critical resolution
(05:36):
is just, we've been a corporate offering and and I do think
you're quite right. That initial step, getting that
first piece of scoping and getting that first piece of of
the process right is going to bea lot harder than what we think.
I think on that, just something to to put in there.
There's been a lot of criticism around the legislation coming
(05:57):
out of this government around the, the speed to use Alexa
unism working at pace, you know,and the, the, the problems that
come from that. You know, it's, it's very
difficult once you work through something really quickly for
good reason to try to get it outand then sort of back change it.
And that, you know, that that might be a problem when you're
looking at something like fast track projects.
But when you're looking at something which is going to be
(06:18):
the replacement for the most significant piece of legislation
in the country, there is no other more important time to
make sure that that is absolutely airtight.
You know, and if we're rushing through stuff here, which I
think the Select Committee process is showing us that we,
we have been, there are issues here that that can be sorted
into. Is this like a genuine concern
that we'll need to work through carefully?
(06:39):
Or is this just something that happened because we were working
so quickly on this? You know, the, the fewer of
those second type of problems wehave, the the better, you know,
we, we don't have a lot of time to be talking about this stuff.
And so the, the less time we spend talking on, I guess like
silly mistakes, the better. And, and there's some number of
those silly mistakes are going to end up in the final
(07:00):
legislation. And you know, it's, it's going
to be sort of a how many balls can you keep in the air kind of
game to, to, to reduce that number.
You're not feeling me with a lotof confidence here, Fox.
Let's take a slightly different protect Hell, hell, the new
bills been received. I mean, what is what is industry
coming back with? What feedback are you hearing
(07:21):
out in the across New Zealand about these two belts?
Well, at least from the agricultural sector, which is
where I spend most of my RM a coverage time, it's unanimous
support for the, the, the intentof this, you know, like, and,
and I imagine that extends into other sectors as well.
But everybody agrees, you know, from from farming lobbies to, to
(07:43):
dairy industry, etcetera, that the idea that we need to
streamline consenting process and then speed up development is
good. And, and they know that that's
the point of the bill. It's been very clearly
signalled. But there are these sort of
details that are going to end uppotentially making somethings
worse and more complicated in the long run.
You know, however, I would take some solace if I was in those
(08:03):
industries knowing that the government has very clearly
signalled that it is open to change and is listening.
And once feedback. And you know, there's we can
talk about the quote UN quote, water tax as an example of this
as as we move forward because that was a big one.
But I think I think the reception has been warm in terms
of weak, you know, that those sectors can tell that this is in
(08:24):
a lot of ways geared towards making their lives easier, but
is unanimously pointing out a couple key issues that that
could cause problems. But you know, This is why we're
drafting legislation, right? You need you need this process
to be able to catch those mistakes.
Look, and it's a really interesting point you make and
it doesn't take much reading through the agricultural and
horticultural news to realise how NZ beef and lamb Federated
(08:47):
farmers using pork, Dairynz, they've all sort of come out and
made statements here and in general, you know, supportive of
changes to the RMA. But concerns around will the
current legislation be fit for purpose or is it going to create
some issues out of the primary industry?
(09:09):
What do you think's giving them pause here?
Where do you think the real painpoints they've identified are?
Well, I mean, I think they've talked a lot about freshwater
farm plans, which is an area that I'm starting to look more
into and I can't speak to with total authority yet.
But I know that there's a lot ofconversation going on there
about how that is going to be managed, how that could
potentially be more complicated than less complicated.
(09:30):
You know, theoretically, if you're doing this
standardisation approach, right,you're saying we're going to
come up with a suite of relatively few plans.
You're going to sort of be able to take one of these, apply it
to your operation, and then everything will be standardised
and it should be easier. Well, great.
But, you know, shouldn't you then not necessarily need a
consent for all the stuff that you're doing on it?
If you spend all this time developing a standard, what's
the point of that standard if you then have to go apply for
(09:52):
all the stuff in the standard? You know, and it's these sort of
things that I think are going tobe a highlight of this
submissions process. And I want to also say more from
like, I guess a theoretical angle on this, something I've
been thinking about is that by splitting this into two bills,
you have to make sure that thosebills can talk to each other in
(10:12):
a way that makes sense and don'tconflict with each other.
Like you're not setting up ways that accidentally you're
creating more legislative work. And that's a risk of turning one
thing into two things no matter what.
