Welcoming Cabinet’s agreement on the shape of laws to replace the Resource Management Act, ACT Leader David Seymour says:

“Ditching the RMA and passing new laws centred on property rights might be the most important thing the Government does.

“Why can’t young New Zealanders afford homes? Why are power bills so high? Why can’t I buy McDonald’s in Wanaka? Each question has a common answer.

“The Resource Management Act is a 913-page monstrosity that has strangled New Zealand’s development potential. The RMA empowers objectors from any part of the country to block us from building homes, wastewater treatment plants, power plants, and roads.

“ACT has been beating this drum for more than a decade. I remember campaigning on it before I first entered Parliament in 2014. There’s been plenty of tinkering round the edges since the Act was passed in 1991, but only now are we seeing wholesale reform, delivered by ACT’s Simon Court alongside Chris Bishop.

“The reforms announced today are based on ACT’s 2022 paper, Building New Zealand and Conserving Nature. By refocusing resource management on the protection of individual property rights, we dramatically reduce the range of people who can interfere with the use of someone else’s land.

“One law will govern urban development and planning, while the other will protect the environment. It’s never made sense that the same laws that protect Fiordland National Park also determine whether a horse paddock in Helensville can have two homes built on it.

“The legacy of these reforms will be more productive activity, more high-paying jobs, and affordable housing. That’s how we give young Kiwis confidence to build families and futures here in New Zealand, and I’m very proud of the role ACT and Simon Court have played.”

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