Kyota.
I'm Chelsea Daniels and this is the Front Page, a daily podcast presented by the New Zealand Herald. Twenty twenty five came with a promise of the largest economic reform in a generation. It's when the government unveiled its radical overhaul of resource management laws, which aims to cut the number of consents currently required by forty to fifty percent.
Led by RM reform Minister Chris Bishop, the move will see the decades old RM replaced with two laws, one focused on planning and the other on environmental protection, that due to be passed by the end of this year and be operational by twenty twenty nine. But what does it all mean and why has it taken so long to to tangle this convoluted law if so many people agreed it needed to be done. Today on the Front Page, Herald Political editor Thomas Coglan is with us to break
it all death. First off, Thomas, what is the ROMA? Why have there been so many calls to change it? And why have we been talking about changing it for decades?
Yes?
So, the RAMA is the Resource Management Act, and the Resource Management Act basically does what it says on the term. It manages the nation's resources. Basically, all of our resources, from the air that you breathe, to the forest to the waterways to the land that you build your house on, they are managed by the Resource Management Acts. Basically everything apart from mineral resources, which are managed under different legislation, but almost everything else is managed by this one law
that was passed in nineteen ninety one. It was a bipart as a labor national if it laid started that the government changed in nineteen ninety National pasted it and since then all of our resources have been managed under this one piece of legislation. Prior to that, resources were managed under many different pieces of legislation seven one for waters, serve, one for this and that. So it consolidated the more than one piece of legislation. It was meant to simplify it.
It was meant to provide a clear direction on what you could do and we are and how Now it didn't quite work like that, and almost since the beginning, the ROMA has failed to deliver on that promise of simplicity, of allowing development, allowing New Zealand's economy to grow, allowing us to build more houses, more business premises, more factories, all of that stuff, allowing us to do that whilst also projecting the environment that we love and also which
our lives depend on. You know, it's no use building heaps of factories to create lots of jobs if we pollute the air and make us all sick. The RAMA is meant to balance those two things, and so for basically its entire life, it has been a subject of controversy.
The controversy really picked up in the two thousands when the housing crisis started to rear its head a little bit, and the RMA was blamed for stuff like why our roads are so expensive when our roads are partly expensive to build because it takes so much time and money
to consent them, and the houses are the same. It's really hard and expensive to build a house, which means that house prices have gone up because it's actually much easier to buy an existing house for a lot of money than it is to just buy a piece of land and build one. And so for a long time we've been talking about remedying it. Then under the Labor government, the last Labor government, they commissioned a working group which essentially said, we need to repeal this thing. Entirely and
replace it with two different pieces of legislation. That's probably the start of your question where you say, why have we been talking about it for so long? We really started talking about it. Then Labor did repeal it. The Labor repealed the RMA, got rid of it, replaced it with two new pieces of legislation. But that wasn't the end. The government that we currently have, the National lead coalition,
they didn't like what Labor did. They thought it was overly complex and replaced one complex regime with another complex regime. Labor actually just disputes that, and actually there are lots of similarities between what National has done and what Labor's done. So when the coalition came in, they repealed the repealed RMA, they brought back the RMA. So the resurrected this. This this RMA has has been brought back to life. It
is a resurrected law. The RMA is currently alive, that is currently the law of the land, but it will be repealed again. It will be repealed for a second time. Not many pieces of legislation get to be repealed twice, and then it will be replaced with two new laws, which which one of which was Planning Act which sort of defined the planning rules. The other one as more environmentally focused.
At yeah, and on Labour's plans versus national's plans. I know the Minister responsible for the RMA, Chris Bishop, has promised, you know, a bigger and better one. Is it bigger and better?
That's a really good question.
And I'm going to be a wee bit of vasive because I'd quite like to hear what the Selecte committee.
The laws were introduced last year.
