The MPS has counted among its members some of the people responsible for the most radical economic reforms in New Zealand’s modern history. Key figures include Roger Douglas, who spearheaded “Rogernomics” in the 1980s, and Ruth Richardson, whose 1991 Budget fundamentally reshaped the welfare state.

Other New Zealanders who have been members of the MPS include the late Roger Kerr, who led the Business Roundtable’s campaign for neoliberal reforms, and more recently David Seymour.

In 2019 Seymour declared his membership of the Mont Pelerin Society in a Facebook post, alongside a statement about Karl Popper’s influence on his thinking.

Seymour also attended an MPS meeting in 2016, describing it as “where some of the best economists and thinkers in the world (and me) meet every two years.” It is unclear what year Seymour became a member, and it is not confirmed if he remains a member to this day.

The Mont Pelerin Society is a selective international organisation that has helped develop and spread neoliberal ideas. What does Seymour’s membership reveal about the political project he is advancing, and its continuity with the reforms that transformed New Zealand in the 1980s and 1990s?

The society Hayek founded

The Mont Pelerin Society has a long history, back to 1947 when Friedrich Hayek convened a gathering of economists, historians and philosophers in Switzerland. Among those at the founding meeting were Karl Popper and economists Milton Friedman and Ludwig von Mises.

The society emerged at the time governments were expanding public ownership, economic planning and welfare provision in the aftermath of the Depression and Second World War. Its founders feared that growing state control threatened individual freedom, and sought to renew a political tradition centred on private property, market competition and limits on government power.

Membership is highly selective: candidates must demonstrate commitment to the society’s aims, generally have attended at least two meetings as guests, and secure recommendations from two existing members.

The society says it does not seek to establish an orthodoxy or align itself with any political party, describing its purpose as facilitating an exchange of ideas among like-minded scholars.

Yet limiting government intervention is far from a neutral stance, and requires an active state, building legal and institutional protections for markets and private property. As historian Quinn Slobodian argues, an influential strand of neoliberal thought sought to use those structures to shield markets from democratic demands.

New Zealand becomes the experiment

From 1984, New Zealand underwent sweeping economic restructuring. The Fourth Labour Government floated the dollar, liberalised financial markets, removed most agricultural subsidies and progressively reduced import protection. Government trading departments became state-owned enterprises, and a subsequent wave of privatisation transferred many major public assets into private ownership.

These reforms reshaped the relationship between government, business and citizens, expanding the role of markets and private ownership in areas previously governed by public provision and collective decisions. Their effects reached into employment, public services and communities across the country. The driving political figure was Finance Minister Roger Douglas, who later co-founded the Act Party.

In November 1989, the Mont Pelerin Society held a meeting in Christchurch. Douglas addressed this gathering on the politics of successful structural reform. His message stressed speed and comprehensive change: “Moving step by step lets vested interests mobilise. Big packages can neutralise them.”1

New Zealand’s transformation had become a case study for an international audience interested in how radical economic reform could be carried through and how political resistance had been overcome. His paper set out ten principles for combining reform with electoral success. He argued that governments should press ahead, with public support developing once the benefits became apparent.

The next wave of reforms came under the National government elected in 1990. Finance Minister Ruth Richardson’s 1991 Budget cut major welfare benefits amongst other significant changes, while the government’s Employment Contracts Act shifted bargaining towards individual employment contracts and weakened trade unions. Outside of Parliament, MPS member Roger Kerr’s Business Roundtable pressed for privatisation, deregulation and market-oriented restructuring, helping sustain pressure for further reform.

The publicly available record of Kerr’s MPS membership dates from 1986, before the Christchurch gathering; Richardson’s from 1996 and Douglas’s from 1998, after their defining reforms. Their later membership does not establish that the society instigated those policies, but does show an enduring connection between leading New Zealand neoliberal reformers and an international intellectual movement – in which New Zealand became a prominent example of radical neoliberal ideas put into practice.

Seymour joins the Mont Pelerin Society

Before entering Parliament, Seymour worked in Canada for the Frontier Centre for Public Policy and the Manning Centre, organisations advocating private enterprise and a smaller role for government.

In 2008, he won equal first prize in the Mont Pelerin Society’s Hayek Essay Contest, receiving an F. A. Hayek Fellowship for his essay which addressed whether technological change had fulfilled Hayek’s fears about government control or instead helped liberate people from it. Honourable mentions followed in 2010 and 2012, establishing repeated engagement with the society’s intellectual debates years before his public declaration of membership.

In 2016, by then an MP and the Act leader, Seymour posted a photograph from the society’s Miami meeting, telling his Facebook followers he was attending. Three years later, he explicitly declared his membership, linking it to his admiration for founding participant Karl Popper.

