Published in Insights, The New Zealand Initiative’s newsletter, 31 July 2026
Last week, Eric Crampton made the case for passing the RMA replacement Bills, while noting some risks in their current form.
Nick Clark argued that Parliament should pause them.
I promised a verdict. Here it is: the Bills still need work. Deadlines loom if the government wants to pass them this term. And it may not have time to get them into shape.
Eric is right that the Bills contain improvements. Councils would have fewer ways to block homes and businesses. Planning rules would become more consistent.
Chris Bishop and Simon Court deserve credit for taking on a reform that governments have failed to achieve for decades. Few politicians have understood the problems more clearly.
But Nick is right that protections are missing. We are not judging the Bills against an economist’s ideal. We are judging them against Cabinet’s own promises: more housing, respect for property rights and better regulation.
The bills make some progress. Planners will have less scope for micromanagement. A limited number of simplified, standardised zones will apply all throughout the country and more activities will be allowed by right.
But the Minister of the day will have wide discretion to set the direction that planners must follow. A Minister could prioritise any combination of the legislation’s sixteen goals. The bills provide few protections for property rights and housing affordability if priorities shift.
The Initiative has consistently argued that this kind of legislation requires guardrails. If national direction and planning go wrong, protective measures should take hold. Done well, they would help avoid problems in the first place.
Making private plan changes easier, especially when land prices show that zoning has been too restrictive, would make housing supply more reliable.
If a new public rule sharply reduces what someone can do with a property, the authority should have to relax the rule or buy the property for what it was worth before the new rule. One owner should not carry the cost of a public benefit. This kind of rule helps encourage better thinking about costs and benefits.
Protections must be in the Acts themselves. Otherwise, a future minister could remove them without returning to Parliament.
None of this is new. Our February submission and Nick’s April research note set out these safeguards.
The Government can still add them before the final vote. But time is short and the task is substantial.
Our verdict, therefore, must wait for the final amendment papers.