It'll be interesting to see what people people say in Selecte Committee when they come. Certainly labors labors there are a lot of similarities. So Labor Labor reduced the number of plans that councils would produce. So councils produced under the old existing regime more than one hundred plans. They reduced that number to I think seventeen plans, which would
be roughly one for every regional council. The government is basically doing the current government is basically doing the same thing in a slightly different way, reducing the number of plans and focusing on on doing more of the more of the heavy lifting, the big controversial stuff. At the beginning of the process, getting everything sorted out at the planning stage so that when it actually comes to kind of build a house the year, you look at the
plan and the plans for the season. More or less, yes, you can within these rules. It's slightly more complicated than that, but it's sort of the idea so that those that those those principles are roughly the same. There was some complexity around some of the Maori principles that were in the in the Labor the Labor the Labor version and and and some submitters on the Labor version were critical of it and thought it was overly complex and sort
of unhelpful. There is a debate over whether the National should have just repealed the complicated and helpful bits from Labour's version rather than go matches or on the board, but that's not what they did.
So we are where we are.
But certainly when we when we get to the Slik Committee, it will be interesting to hear from those submitters again to see whether they think this one is any benefit what Labor proposed. Because Labour's one was welcomed, I think I'm balanced people people were happy that Labored did what it did, but it was not without controversy.
It's too hard to get consent from major infrastructure projects, for example, for the energy, the roads, the rail the hospitals, the schools we need to build. I mean some of these even public sector projects, you know, hospitals, schools, tied up and consenting processes for months, years at a time. I mean, it should not take six to eight years to consent a wind farm in New Zealand, should not take ten years to get an extension to a port,
for example. These are the type of real life examples that we're trying to deal with with the RMA, and they've unfortunately made New Zealand a far less prosperous place than it otherwise can and should be, if.
We get into the weeds a little bit. I liked your explanation of the regime on externalities, because that's what it comes down to. Hey, if I want to build something in my backyard, you know what is it? Can you give us that? In plain English?
Externalities is basically, if I am in a house right now, and if I decide to build like a coffee roastree. I'm not sure if you're ever lived next to a coffee roasty. It smells like coffee being roasted it's actually it's not a case smell. It's not to everyone's taste. I don't mind it, but it's smells.
It smells.
It's not great if you're it's not everyone's taste. So if I build a coffee roaste on my house, well, great for me. I make a lot of money selling my coffee, especially in Wellington, but not so good for my neighbors. They don't make any money from me selling coffee, and their houses smell like burnt toast because I build a coffee roast tree on my house.
So that's the externality.
The externality is is there is their houses smell like coffee, they lose money.
I make money. Not great.
So there's an externality here which basically means that I will not be able to build a coffee roast try on my house. It is a residential My my house is on a residential zoning, and and and and.
Therefore the sort of.
Old factory pollution that would that would come from my my that that that that roastery would not be allowed.
Now, by contrast, if.
I built a new deck on my house, or if I if I did other things on my land that affected my neighbor's not a little bit, not not, not at all. There is no externality here and there. For I would, I would have a wider remit within certain rules to allow that. Obviously, there is still a building code, I would. You know, there is still that the which is covered under under the building X. So you know, I can't just build something unsafe on my house.
I can't.
I can't build a that would collapse. But but but so long as my actions on my own land do not affect other people, then then I'm more or less allowed to do it. There was there have been some cases where where councilors quote their nose into even the configuration of internal configuration of apartments, not a structural configuration.
This isn't about whether the apartment building would collapse or not, but it was sort of you know, should your couch face this wall a wall, or how you know, stuff like that that is that has gone under this new rating.
So changes to five national directives the RMA have now taken effect things that will make it easier to consent minds and quarries. For example, then you've got converting your garage into a granny flat. Presumably this is kind of confusing because when I read up on their RM changes, aren't they meant to come in in twenty twenty nine? So are these kind of national directives just logistical stuff that kind of needs to happen before they start, you know, talking about it?
Yeah, bit of both.
So Chris Bishop has been as the minister in charge of this, He's had a multi stage he's called it, I think multiple tranches of ROMA reform. So while they are changing the whole RMA that the main law at the top of it, they're making tweets to the existing regime which will then be ordered over into the new regime. So these are the national environmental standards and policy standards
that are promulgating now. They are rules regulations that can be made by cabinet and agreed by cabinet and then gazetted and then they become the law of the land. They exist their current law and then they can be adopted on a new law. So as of this week,
the new Granny Flat rules. So these are detached the official terminology and read it off the piece of paper because I always forget it as detached minor residential units which I think up to which I think can be up to seventy square meters, so sadly not the garage. Garage I don't think can be a granny flat, but you can put uh what.
