Democracy Action supports the broad intent of the Planning Bill to simplify the resource management system, reduce red tape, empower landowners, and provide greater certainty. New Zealand needs a more efficient planning framework that supports growth while managing environmental effects and natural hazards.
This submission is limited to matters concerning the protection of fundamental democratic principles and the equal rights of all New Zealand citizens.
Provisions in the Bill that centralise power, reduce local democratic input, and entrench ancestry-based participatory rights risk long-term harm to New Zealand by:
- Fostering unfairness and division, undermining social cohesion and the sense that all citizens belong equally.
- Eroding public trust in institutions when laws are discriminatory or inconsistent.
- Fragmenting national sovereignty by replacing equal rights under the law with differentiated, group-based status.
When legislation undermines equal citizenship and democratic principles, it threatens the foundations of a united and fair society. It risks entrenching division, eroding public trust in institutions, and weakening the freedoms and fairness that underpin New Zealand’s democracy.
Concern 1: Centralisation of power and erosion of local democracy
The Bill significantly strengthens central government control through national planning instruments and ministerial powers. Territorial authorities must give effect to national instruments (sections 47–48), and the Minister can direct local authorities to prepare or change plans (section 203) or to achieve specific outcomes (section 204).
While some national direction is necessary for consistency, this level of override reduces the role of locally elected councils and communities in shaping their own environments. Local democracy allows citizens to hold decision-makers directly accountable through elections. Centralised decision-making in Wellington distances power from affected residents and risks capture by national political or bureaucratic priorities rather than local needs and values.
Recommendation: Amend the Bill to limit ministerial intervention powers to national emergencies or clear failures of process, with strong requirements for public justification and parliamentary oversight. Preserve meaningful local authority autonomy in district and regional planning.
Concern 2: Race-based rights and unequal participation for citizens
The Bill explicitly provides for Māori interests in ways not extended equally to other New Zealanders. It includes a goal of providing for Māori interests through:
- Māori participation in the development of national instruments, regional spatial plans, and land use plans;
- Identification and protection of sites of significance to Māori;
- Provision for enabling the development and protection of identified Māori land.
Sections 9 and 10 require the Crown to uphold Treaty settlement redress and give it equivalent effect in the planning system. Section 82 prohibits plans from permitting activities that adversely affect protected customary rights, with associated processes (section 83) and definitions of affected groups (section 129). Statutory acknowledgements (section 100) and obligations to post-settlement governance entities (sections 189–190) further embed specific rights.
These provisions create a two-tier system. One group of citizens (identified as iwi) receives mandatory participatory roles, veto-like control over sites and customary rights, and dedicated consultation pathways that ordinary citizens do not enjoy. This is inconsistent with democratic equality and the principle that all citizens are equal before the law. It also creates legal uncertainty.
Furthermore, while iwi are traditional tribal structures, today many have commercial arms and, in a growing number of cases, are multi-million-dollar corporate entities. The trustees of these entities have a fiduciary duty to act in the best interests of their iwi. Mandatory consultation with these entities provides them with a distinct advantage in shaping outcomes—allowing them to advance their own iwi-specific priorities ahead of, or over, the interests of the wider public.
Recommendation: Remove or substantially amend provisions that grant ethnicity-based participatory rights. Participation in planning processes must be open to all affected citizens on the same terms. Treaty settlements should be honoured through specific redress mechanisms outside the general planning system, without creating ongoing unequal rights in land and resource-use decisions.
Concern 3: Reduced public participation and accessibility.
While the Bill retains some notification and hearing requirements for consents (sections 123–127, 170, 295), it shifts much engagement to the plan-making stage and includes mechanisms for non-notified applications, regulatory relief (Schedule 3, section 92), and streamlined processes (e.g., changing plans via consents under sections 97–98). Time limits and discretionary notification risk the limiting of citizens' ability to participate in decisions that directly affect their homes, neighbourhoods, and quality of life.
