John Pask

Published: February 24, 2023

Submitting To: Environment Select Committee

Issue for Business: The Government is replacing the Resource Management Act (RMA) with 3 new Acts - the Natural and Built Environment (NBE) Bill, the Spatial Planning (SP) Bill and the Climate Change Adaptation Bill. Both the NBE and SP Bill have been introduced and are currently being progressed through the Environment Committee while the Climate Change Bill has yet to be introduced.

Action: BusinessNZ has made both written and oral submissions on both the NBE and SP Bills stating that, in summary, the Bills are complex pieces of legislation and while BusinessNZ is supportive of the intent of many of the changes proposed, we are concerned about how these will be implemented in practice, given that many of the key issues are yet to be decided upon.

Outcome: The Environment Select Committee is due to report back on the 2 Bills by late May this year with the expectation that both Bills will be passed before Parliament rises for the general election. There is an expectation that the Climate Change Adaptation Bill will be introduced later this year but will not be passed into law before Parliament rises.