Submission on the Natural and Built Environment Bill 2023

3 February 2023

• We strongly support the bill’s initiatives to centre Te Ao Māori and Te Tiriti / The Treaty in Aotearoa’s resource management framework.

• We also strongly support the bill’s aim to actively improve environmental outcomes, an improvement from the Resource Management Act 1991 (RMA)’s focus on avoiding harm.

• We would like to see explicit prioritisation among the many desirable outcomes the bill provides, so that the most important outcomes are promoted in the most effective way.

• We would also like to see equitable distribution of outcomes championed by the bill. This should be explicitly flagged in Part 1 and achieved by extending mechanisms such as the effects management framework to protect all communities.

• The reliance on concepts from Te Ao Māori, such as mauri and mana, is admirable. However, we believe it is important to clearly define such terms, to avoid ambiguity and potential exploitation of the law.