Source
https://www.legislation.govt.nz/bill/government/2025/0234/latest/whole.html — original source (opens in a new tab; the file is not redistributed)
RMA-replacement bills - Planning Bill + Natural Environment Bill
🔴 THESE ARE BILLS, NOT LAW - provisional, and they WILL change
Planning Bill 235 and Natural Environment Bill 234 are Government Bills that will together replace the Resource Management Act 1991. Both were reported back from the Environment Committee on 20 July 2026 (majority recommending passage), are awaiting second reading, and are not enacted as at 2026-08-05. The final Acts’ form is still not fixed. No consent position, cost, or feasibility gate may rest on this source. Held for structure, policy direction, transition and stage only, not clause detail.
Summary
The two bills that will together replace the Resource Management Act 1991, the reform that poses the clearest obsolescence risk to any current NZ permitting analysis. Reading them settles that risk: the RMA stays operative for a multi-year transition, so the enacted-RMA framework remains the correct operative basis for any community in the research horizon. The reform is a direction-of-travel and transition analysis, not a source of operative rules. As at 2026-08-05 both bills are reported back and awaiting second reading.
Key claims
- claim: "STAGE (updated 2026-08-05) - REPORTED BACK, not enacted. Both reported-back prints carry, verbatim: 'Reported from the Environment Committee on 20 July 2026.' The committee majority recommends the House pass each bill; both await a second reading; neither is enacted as at 2026-08-05. (Was: as-introduced, before the committee, as at 2026-07-15.)"
source_location: "Natural Environment Bill 234-2 and Planning Bill 235-2, committee report-back stamp; cross-checked on legislation.govt.nz"
- claim: "THE BILLS DO NOT RE-ENACT NPS-HPL OR NES-F. The reported-back Natural Environment Bill 234-2 contains ZERO verbatim occurrences of 'National Policy Statement for Highly Productive Land' or 'National Environmental Standards for Freshwater'. The Planning Bill 235-2 names the NPS-HPL 2022 exactly once, and only transitionally: it 'further suspend[s]' the clause 4.1(2) requirement for regional councils to map highly productive land 'until the specified transition date'. So the new framework does not establish these as its own instruments; existing RMA national direction continues on a transitional basis. This is the verified basis for the regulatory analysis statement that the reform builds a container whose national-direction content is not yet set."
source_location: "Natural Environment Bill 234-2 (0 occurrences of either instrument name); Planning Bill 235-2, transitional provision on NPS-HPL 2022 clause 4.1(2) mapping suspension"
- claim: "STRUCTURE - one Act becomes TWO. General policy statement (Planning Bill): 'The Planning Bill will replace the Resource Management Act 1991 (RMA), working in tandem with the Natural Environment Bill. Once passed, the Bills will be known as the Planning Act and Natural Environment Act... The Planning Bill establishes a framework for planning and regulating the use, development, and enjoyment of land. The Natural Environment Bill establishes a framework for the use, protection, and enhancement of the natural environment.' So the RMA's single integrated statute splits into a DEVELOPMENT/land-use Act and an ENVIRONMENTAL-PROTECTION Act."
source_location: "Planning Bill 235, General policy statement"
- claim: "POLICY DIRECTION - pro-development, 'end the culture of no'. The stated objective is 'to make it easier to get things done by- unlocking development capacity for housing and business growth: enabling delivery of [infrastructure]...' The reform emphasises standardised planning provisions and reduced consenting friction. (Directional intent; the mechanisms were tested at committee.)"
source_location: "Planning Bill 235, General policy statement (objectives)"
- claim: "TRANSITION - the RMA does NOT switch off on enactment. A 'transitional consenting framework' applies between one month after Royal Assent and an Order-in-Council 'transition date'; the RMA system continues to be the law for approximately 3.5-6 years after enactment; the new planning system is intended to be fully operational by 2029. Standardised provisions, national policy direction, independent hearings panels for first plans, and a transition period for designations are all part of the machinery. (Timeline per the bills' transitional provisions + MfE/legal-sector summaries.)"
source_location: "Planning Bill 235, transitional provisions (Independent hearings panel; designations during transition); MfE reform timeline"Neobiome Intelligence / thesis relevance
The reform DEFUSES the obsolescence risk, it does not create one
The worry is that a permitting analysis resting on the RMA could be substantially obsolete by the time it is published. It will not be, for two reasons this source establishes:
- The RMA stays operative for years. Not a cliff on enactment: a transitional consenting framework runs from one month post-assent, the RMA continues ~3.5-6 years, and the new system is fully operational only by 2029. Any community established in the research horizon is consented under the RMA. So the entire Tier-A spine (REG_006-018) remains the correct operative basis.
- The bills are still not final. Reported back 20 July 2026, but awaiting second reading and open to further amendment.
How this source is used
- Operative basis = the enacted RMA framework. Unchanged.
- A separate, clearly-labelled “reform transition” treatment carries: the one-Act to two-Acts split; the pro-development “end the culture of no” direction; and the multi-year transition timeline. Written at the structural level only.
- The regulatory analysis (2026-08-05 re-check): the bills do NOT preserve or weaken NPS-HPL / NES-F by name; they build a national-direction container whose content is deferred. The substantive changes to those two gates were made SEPARATELY, by national-direction gazettal in force 15 January 2026: NPS-HPL keeps LUC 1-2 protection but opens LUC 3 to urban development and suspends the RPS mapping requirement; NES-F adds an “operational need” gateway alongside “functional need” while retaining the core wetland protections. Those amendment specifics need their own held primary (the Beehive release / gazette, retrieval pending), they are not in these bills.
Research targets
Research gaps
- RT_354 (med, RE-CHECK; re-checked 2026-08-05, kept open for enactment) - Track the RMA-replacement bills to enactment. 2026-08-05 re-check: both bills REPORTED BACK 20 July 2026, awaiting second reading, not enacted. Findings against the three sub-questions: (a) community-scale consent pathway not identified in the reported-back text; (b) NPS-HPL (REG_009) / NES-F (REG_018) NOT touched by the bills by name, changed instead by national-direction gazettal in force 15 Jan 2026 (LUC 3 opened; NES-F “operational need” gateway), see the regulatory analysis; (c) transition timeline confirmed (~3.5-6 years, operational by 2029). RE-CHECK AGAIN at enactment. | REG_019 | legislation.govt.nz bills 234/235 (234-2/235-2 held) · national-direction gazettal 15 Jan 2026
Notes
Provenance: the raws are the full HTML of both bills at both stages: as-introduced (234-1 2.0 MB, 235-1 3.1 MB, captured 2026-07-15) and as-reported-back (234-2 4.6 MB sha fb5d5f01, 235-2 9.8 MB sha 0d05c08e, captured 2026-08-05). Filed as a multi-file source. data_quality: verified attests this is the real bill text at each stage; it does not attest to what the enacted law will be (see the warning above).
Scope of reading: structure + direction + transition + stage, not clause detail. The two bills are one legislative package, held as one combined source.
⚠ Stage re-checked 2026-08-05 against legislation.govt.nz (234-2, 235-2 reported-back prints, both stamped “Reported from the Environment Committee on 20 July 2026”). Re-verify before relying on this at enactment, bill status changes. The bill primary text is now held, so the regulatory analysis limitation about un-read bill clauses can be lifted for the bill-stage and container-structure claims. The separate NPS-HPL / NES-F gazettal specifics still rest on secondary summaries until their own primary (Beehive release / gazette) is filed.
Connections
Referenced by
Sources (1): REG_038
Concepts (1): Regulatory Consenting for Off-Grid Communities…