Civil Contractors New Zealand (CCNZ) has welcomed the Government’s proposed replacement to the Resource Management Act 1991 (RMA), with hopes the proposed new system will create a simpler, faster and more effective structure for New Zealand’s civil construction industry.     

CCNZ Chief Executive Alan Pollard said the country had long been ‘hamstrung’ with development rules that did not enable growth or protect the environment, and lauded the Government’s proposed new approach as clear, sensible and pragmatic.

Mr Pollard said current consultation requirements have incentivised delay and litigation, often without a solid case, rather than providing an integrated framework to protect the environment and support sustainable development of infrastructure and communities. 

“The Resource Management Act has been widely panned, and for good reason. The current system has resulted in gross inefficiency and deadlock in regional infrastructure construction planning, without corresponding benefit to the economy or natural environment.”

Projected to save around $13.3b and slash up to half of consents, the new system represented a great opportunity to resolve longstanding deadlocks and complexities arising from the current RMA, unlocking progress and better environmental outcomes, he said.

“It’s great to have clearer and more efficient rules. It’s clarity we should seek here, and the new system will be less open to the variable interpretation that has resulted in paralysis. We have a great opportunity to escape decades of delay and achieve benefit for communities.”

CCNZ emphasised the reforms were a great opportunity for all political parties to escape the historic deadlock and work together to create a robust system that met the country’s needs.

“Seeing the priority the government is placing on infrastructure is a welcome signal for the country’s future. We can achieve a lot of good things here, and I encourage everyone to get behind it and create a simpler, better system that works for the good of the country.”

Mr Pollard said the civil construction industry stood ready with countless key examples of where the system could be improved, and looked forward to providing practical perspective on how the country could achieve more sustainable development.

Confusion around the enforcement of rules set under current national direction in the existing system had led to the situation where soil made up 60 per cent of material to landfill, at the additional cost of around $2.4 billion to the country’s infrastructure construction bill, he said.

“A key example of the waste occurring under the current RMA is soil management. The current rules are rapidly inflating our national infrastructure bill and leading to very poor environmental outcomes. It’s a situation we urgently need to resolve.”

Mr Pollard said a simplification of plans and national directions would resolve ‘baked in’ complexities in the system and provide clarity for local authorities, reducing more than 100 plans to 17 and resulting in more consistency, and better use of local government capacity. 

CCNZ and its members would continue to work closely with the Government to ensure the reforms delivered real benefit to the civil contracting businesses who work to construct and maintain New Zealand’s infrastructure, communities, and the country as a whole, he said.