New Zealand’s largest environment NGOs have called for the Government’s replacements for the Resource Management Act – the Natural Environment Bill and the Planning Bill – to be thrown out as they are fundamentally flawed.

Forest and Bird, the Environmental Defence Society and Greenpeace Aotearoa say it is time to admit that these bills are an unabashed attack on nature, that they are designed to undermine environmental protection in our country, and they should be rejected.

These two Bills will cause deep and lasting damage to New Zealand if they are passed in the last weeks of the Parliamentary term and allowed to stand.

They put at risk the natural environment that makes our country such a magical place to live. The very foundation of these Bills is wrong – it is premised on the idea that nature should be sacrificed to development at all costs. This is against the fundamental values of New Zealanders and the long-term interests of an economy heavily reliant on natural capital.

We have engaged in good faith with Ministers and officials over these Bills but at every turn the Government has simply made them worse. They are now beyond fixing.

The amendments to the bills announced by the Government this week are yet another travesty:

  • Effectively removing environmental limits from the Natural Environment Bill;
  • Blocking clean water rules that have already been through councils and courts in the Waikato and Manawatu (Plan changes 1 and 2);
  • Replacing mandated freshwater farm plans with self-regulation; and
  • Blocking regional councils from protecting the inshore marine environment from destructive fishing activity.

These changes come on top of the existing ‘regulatory relief’ clauses that require councils to compensate private property owners for protecting biodiversity on their land – such as in the Waitākere Ranges in Auckland.

Over the last three years we have seen the Government engage in a systematic war on nature with law after law. These resource management replacement bills being rushed through Parliament’s dying days will significantly damage environmental protection in our country. They must be stopped.