But I think that that's especially important for farming
and agriculture because if you have a development bill and an
environment bill, farming is an industry that sits perfectly
(10:34):
between those two, right? Like in a way that not a lot of
other stuff does. So that's, you know, it's going
to be important for everybody, but especially important for the
people at that Nexus there. So just something to think about
when we think about cohesivenessand you know, cohesiveness
especially is going to be, in myopinion, the first thing that's
lost by a rush process. So, you know, tightening that up
(10:55):
I think is going to be a major concern of all of those bodies
you've just mentioned. You've already mentioned that
the government is actually taking a bit of a unique
approach here. They're actually a little.
They're actually open to to feedback and they're open to
making changes on the bills regarding concerns.
Do you want to talk a little bitmore around that?
What have they actually said here?
(11:17):
Well, one of the big, the big cries that I was hearing from
those industries was about this water tax.
And that might be a good exampleof where to start here.
You know, there's this thing called market based water
allocation that people were really worried about.
And I think, you know, for good reason, like if you look over at
the Murray Darling River over anoz, like there's a few land
(11:38):
holders that basically control acontrolling supply of the water
there. And it's made it really
difficult for otherwise potentially valuable land to be
developed because this market allocation approach means that
it's all locked up within a few industries.
Essentially. They don't want that to be
replicated here. You know, they and and and for
good reason, I think. But, you know, the way that the
legislation is drafted it, it reads like that might be a
(12:00):
possibility. Everybody got kind of freaked
out about it. Bishop, Chris Bishop in charge
of all this reform, has put out a statement about it.
He reconfirmed to me a few weeksago that that is absolutely not
government policy. It never has been.
And that's not what they want todo.
And I think that that is kind ofa good example of what the
problem is here. You know, you have this
legislation that's drafted at pace and put out and people see
(12:22):
something in it and go wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.
That that's not what we want outof this.
That could be bad. And then the people in charge of
it go, well, that's not what we meant, we're not going to do
that, but it is in there, you know, like that.
Those are the kind of problems that we're going to be running
into. And there's there's probably
going to be more of them. But obviously the response seems
to signify that it's good that we catch those and bring them up
because that's not what they want to happen, but it's what
(12:45):
we're spending our time talking about.
Well, you and you're quite right.
It's, you know, it's all very good and well to say, well,
that's not what we meet, that's not the intent we've got with
this. But as we know governments
change, people will change in these positions.
And if that is the legislation and that's the law, that will
very quickly become what they need to do or what they want to
(13:05):
do rather than what they meant to do.
So one thing I really quite liketo get your thoughts on here,
Fox, is around biodiversity. I know over the last few years
this has become more and more ofan interest topic for the
primary industry and it's been one we haven't really been able
to grapple with. Do you think this new
(13:26):
legislation is going to give us a really good steer or really
good position on on how our farmers and growers should be
treating biodiversity on their properties?
I think, I think it's unclear atthis point, like a lot of other
stuff is, but I do know that the, the framework it set out is
a known net loss framework. And that the problem that I see
(13:46):
in that personally is that, you know, we're already losing
things. And so if you take our benchmark
of where we are now and we say, okay, no net loss, well, that's
baking in all of the loss that we've already had.
And I think there's we don't necessarily need to do that.
The UK's version of this says isdesigned around a net gain.
And, and I think that it's possible we could do that here
too, without making life too difficult.
(14:07):
But I also think that this conversation on biodiversity and
biodiversity on private lands and farms, in a way, it sort of
creates this picture that, you know, the farming industry or
farmers themselves, like don't understand or don't care, don't
value biodiversity. And I think that's like
obviously untrue. You know, the, the people who
understand how this land works the best are the people who work
(14:29):
with it. And it sort of feeds into this
narrative of an us versus them on biodiversity.
There is common ground here. You know, I think anybody who
suggests otherwise is, is being silly.
But I think that the the approach here that's a little
bit dangerous is this idea of regulatory relief and that if
you're doing something on your private property that that this
legislation would hinder, you can be effectively bailed out
(14:54):
by, by the council, whether that's a cash development or
some sort of other legislative relief.
But it puts the onus on the local council to compensate you
for that. And that works in theory, but in
practise, it could mean that councils that are particularly
cash strapped might just not tryto make some of these
protections because they can't afford to, to bail them out.
(15:18):
And I just don't know if that's necessarily the future we want
to be moving towards. You know, I think that it, it
puts a lot of responsibility on individual landowners to make
those decisions. And as we move forward in a
world that is losing biodiversity, I worry that it's
going to be accelerated in that way.
And I don't necessarily think that's what farmers want.
(15:38):
I probably seem to agree with you there.