If it's detached though, it's a very good question.
You can put a granny flat of up to seventies square meters on your on your property detached mine and residential unit. Residential unit still has to meet certain rules. Can't be you know, moldy, deadly whatever. You know, there are still there are still rules around around the houses and what they can.
Look like. I wilsoy not look like that.
But exists as but you can now do that as of as of January this year, which is which is which is nice? If that's whatever what you're doing that those those rules come under one of these one of these policy statements which has been gazeated, which means it's now the law, and then they get carried over into the New York so that they are the government is kind of it's a horrible terminology that every government loves
to use. But they say a rolling mall of initiatives so that they start here and goes.
On right, so you can kind of start getting the benefits of the ROMA reform slowly, but surely I can go to Bunnings this weekend and get my wood for my new goola out the back. But the full effect of the law is that kind of twenty twenty nine ish date, I suppose.
Yes, there's the whole the.
Yes, the sort of the main pieces of the RAMA, the big stuff that the new Planning Regime dat all comes towards the end of the decade, and there are a whole lot of other reforms. You know, we haven't even talked about the local government reforms. The government wants to try and as sort of tactfully pushing a maldimation onto councils, trying to get the regional councils and the
territorial authorities to merge. Those new councils would then be the ones who are drawing up the plans under the new ROMA, which will then implement some of these changes that we're talking about. So it's like hurting sheep. We've got all these different things that they're trying to get
through the game at the same time. But it is at the end of the decade where where the full OROMA does come into force, and of course that it does require some of these other reforms to take place in order to actually work.
Yeah, because like you said, I mean the goalas and the granny flats and the new decking out the back is probably small fry as opposed to what the change will mean for local councils. Currently, the government says that there are somewhere like one thousand, one hundred and seventy five different kinds of zones in New Zealand, which with them carry all different rules. So what does it mean when it talks about these zones.
Yes, so zone it's like a you know, you're in a residential zone you can build a house, you know, residential property or you're like a load nsity or high dnsity residential zone. Can you build an apartment building here or is it just a sort of detached home that you can build here? There's and the current regime is allows a lot of latitude for bespoke zones, which is why you get over a thousand of them, which which
a lot of people think is slightly ridiculous. So to councils, councils have a lot of latitude to do what they want in that regard. Now, what the changes, not what these changes will do is reduce those the number of zones down quite radically.
In Japan, I.
Think they only have thirteen, and the current regime has a number. With the new regime, part of me has a number which will be in the tens. That basically means that councils don't really have a choice to to to use sort of bespoke zoning measures and and basically we have to say, well, this is a residential zone and therefore houses can be built here, and we're not we're not going to use zoning to dictate quite specifically what kind of houses can go here. People can live here,
you can build a house here. You know, this isn't the this isn't the blue house with the red draw.
Zone, you know, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
That's kind of the regime is sort of metastasized into an overly prescriptive regime, which is why you get more than a thousand zones, and the government wants it to become a more kind of liberal regime where you have fewer zones and giving people who are actually doing the building during the planning more lagitude to to sort of do what they want within the rules, within the rules.
Yeah, for the builders, that's actually, when we're doing our job, there's not a lot of change in that respect, but it's actually getting to putting your first nail into the timber. It takes a long time for some Sometimes you wonder why it takes so long. It's the paperwork behind the scenes that will speed it up for the guys and girls doing the work on the ground.
So when you talk about the councils then having to go ahead and do this kind of work themselves, that's that's what we call the spatial plans, right.
