However, he said it was important to repeal the new laws before councils put too much work and cost into the systems set up by Labour’s changes - the repeal was included in the coalition government’s 100-day plan.
The two laws only passed into law in August and were intended to put in place a simplified process which cut down on the costs of the consenting process. The RMA had been criticised for years for the length of time and high costs associated with consents.
It would take some time to draft a replacement law. Bishop was aiming to do that by the end of the Parliamentary term in 2026.
Today’s law changes will retain Labour’s fast-track consenting process for major infrastructure projects until a new fast-track regime can be developed.
On the campaign trail, National promised to deliver a one-year consenting process for major infrastructure and renewable energy projects and improved housing development processes within its first term.
Labour’s Megan Woods said the legislation being repealed had hit the right balance between protecting the environment and ensuring development could go ahead.
She said that was the result of a significant amount of consultation and work, yet National was now repealing it with zero consultation. She queried whether National knew what the problem was that it was trying to fix, and whether it had any idea what it would replace the laws with.
She said it was obvious the Government had no plan on how it would meet the country’s climate change targets.
She said the fast-track process, initially put in place during Covid-19 to allow for economic stimulation, had proved so effective it had become permanent.
Green MP Julie Ann Genter said it was a total waste for all the work that had been put into the resource management law reforms to be dumped by the new government.
“It’s a mindless oppositional repeal from a minister who is not across the detail.”
She said the fast-track consenting process would “ride roughshod over environmental protections” for the benefits of “vested interests.”
Te Pāti Māori co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer said the changes eroded the rights and interests of hapu, iwi and Māori by watering down the requirements to consult, and it did so under urgency without the usual consultation.
Bishop acknowledged that officials, Parliament and others with interest in the resource management system had put a lot of work into the reforms and would feel unhappy about the repeal.
However, he believed the new laws would only add more red tape and delays, not less.
National has suspended the need for regulatory impact statements on legislation which is in its 100-day plan, so none was done for the law change, nor was any cost-benefit analysis done because of the speed with which it was passed under Urgency.
The Ministry for the Environment did provide a limited departmental report. It noted that there had been “limited engagement” with Māori organisations, such as the entities charged with managing Treaty settlements despite the obvious implications under the Treaty of Waitangi.
It noted there were “complex interactions” between Treaty settlements and the resource management system, including in relation to water. Iwi and hapu would also have had a greater role in planning and decision-making under the Natural Built Environments Act, which was being repealed.
