Following our submission on the draft legislation to replace the Resource Management Act, we’ve had a series of meetings with Ministers and officials and will provide an oral submission at the upcoming Select Committee.
At the bottom of this page there’s also information about the Waikato Plan Change 1 decision which relates to areas of RMA reform.
Since we made our submission on the RMA reform
B+LNZ representatives have had numerous meetings with key Ministers, politicians, and officials.
In these meetings we’ve provided concrete changes to the legislation that would bring it in line with the Government’s intent. It has been generally understood that parts of the draft legislation did not align with this intent and there has been willingness to ‘panel beat’ the legislation to make sure it does align.
We’ve also continued to work closely with our sector partners, including DairyNZ, HortNZ, Federated Farmers and IrrigationNZ to amplify the sector voice to Government.
The Select Committee process
B+LNZ will make an oral submission to the Environment Select Committee on Thursday 12 March.
This is our opportunity to highlight key points from our 110-page submission and answer questions from politicians.
The Committee has limited time to complete its report and can’t hear from all submitters. In acknowledgement of the importance of our, and the wider primary sector’s, views we have been given a longer speaking timeslot.
Next steps
We’ll keep farmers informed about what’s happening after the Select Committee.
We’ll continue to meet with Ministers and officials, as this legislation remains one of the most important areas of our policy work at present, and it’s critical we get it right.
More about our submission
A really important part of the submission was the farmer voice. Despite the limited timeframe, farmer engagement was a key focus of our work in making a submission.
- We received more than 100 responses to a survey on farmer concerns and testing B+LNZ’s positions.
- Our podcast explaining the key aspects of the reform was downloaded around 500 times.
- 125 people attended one of our two webinars, and a further 150 people watched a recording.
- The factsheet we developed on how to write a submission was downloaded 110 times, and the similar podcast was downloaded 300 times.
We’d like to thank all the farmers who gave us their time and views, and those who made their own submission. Your input was critical in ensuring decision-makers understood the implications of this legislation on-farm.
You can read our submission here or more general information about our work on the consultation here.
Related issue: PC1 decision
A further interim decision on Waikato Plan Change 1 came out at the end of February.
The decision is 120 pages long and we’re still working our way through detail. There appears to be some positive developments, but also some issues that we are analysing closely. We’ll provide more detail in next week’s e-diary.