His association with the society therefore dates back at least to 2008. Formal membership placed Seymour within a selective international intellectual network, requiring a closer affiliation than attendance at a single conference.

The Mont Pelerin Society also has some overlaps with the think-tank world supported by the Atlas Network, founded in 1981 by MPS member Antony Fisher to help establish organisations advocating private enterprise and limits on government intervention. The two organisations have distinct roles, but share some historical figures and intellectual connections.

When investigative journalist Mihingarangi Forbes (now on Substack) questioned Seymour about Act’s connections with the Atlas Network in February 2024, he denied an association. The question did not directly concern his personal affiliations to international organisations more broadly, and he did not take the opportunity to outline the relevant connections he has had. The interview did not explore his previously acknowledged membership of the Mont Pelerin Society - a significant connection to the international network of neoliberal thinkers and advocates.

From the Roundtable to the Initiative

In 2012, the year after Kerr’s death, the Business Roundtable merged with the New Zealand Institute to form the New Zealand Initiative. MPS membership is documented among several of its leading figures: senior fellow Bryce Wilkinson, a former Treasury economist and long-standing regulatory reform advocate; chairman Roger Partridge, a commentator on legal and constitutional questions; executive director Oliver Hartwich; and chief economist Eric Crampton, who also serves as an MPS director.

Richardson, meanwhile, continues to advocate for lower spending and fiscal restraint as chair of the Taxpayers’ Union. The connections span generations, linking figures associated with the earlier reforms to contemporary policy advocates within the same international intellectual network.

These organisations translate political ideas into policy advocacy: publishing research, making submissions, engaging ministers and officials, and shaping public debate. The regulatory standards project strengthened at the Business Roundtable, when in 2001, Wilkinson drafted a Regulatory Responsibility Bill. More than two decades later, he was advocating for the latest version through its successor, the New Zealand Initiative, appearing alongside Crampton before the select committee considering the 2025 Regulatory Standards Bill. The resulting Act’s consistency-assessment requirements took effect in July 2026.

These organisations have their own priorities, and shared MPS membership does not imply agreement on every policy. But the regulatory standards campaign survived changes of leadership, organisation and government. Today’s debates over regulation, property rights and public services continue arguments advanced by the earlier reform generation.

Changing the rules of government

In Globalists: The End of Empire and the Birth of Neoliberalism, historian Quinn Slobodian traces how influential neoliberal thinkers sought to protect markets from political intervention, including democratic demands for redistribution and greater equality.

Slobodian describes a particular intellectual tradition, with differences among its thinkers. His analysis raises a question relevant to both New Zealand’s earlier reforms and today’s regulatory programme: whose power does government protect, and how much scope remains for democratic choice?

The ideas become law

The Business Roundtable’s long-standing regulatory standards project offers a New Zealand example of the approach Slobodian describes: giving private property and freedom of action statutory weight strengthens corporate power by making regulation in the public interest harder to pursue. The Regulatory Standards Act (RSA) was brought into law by Seymour following three earlier attempts by Act. It has been described as the final piece of the neoliberal reforms begun in the 1980s.

The RSA assesses legislation against selected principles concerning liberty, property and regulation. It requires explanations for inconsistencies and establishes a Regulatory Standards Board. The government calls this transparency and accountability. Although inconsistent laws remain valid, particular economic values gain institutional authority.

As my earlier reporting documented, Wilkinson promoted these ideas to ministers and officials, including through the work of fellow MPS member, American scholar Richard Epstein.

Viewed through Slobodian’s framework, this is government reorganising its authority around particular economic priorities, and giving those economic principles greater protection from democratic change.

Transparency starts at home

Seymour publicly acknowledged his MPS membership in 2019. What remains unclear is when he joined, whether he still belongs, which meetings he has attended since, and whether he has presented or discussed government policy through these relationships.

His membership appears to have attracted little public scrutiny. Yet it connects him to a society that also counted Douglas and Richardson among its members, and to arguments about private property, competition and government power that helped shape New Zealand’s earlier reforms. Today, those arguments bear directly on how much freedom elected governments should have to change economic, social and environmental policy.

Seymour champions transparency in lawmaking. The same scrutiny should extend to his own political affiliations. Membership does not establish that the society directs his decisions, but with Seymour now exercising considerable political power, voters deserve to know whether his membership continues, what his involvement entails, and how its ideas relate to the programme he is asking them to support.

For a politician who champions transparency, those are reasonable questions to answer. The consequences of his programme will extend well beyond this election.