I, I think that there's, that isthis is a solution is rife with
some with some very real issues.And I think, yeah, there's
definitely one. I think I'd like to see some
more, some more discussion and some more work on if their
listeners have any concerns around this or if they want to
(15:59):
find out more information aroundthe, the proposed legislation
around the RM A you know, what would your advice to them beat
box? Well, I mean at this stage,
public submissions, you know, the, the submission period has
has closed its before Select Committee as we're recording
this and you know, you can go back and listen to those Select
Committee recordings if you want.
There are also some good resources out there.
I think Russell McVeigh has a good top ten points thing.
(16:21):
It's broken down pretty pretty cleanly.
It's like A1 pager on it that you could read through the
Environmental Defence Society, you know, which is an
environmental lobby group at theend of the day.
But they are also excellent RMA lawyers.
They have they have good resources on this available as
well. You know, they're also concerned
about the intersection of development environment.
You know, you could, all of those agricultural groups that
(16:42):
I've mentioned have put out numerous press releases about
this. But, you know, I think that the
at the end of the day, if you'retalking about complicated
environmental legislation, it's like it's going to be a bit of a
slog no matter which Ave. you take to get involved with this.
And so, you know, just, it's worth it.
It's going to take some time to understand.
Well, but I'd say, you know, like we're still trying to
(17:04):
understand the RMA. It's been what, 20-5 years, you
know, like, and we're still trying to figure out how that
works. So don't expect to go into this
and come out of it with some, some crystal clear understanding
of, of what's going on here. I think I'm going to some of
those legal groups perhaps and looking at their concerns and
their recommendations is a good place to start.
Definitely seems like it's goingto be, it's going to be an
(17:26):
evolving development. And I think you're right.
Well, everyone agrees we've got to do this quickly.
Speed does bring some problems and I think this is going to be
an evolving scenario certainly over the next few years.
On that just to sort of illustrate that as well, I
believe the the way that the previous government had intended
(17:46):
to roll in their new their new regime for this, but sort of
like a 10 year on ramp for a lotof this stuff.
And this one is looking at like a two year period.
So all of the complications thatare that are coming that come up
from I think someone called it like a ripping off a Band-Aid
approach. You know, it's going to be
condensed and it's going to be messy for those those those that
(18:06):
period of time. I don't know what complications
that's going to lead to, but youknow, the one of the especially
important aspects of that is this national direction approach
that they're taking to this. And what that means is that like
they've got these bills and theyhave a governing structure for
how environment and development works.
And then there's these things called national directions or
national policy statements. I think they are now where you
(18:30):
have like a government document that says here is how we are
going to prioritise housing development.
Here's our, our sheet on what the priorities are here and the
yeses and Nos of it. And it's like a building block
that you can slot in to that wider legislation and like pull
back out and change if you need to, sort of like, you know,
putting Legos into a system and then taking them apart again.
And that's, that's a way to, to work in this system.
(18:52):
That's good. But if you're developing 20 of
these at once and putting them all in at once and then trying
to change them, Well, we remember how complicated the
definition of an inland wetland was, right?
Like you remember how much of a mess that was, like one of these
building blocks and like how long that took to get sorted.
(19:13):
And you, if you're taking heaps of these and doing them all at
once, how are you going to be able to deal with all these
problems at once? They're going to come up whether
you meant them to or not. You know, that's how law making
works. And so there's, it's going to be
chaotic. I think that's the right word
chaotic. And I think we, we, it's, it's
(19:33):
members of the primary industry and design of New Zealand.
We're just going to have to somepart probably going to have to
lie back and relax and ease intothis and just go with the flow.
And I think we'll certainly, certainly look to have you back
on Fox as as things develop and things evolve and we start to
get a little bit more clarity orprobably more likely going to
(19:54):
need more clarity to try and find their way through this.
Okay, thank you. That was it was a pleasure
speaking with you and I would say that throughout all of it,
you know, the the impetus here was to make things easier for
farming and development. That's clearly the goal.
So. That is the goal is on the table
then, you know, I think there's some some encouragement to be
found there for that sector. I think there certainly is
(20:16):
definitely glass is half full. Fantastic.
Thanks folks. Thank you so much.
Thank you for listening to Blue Sheet Diary, PG Writes and
Podcast. For information on how you can
join the conversation, visit ourwebsite@store.pggwrightson.co
dot NZ. We could be found under Tips and
Advice or take a look at our newshow notes.
(20:38):
Here's a link. Until next time, thank you.
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