Beef + Lamb New Zealand has welcomed the Government’s announcement it will stop councils notifying new regional or district plan changes ahead of new Resource Management Act (RMA) legislation being introduced.
Councils’ existing mandatory RMA requirements to undertake plan and regional policy statement reviews every ten years will be suspended, along with the requirement to implement national planning standards.
The restriction on notifying freshwater planning instruments has also been extended.
B+LNZ Chair Kate Acland says the announcement provides farmers with further clarity over the coming months.
“We have repeatedly raised concerns about the rules coming out of regional planning processes with significant implications for farmers.
“Last year the Government restricted regional councils from notifying any freshwater planning instruments before 31 December 2025, but that date was looming before any new rules were in place.
“Without a further delay, councils would have restarted their processes based on the current rules. It’s therefore positive to see this deadline pushed out further, as it is something we’d been asking for.
“Given the scale of the issues we’ve identified with the existing freshwater management frameworks, it’s critical that councils do not continue trying to implement them.”
In July 2024 B+LNZ released independent peer-reviewed research that showed the way the suspended fine sediment attribute and 95th percentile E. coli states were determined in the National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management was flawed, that they are not achievable, and trying to achieve them would decimate farming and rural communities.
The Government’s announcement also means councils’ work on Significant Natural Areas (SNAs) and Outstanding Natural Landscapes will also stop.
“The uncertainty caused by having huge swathes of their land potentially tied up in red tape because of things like the overly broad definition of SNAs is causing farmers a lot of stress, so it’s positive to see some respite for farmers on this issue,” Acland says.
ENDS
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