There is a steady stream of new friends and connections to use te reo with, novel environments and contexts to experiment in with the language, and frequent reminders that despite extensive learning, there are still many gaps in my vocabulary and the ease of expression of different thoughts and actions. Because te reo is not a day-to-day language in most activities and spaces in Aotearoa, for most of us those gaps are slow to fill.

I was fortunate to start Te Wiki o te Reo Māori by spending a long weekend at a Kura Reo (Māori language immersion learning), hosted by Ngāti Kuia, at Whakatū Marae in Nelson. It was an amazing few days of being taught by generous and skilled teachers, being fed delicious food, conversing only in te reo, a lot of laughter, and enjoying the warm and supportive environment created by the manaakitanga of Ngāti Kuia, and all the teachers and participants.

As the week continued, it was a privilege to be included in a Listener article by Atakohu Middleton, which profiled a range of different non-Māori learning te reo, and their experiences. Here is a gift link to the article in English. An admirable first for the Listener, they also printed a te reo Māori translation of the article, linked here, which was translated by the brilliant translator, Maiki Sherman. The Listener also features a story about Maiki’s te reo journey, which is a valuable read.

Atakohu’s article referenced my research report, Reo Māori, Pākehā Voices: The bilingual land our hearts know is possible. It summarised one of the report’s findings, about the motivations of a range of fluent Pākehā speakers of te reo.

It felt timely to share some of the findings and broader analysis of this aspect of my research with you, my readers.

Before we move to that, for those of you interested in things reo Māori, there is a fairly new resource which I would highly recommend, ReoWatch, which is described as a go-to for te reo Māori: news, think pieces, tips & tricks and events.

I’ve also continued research and analysis on some political topics which I’ve been working on for a while, and look forward to getting those to you in the near future. Paid subscriptions make it possible for me to spend a small amount of time on this important work each week, and a lot of time indeed is required for investigative journalism. If you wish to help enable me to spend more time, you’re welcome to take out a paid subscription, or make a one-off donation.

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Extract from Reo Māori Pākehā Voice: The Bilingual Land our Hearts Know is Possible, by Melanie Nelson

Motivations: Why Pākehā right-shift

The motivations that Pākehā have for learning te reo Māori are highly relevant to language revitalisation and re-normalisation. To become fluent, you have to start learning. In this chapter, the respondents’ predetermining factors, initial motivations, and motivations once learning are reported.

Predetermining factors

Some factors that could predetermine a disposition towards te reo Māori were identified. All these factors occurred for fewer than half of the respondents.

Ancestors’ tendencies

Ancestors who were positively engaged with Māori or had been particularly open-minded for their times were noted by some respondents. This included ancestors who had experiences prior to migration to Aotearoa/New Zealand that might have predisposed them to a compassionate stance, such as persecution by colonisers in their homelands, and loss of land, resources, language, and identity.

“I’ve got several generations on both sides of my family who have already established that process, and transmitted it to me inherently. I’m a product of that. I didn’t have to start from such a low place; I came with a bit of something already in me.”_P5

“I had a great-grandfather who had been very involved ... there was always this benevolent glow around that connection with tikanga Māori and the language.”_P11

Family values and attitudes

A range of attitudes towards Māori were held by respondents’ parents, ranging from open-minded and liberal to racist. Their parents’ responses to their desire to learn te reo Māori had ranged from active encouragement to active discouragement or denial. High regard for learning, education, and books was the most dominant family value identified. Religious values, a family love of music, and a value comparable to manaakitanga were additional themes.

Relevant outliers included te reo Māori words, phrases, and tikanga being present in the home because of intergenerational involvement in te reo and attending kōhanga reo and kura kaupapa.

“I definitely chose to start learning, against a lot of resistance from the adults in my environment – teachers and parents – and it wasn’t allowed to go on for very long.”_P1

“My mother was always, rest her soul, reflexively racist. But not in a major way – in the low-key ways of expecting negative things of brown people. But my dad wasn’t really – he was reflexively fair about everybody.”_P8

“I probably came from a very inquisitive family, that if something didn’t make sense, you found ways to work it out and make sense of it.”_P10

Childhood attributes

A strong sense of rightness, dislike of bullying and defending the underdog were common childhood attributes. A love of reading, learning and/or language, and arts/music were prominent interests.

“I had a strong sense of justice and would stick up for those who were bullied.”_P13

“At school I was really studious. I was a geek, I loved to read. And I remember I would come home, I’d always have books from the library, I just read and read and read. So I was always hungry for knowledge, always very, very curious.”_P5

Childhood awareness of Māori

During childhood, many hardly perceived Māori people and language to exist, including low recognition of fellow students as being Māori. Exposure to te reo through short segments on television or brief encounters at primary school had some positive impact, as did having Māori friends. Despite the lack of family or societal awareness, some developed a curiosity about Māori and race relations at a young age.

