The third round of Resource Management Act amendments which
included an overhaul of the core principles of the Act are now on
hold, following the refusal of the Maori Party and United Future to
support them.
Key elements of the reforms include:
- clearer and more predictable national direction and tools, for
example what National Policy Statements and National Environment
Standards can achieve and how they might be used;
- replacing the current range of planning documents with single,
local resource management plans that address future environmental
and development priorities and cover all local, regional and
national issues;
- simpler, faster and fewer resource consents;
- Maori interests and values to be considered earlier in resource
management planning processes with solutions developed
upfront;
