Government tasks working group with considering whether Resource Management Act should be broken up to separately deal with land use planning and environmental protection

Reporting mid-2020? Sounds like it's going to be drawing up election policy for Labour for the next election. Why was this not addressed in the past one and a half years? Any question about what they haven't achieved in terms of Kiwibuild or affordable housing can now be deflected with "But we're reforming the RMA!" - with no actual requirement to commit to anything.

It's kind of ingenious when you think about it.

Will be interesting to see if they actually acheive anything. The RMA is on the outside apparently an environmental protection mechanism but its really a neoliberal trojan horse that makes property development and resource extraction the sole domain of those with the money to grease the right wheels and gears. It doesn't protect anything in the face of enough money it just stops everyday kiwis developing property and getting wealthy alongside the rich end of town. Can't have that sort of encroachment on our game by peasants now can we?! Not suprisingly it was an act brought into being by Simon Upton, National Party M.P.
That should underline its true intent rather clearly.

Include how the immigration rate impacts land use and the environment? Including temporary immigration as tourist or worker or student. Isn't this Holy Cow the key reason this area is under such pressure?

There had also been too little spatial planning in and around growing urban areas.

Oh, cripes, the RMA does not even mention 'spatial planning' - it is couched in, and intended to be driven by, Effects on the environment (however That's defined).

But what has in fact happened, is that the old Town and Country Planning Actors, wedded as they were to zonerating, 'land-use-planning' by spatial area, and by no small coincidence the Effects on their own status and livelihoods, promptly interpreted the RMA as being the T&CP Act Redux, and built their usual morass of Rules, Zones, Guidelines and Discretions, into a plethora of District Plans.

The result is what one would expect:

• Internal contradictions galore in most Plans
• Able to be sorted (kinda, sorta) by liberal applications of Consultants, Time, Munny and Mo' Planning Staff
• Until the next time the identical circumstance is encountered, at which point the whole sorry saga is re-run, but with Mo' Time and Munny needed (inflation...)
• Plans inconsistent across TLA boundaries: hop across a squiggle on a Planning Map and more doors open. Maybe.
• Total ignorance of the fact that Time = Munny, so processes can drag on for years - with no penalty to the TLA (except bigger Modest Fees payable in next years' round)
• The whole schemozzle paid for (of course) by the ultimate consumer in terms of section, house and commercial building costs.
• Oh, and by the ratepayer, who supports the empire-builders, plans and fads-du-jours dreamt up by Planners, via the Compulsorily Collected Rates Bill.

And Parker is serious about wanting Yet More of this?

We need a lot more planned approach across the whole country where we aim to actually plan what will occur and why rather than just have one bunch of rules that applies to the whole country, but in reality was designed with the larger cities in mind.
Places like Queenstown and Wanaka desperately need protection against over development if we want to retain their uniqueness long term. The current rules offer no protection as the powers to decide what will happen always get decided in the environment court, outside of the local councils control where money and resources pretty much rule.
Many of New Zealand's uniquely beautiful places will start to be ravaged like what is happening in Queenstown if don't allow these places to have adequate protection. Maybe certain strategically beautiful places need a designation somewhere in between a national park and a urban area.
Whatever the working group decides, preservation of these place MUST be top of their agenda.

Really hope that Labour can engage with National in figuring out reforms with bipartisan support so that it can be passed regardless of 2020 election results. It's too big and too important to NZ's future to be pandering to fringe coalition parties.

"We need to create a system that better enables economic growth within environmental limits"

There is no such animal. It is us coming up against those limits, that is posing our problems. What we need is a redefinition of 'future needs' - and if we manage to define that, we'll notice a need for de-growth. I'm of the opinion that events will overtake the discussion.

Another talkfest... I thought this was the year of delivery.... or was that another 'wrong 'un' from Captain Jacinda?

The things he's talking about here just blow my mind. So much commonsense in one announcement!

Allowing development to proceed whilst preserving the environment!!! Showing concern for fresh water!!!

Anyone who's tried to build knows what a nightmare it is. Councils have turned the RMA into a quagmire.

National did SFA about the RMA when in government and this hugely affected house affordability. They also allowed our rivers and lakes to be totally polluted.

Good on Labour for at least signalling they will do something!

Its more complex than just the RMA

1) Manage the immigration rate down to something sustainable that maximises gdp/capita growth, and takes the pressure on urban growth down to a manageable level

2) Amalgamate all regional and local government authorities into unitary authorities with the smallest being large enough to be financially viable

3) Sunset all existing rules under the RMA with a 10 year sunset, but keep the essence of the RMA (its world class legislation that has been butchered in its implmementation)

4) Sunset all existing land covenants with a 10 year sunset

5) Require the plans (water, regional, district(urban planning) etc) to exist only at the national level

6) Require the plans to be effects based only as was originally intended (no more zoning or density limitations except on an effects basis)

7) Central government to introduce National Policy Statements (backed by policy impact assessments) into the Plans as the initial framework

8) All other plan mechanisms to be at the national level and have to go through policy, rule, or regulatory impact assessment to be justified. Anyone can propose & submit on plan changes.