Yes, so the spatial planning is there was a focus of labor regime. Of the labor regime as well. The spatial planning will ask counsels to look over a thirty year horizon with what needs to be done in the area. So you will think, right over the next thirty years, well, this corridor it's going to be, is going to grow
and develop. This is sort of an industrial corridor. This will continue to be industrial, so maybe we will need to preserve this this this this trunk of land for a rail line or a large highway to carry all the trucks heavy industry. This is a residential This area is a residential area. It is going to continue to grow, it will possibly identify, so we'll need to plan to over the next thirty years improve the water infrastructure and
the sewage infrastructure. So you know, ten thousand people live there now, forty thousand people will live there in thirty years time, so we need to plan over the next thirty years to build bigger and better pipes, and to build a new train station and roads and all that sort of stuff. So by getting all that planning done at the top end, it gives planners over the councilors over those thirty years and developers greater confidence to.
Sort of meet the plan.
So you will be able to make these zones under The councils will then be able to implement the zones which will and developers and councils will have confidence that yes, this is a residential zone. Yes we can densify this zone. Yes there will be infra structure to deal with with with with what is coming. New Zealand obviously gets a bear rep for housing and housing is far too expensive here.
But over the last ten years New Zealand has slowly moved towards intensification, and particularly in Auckland, there's been a lot of quite good in intensification, but one of the controversies in Auckland has been that the infrastructure has somewhat lacked. So you are putting in putting intensification, we're and creating traffic champs because all of a sudden, all these people live all these people are living on a Victorian street which was built for a horse and cart and is
now dealing with five hundred uts. That is a disaster for the people who live there. And so we're sort of trying to get better at that now to ensure that the infrastructure and the development happened concurrently to that that that dilemma.
And it would kind of make sense in that spatial planning process to have a lot less cooks in the kitchen. I suppose do you reckon that this is all making way for the next kind of wayth of super cities?
Perhaps, yes, certain, certainly, I think I think Wellington there's not much super about Wellington.
Wellington.
Wellington seems destined to be malgamated into what into into something approximating the super city that that Auckland has become. So the Wellington councils will probably get together in form one one big council.
Yeah, at the moment.
The obviously there is a regional council that sits at the top of all of the Wellington councils, but there could be a bit of coordination between them.
You know that to use.
Wellington as an example, Wellington, the Greater Wellington Regional Council runs the sort of buses and trains and they go through multiple multiple councils. You know, you can catch a train from the Wide up to work in Wellington and you'd go through you'd start and a wider upper council. You would then go into one of the hat councils, and I think some one of the train lines goes through two of the hop councils before ending in Wellington Council.
So on the train jour need to work, you're passing through four or five different territorial authorities and the infrastructure that was on either side of that train line is is the is the is the purview of those councils, So you can see that there is an argument to
link that up into one system. So the regional council, obviously the technicalogy use the Wellington example, does run that is responsible for transport, but the physical infrastructure is often the responsibility of territorial authorities, so yes, there was an argument for that. It's probably actually to be fear the buses involved, sorry, the trains involved Keepy Rail as well, so maybe buses is a better example, but anyway, you get the picture.
And lastly, Thomas, in terms of sore or this is to go to the Select Committee obviously, as you mentioned, is there anyone adamantly opposed? I mean, I suppose I do see a lot of talk about, for instance, making way for quarries and consenting minds making it easier. But what are the actual chances of, you know, a group of a family of endangered frogs being wiped out because the consent process is consented to mine or something.
Well, I mean, Shane Jones has no affection for the New Zealand frogs is a I.
Know frogs are always my example because of Shane's comments, I.
Think I think it would it would certainly be accurate to describe the government's reforms in general as being a shifting the needle more towards development in a way from environmental protection. So I think the it's a bit of an evasive answer, but it would depend on those frogs individual circumstances, but one would one would imagine that once this legislation passes, the circumstances would err on the pessimistic side.
Thanks for joining us, Thomas.
No Wors, Thank you for having me.
That's it for this episode of the Front Page. You can read more about today's stories and extensive news coverage at enzidhrald dot co dot nz. The Front Page is hosted and produced by me Chelsea Daniels Caine. Dicky is our studio operator, Richard Martin, our producer and editor, and our executive producer is Jane Ye. Follow the Front Page on the iHeart app or wherever you get your podcasts, and join us next time for another look beyond the headlines.