Government takes 'first steps' to speed up consent process

The government is proposing changes to fast-track resource consents in a new bill set to go before Parliament in early March.

The minister charged with resource management reform, Chris Bishop, said high costs and long wait times were stifling economic growth.

The current system was costing infrastructure projects around $1.3 billion each year, he said.

"For too long, New Zealanders have had to wait for progress in their towns and cities due to the overly-restrictive RMA. Today we have taken the first steps in cutting through this mess of red tape, so we can supercharge New Zealand's infrastructure and economic potential," Bishop said.

The bill would prioritise regionally and nationally significant infrastructure and development projects and create a structure for projects meeting certain criteria to be referred by ministers into a fast track process.

Selected projects would be streamed into a "one stop shop" where other relevant permits were obtained alongside resource consents.

Bishop said the current process was holding the country back.

"Our fast-track proposals will lift New Zealand's living standards, lift productivity, and grow our economy - all while still protecting our environment," he said.

Minister for Regional Development Shane Jones said the proposal would unlock opportunities in industries such as aquaculture and mining about the country.

Projects would go before an expert panel to ensure that adverse effects to the environment were managed appropriately but the panel would have only a limited ability to decline a project once it had been referred into the process.

The bill represented the second phase of the new government's RMA reform agenda after it repealed the Natural and Built Environment Act (NBA) and Spatial Planning Act (SPA) in December 2023.

Chris Bishop said the government was committed to upholding Treaty of Waitangi settlements as part of the new fast-track regime.

'If you rush it you'll get a bad outcome' - environmental scientist

Environmental scientist Dr Mike Joy said the government was merely paying lip service to environmental concerns in the wording around short cuts to the consent process.

"It's so blatant that it's pretending to take cognisance of the environment. It's a way of making it appear that they're doing the right thing while they obviously plan to just rush ahead with all kinds of projects that will have very negative environmental harms. It's clearly a case of 'let's just grab what we can now to boost the economy' and take no concern about what's going to happen in the long term," Joy said.

"If the panel members were independent experts then I might have some faith in it but then you have to have some way that they can say 'yay or nay' which is what we have at the moment. Any shortcutting of that process is just going to be disastrous. The last thing we need is to weaken protections."

Joy said the issues behind many resource consents were complex and needed to be properly considered in depth.

"They're drawn out because the people wanting to exploit the environment have all the money and all the research and all the time in the world and those trying to protect the environment have much smaller budgets and much less resourcing to try and take them on.

"The process might seem long-winded but if you rush it you'll get a bad outcome," he said.