Hearings are to be held in public (section 295), which is positive, but if fewer applications are notified or heard, the practical right to be heard is diminished. This particularly disadvantages individuals and community groups without the resources of large developers or well-organised iwi entities.
Recommendation: Strengthen default public notification and submission rights for any consent or plan change with more than minor effects on others. Ensure appeal rights to the Environment Court remain accessible and affordable for citizens. Limit streamlined or non-notified pathways to truly minor matters.
Concern 4: The proposed maintenance of existing and initiated Mana Whakahono ā Rohe, Joint Management Agreements, and transfers of power.
The Planning Bill aims to simplify resource management, reduce complexity, and deliver greater certainty for all New Zealanders.
However, preserving existing and initiated Mana Whakahono ā Rohe, Joint Management Agreements, and transfers of power undermines these goals.
These ad hoc, council-specific deals create fragmented, non-transparent, and regionally inconsistent processes. No new such agreements can be created under the Bill (except via Treaty settlements), which implicitly recognises their problematic nature—yet preserving them allows the same issues to persist.
They are typically political arrangements between councils and iwi/hapū, often made without public input or mandate. Continuing them locks in privileged, preferential access to planning, consenting, and decision-making for one group—rights not available to other residents or ratepayers—creating a two-tier system of citizenship.
Genuine reform requires a clean break: equal, transparent participation opportunities for all citizens, not entrenched ethnicity-based privileges.
Recommendation: Amend provisions in the Planning Bill that preserve existing and initiated Mana Whakahono ā Rohe arrangements, joint management agreements (JMAs), and any transfers of power (as defined in the Bill, including those carried over from the Resource Management Act 1991).
To restore democratic equality and prevent the entrenchment of unequal participatory rights, these mechanisms should not be automatically carried forward into the new planning system. Instead, they should be cancelled or allowed to lapse upon the transition to the new regime.
Concern 5: Property rights and effects on others:
The Bill correctly strengthens property rights while emphasising the need to avoid unreasonable effects on others. This principle must apply equally and robustly to all proposals, including those advanced under special Māori land or customary rights provisions, as well as to the identification and protection of sites of cultural, historic, or spiritual significance.
Summary of recommendations
The Planning Bill has opportunities to deliver a modern, efficient system. However, without amendments, it risks entrenching centralised control and ethnic distinctions that undermine democratic equality. Granting preferential rights based on ethnicity divides New Zealanders and undermines social cohesion.
Therefore, Democracy Action urges the Committee to recommend the following changes:
- Limit ministerial override powers and support genuine local democratic control, including meaningful input from communities and ratepayers in planning decisions.
- Strengthen overall democratic accountability and ensure transparent, inclusive processes that provide equal participatory rights for all citizens.
- Uphold equal citizenship for all New Zealanders: remove or eliminate race-based/ancestry-based entitlements, participatory rights, and permanent governance structures in core planning law.
- Ensure planning rules apply neutrally and consistently to all land and all citizens, without ethnicity-based distinctions.
- Clearly define and codify all Treaty of Waitangi provisions to avoid unpredictability and legal uncertainty, and to limit the risk of ongoing judicial interpretation and litigation.
- Cancel or allow to lapse (rather than preserve) existing and initiated Mana Whakahono ā Rohe arrangements, joint management agreements (JMAs), and provision for the transfer of power, upon transition to the new system.
- Protect private property rights: Ensure the legislation includes a provision that landowner consent is necessary prior to assigning "site of cultural, historic, or spiritual significance" status to any private property.
- Safeguard public access and use: Include a provision requiring clear, robust, and verifiable evidence when designating sites of cultural, historic, or spiritual significance on public land, water bodies, or the coastal marine area if this designation restricts citizens’ access, enjoyment, or use.
In conclusion, we strongly recommend that the final Act protect democratic accountability, the principle of one law for all New Zealanders, and equal participatory rights for every citizen.
Thank you for the opportunity to submit. We would welcome the opportunity to appear before the Committee to elaborate on these views.