Simon Court
Parliamentary Under-Secretary for RMA Reform

Introduction

Good morning!

What a pleasure to be back in the stunning West Coast at one of my favourite events in the calendar.

Every time I come back here, I’m reminded of the Coast’s natural beauty, valuable resources, and great people.

Yet, every time I come back here, I’m also reminded about how much of a handbrake the Resource Management Act (RMA) is for this region and the mining industry that plays such a vital role here.

Under the RMA, we have devolved from a land of great potential to one of wasted opportunity, and the West Coast is a region of immense opportunity.

As someone recently remarked to me, because of laws like the RMA, there are too many referees in this country and not enough players.

Whether it’s Woodstock Quarries seeking an extension at Waimakariri, which was declined and is now under appeal to the Environment Court, or the drawn-out consenting process for the Barrytown sand mining venture, the RMA undermines prime opportunities to meet our needs with New Zealand’s own resources, and we are forgoing economic development opportunities because of it.

What could we do about this?

One option is to bury our heads in the sand and get distracted by the noise.

We could pretend there’s nothing fundamentally wrong with the RMA.

We could pretend the problem is a mere ‘perception’ of unjustified regulation, or of a system too rigid.

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We could pretend that the issue is simply that the RMA has ‘not been implemented correctly’, much like the supposed reason for the failure of communism…

Believe it or not, these are all things some have argued, but it’s pretty clear what this thinking delivers.

Thankfully, we’ve built a coalition around a much better vision which accepts the necessity to provide for human needs.

What are we doing about resource management?

Fast-track

Ministers Jones and Bishop have been leading the charge on delivering a one-stop-shop fast-track approvals process for consenting projects of regional and national significance.

This is an important jump start to get some of the big wheels turning.

RMA amendments

Minister Bishop has also announced a suite of panel-beating changes to the RMA to clear some immediate congestion in the system we’re currently stuck with.

The first amendment Bill includes the re-alignment of the treatment of coal with that of other extractive activities around wetlands, removing what is currently an arbitrary additional hurdle. Minister Jones has done great work in this space.

Another important element is the streamlining of the pathway for making and amending RMA national direction.

This streamlined pathway will pave the way for a package of national direction work to follow to address the incoherence of existing instruments and fill the gaps that currently exist. I trust this will provide long-fought relief for my friends in the quarrying sector whose constructive solutions to sloppy inconsistencies – inconsistencies which have blocked the provision of critical aggregate materials – are finally being picked up.

Quarrying is one of these essential services ‘ancillary’ to infrastructure, without which neither infrastructure nor the things it enables can be built, and these ancillary services are part of what I am considering in my work on a National Policy Statement for Infrastructure. This NPS has a key role in enabling infrastructure and addressing the fact there is currently no instrument properly promoting its benefits.

Phase three

The fast-track jump-start and the amendment panel-beating are important steps to get us moving.

However, a lemon can only take us so far.

Through the RMA, we have veered so far off track that many have lost sight of the role of the resource management vehicle, and what it should deliver.

This is why Minister Bishop and I recently announced the “Phase 3” plan to replace the Resource Management Act with a system based on the enjoyment of property rights.

This is a core commitment in the ACT-National coalition agreement, and it will liberate different sectors across the country. The mining sector is no exception.

A property rights foundation provides a narrow and focused scope for resource management, which is something the current system has lost control of.

This focus anchors us to the issue resource management needs to solve – that is managing situations where one’s enjoyment of property rights materially spills over into that of another’s. In other words, managing material effects.

One of the most common objections to this focus stems from concern about the environment, and a perception that a property rights approach is somehow incompatible with environmental goals.

What this ignores is our ambition to for the environment to get a property right, too.

The environment should have a property right centred on environmental limits, where a breach of those limits undermines the ability for the environment to continue to provide for human needs in the future.

This “human needs” aspect is important. It forms half of a “double bottom line” that embeds acceptance that development must provide for human needs now, with the environmental limits bottom line serving to ensure these needs can continue to be met in the future.

What is not negotiable is that human needs will be met. Frustrating development to resist growth doesn’t abate the need for it, nor does it change the reality that human existence necessarily has effects on the environment. If development cannot occur within an environmental limit in one place, then it must occur in another. But development must, and will, occur.

This focus, and the acceptance of the fact that some effects are unavoidable, brings us to a place where we can have the grown-up conversation about what we need and where we need it, and provide pathways for that to be delivered.

This includes pathways for accepting significant environmental effects where there are net benefits at play, and recognising the great mitigation, offset, and restoration work done by many people and organisations – I’ve heard some great stories about the conservation work around the Roa coal mine and the OceanaGold Globe Progress mine restoration. The ACT-National coalition commitment to promote the use of Crown minerals is just one of many important things contingent on a net benefits approach.

A narrow effects-based scope and double bottom line also allows us to filter out the oodles of vexatious objections from every Tom, Dick, and Harry that frustrate development. No effect, no objection.

This may not stop the hypocrites locking themselves in buildings of mining companies while live streaming on their iPhones (it’s hard to know whether these people are NIMBYs or just a few sandwiches short of a picnic…) What it will do, however, is reduce their ability to use the resource management system to obstruct access to New Zealand’s critical resources.

What about other frustrating factors?

Having to ask permission to do anything, when already know how to do most things, is an unnecessary problem.

Through codifying into standards established and accepted ways of doing things, the new system will drive a big shift from pre-project consenting to compliance monitoring and enforcement, restoring both trust and incentives to do things right.

What if councils insist on consents for these things anyway?

Cabinet has agreed to something along the lines of a ‘Planning Tribunal’. Among other things, this will provide an avenue to strike out unwarranted consent requests from councils which is a critical accountability mechanism to ensure the new de-scoped system is properly embedded.

Conclusion

We have an important window to drive a step change in this country to liberate us from the shackles that have restrained us for so long.

As a civil engineer, I’m proud to be working on this resource management reform programme with Minister Chris Bishop.

I’m looking forward to the work the RMA Reform Expert Advisory Group has been tasked to deliver, which will be based on the 10 principles agreed by Cabinet, including those I’ve covered off today.

Relief is finally on the horizon.

Thank you.

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