Labour propels reforms into law, National promises to repeal

Thursday, 17 August 2023

In what could be a last moment move, the Labour government has passed new laws that will set up two of its most contentious reforms, both at risk of being unwound before the year’s end.

On Wednesday, Labour laid the groundwork to scrap and replace the Resource Management Act (RMA) and to create 10 new public water entities as part of the ‘Three Waters’ reforms – both promising to reshape the country’s use of land, and its critical water infrastructure.

Both were opposed vociferously by National and ACT, who have promised to repeal and create new schemes.The new RMA legislation would be “gone by Christmas” under a National government, leader Christopher Luxon promised.

Environment Minister David Parker grinned as he spoke about the RMA overhaul, describing its replacement as something which was “faster, cheaper and better, will save homeowners, infrastructure providers a lot of money - hundreds of millions of dollars every year - and will have better environmental outcomes as well”.

National MP Chris Bishop said the natural built environment change was “a classic sunk-cost fallacy” that would be a stumbling block for development.

“National has always been up [for] RMA reform and in fact we tried. We never had the numbers,” Bishop said.

“We wrote to the Government… saying that we're up for bipartisan RMA reform and we never really had a response.

“It’s not just party politics for the sake of it. We are really concerned about where this has gone.”

Parker attacked National’s vow to quash the law, saying it would be up to New Zealanders at the election to choose to vote for a party “who having railed against the RMA, kicked it to death for decades and now for political opportunism, say that they're going to repeal these new changes”.

The passing of the Water Services Entities Bill into law would enable the Government to set up 10 public entities across the country to take over the management of drinking, waste, and stormwater services. Another two pieces of legislation to set up the reforms will be passed before Parliament rises at the end of the month.

The Three Waters reforms were rebranded as “affordable water reforms” by the Government in April, when it promised to create 10 entities instead of four, to appease councils concerned their voices would be drowned out in such super-agencies.

But the Government did not change the contentious co-governance aspect of the reforms, maintaining that these new entities will still be guided by high-level representative groups that contain a 50/50 split of council and mana whenua representatives.

Local Government Minister Kieran McAnulty said the first new water entity, encompassing Northland and Auckland, would be ready to begin work by July 2024. But National won’t give the councils the chance – it’s promising to repeal the law within 100 days if elected, and replace it with a regime requiring councils to “ringfence” funds for water infrastructure.

McAnulty did not believe National would repeal the law, if Labour lost the election.

'I don't think we will lose, but if we do, I don't think they'll reverse it.

“They're approaching this debate like nothing's changed, they're debating this as if we're still proposing four entities. If they actually go and talk to the local government sector, they'll find out that the majority support it.

“And what they're proposing is the status quo, which would mean they'd be buggered. They can't pay their bills, and we can't let that happen.”