Outliers included one respondent who mainly interacted with Māori and Pacific neighbours and friends, some who had several Māori friends, and one who was brought up in kōhanga reo and kura kaupapa.

“I would say that I was raised with zero understanding of [the] history of Aotearoa, New Zealand. Maybe the occasional mention of Māori, in past tense, in a really generic way.”_P1

“I was surrounded by a kind of colonial lens based around books like Elsdon Best’s The Māori as He Was. Māori were a distinct culture that [had] more or less disappeared and the people that I knew as Māori were, in my mind, sort of disconnected from that tattooed, tribal past. It never occurred to me to wonder what was the connection between those people and the kids at school. I just assumed there was not much connection.”_P9

“I saw Bill Parker’s programme [on] Wednesday evening – but it was something completely disconnected, there was no sense of Māori language anywhere in my environment. It left me, when I started university, with no idea that Māori was a spoken language. Isn’t that incredible! So – that’s how I started learning Māori, at university. It was a complete fluke! Almost.”_P9

Initial motivations

A deep calling

A deep calling or inherent interest or pull to learn te reo Māori was the primary motivation identified. This was not intellectual and often had no logical rationale, but was akin to an innate desire or a spiritual pull. For many, this was sparked into life when they first encountered te reo/te ao Māori.

“I don’t really remember ever thinking of any other option [at high school] or having any tussle with myself about … ‘I really wanna do this instead of that’. It was just, ‘I’m doing Māori’.”_P5

“I’ve always been attracted to difference and I was intrigued. I was really conscious in that little course that I was no more than scratching the surface, like seeing things from afar.”_P8

“There’s a joie de vivre about Māori people, a kind of natural energy and spontaneity and exuberance that I like, and it calls to something in me.”_P8

Friends, family or societal models

The encouragement of friends and family encouragement was motivating when this existed, as was the visibility of role models or of te reo in society.

“When I went to high school, all my mates were Māori, so they took te reo Māori, so I learned with them. They were the guys in school, they had all the chicks. I wasn’t really into that – not at that age anyway – but they were. They were cool, they were in the First XV, they were the sort of person that I thought I might like to be.”_P6

“Taking te reo Māori, I was getting to be with the people that I really liked being with. It was a cool place to hang out. They were mischief, a lot of them, but they were my kind of people. They weren’t boring.”_P5

Knowing about this place

Knowing about this place was a key motivation for those who had been born in another country or who had grown up overseas. Traveling overseas and loving the adventure of different cultures, but recognising their ignorance about things Māori, was also identified.

“[Encountering te ao Māori] was a shock to the system and it made me realise I was seriously ignorant. There was this incredibly important part of my world that I knew nothing about and I had some serious learning to do. I really had to get on [to] start filling the vast, gaping hole in my knowledge.”_P9

“I saw three Pākehā speaking on each marae and thought, ‘That’s looks like an important thing to do’. I saw them modelling bilingual welcomes [at a non-Māori group] and just thought, ‘That’s really important’.”_P10

“Spending a year overseas was a big turning point, which is ironic but true. Every time I tried to talk about Māori stuff I realised I didn’t know anything, I was really bone ignorant.”_P11

Other motivations

Other motivations were each noted by only one or two respondents but they were significant for them. They included the beauty of the language, the Treaty of Waitangi and social justice, a love of Māori music, professional expectations and opportunities, or te reo being coincidental to their path.

“I do remember generally wanting to honour the Treaty but I didn’t really know what the Treaty said. I didn’t know who’d signed it and who hadn’t, or why or how. I think I just had this romantic idea that there was this thing called the Treaty and it was the founding document of our nation.”_P1

“You wouldn’t ever think that being someone who was fine about singing would matter much. But I think, actually, in a weird way, it’s led me along that path.”_P8

“Being the idealist I was, it was around saying, ‘Actually, if I’m going to teach in a New Zealand school – actually, to do real service to that, I need to … be able to do that bilingually and biculturally. So I needed to work on my reo and knowledge of te ao Māori, so I could be flexible enough.”_P7

Compounding motivations once learning

Learning and contributing to te reo

After the first steps on the journey, te reo Māori itself became the primary motivator for continuing to learn. This included both the desire to continue learning and to contribute to te reo. These compounded further and became more complex as learning progressed. Drivers included a love of te reo and the learning journey, improving and perfecting one’s language, building a network of speakers, a desire to contribute to the language’s survival and revival, and learning about local people and places.

“From that first lecture, I was like, ‘That’s what I want – I want to be able to speak. I want to be truly bilingual if I can’.”_P7

“I did have a sense that as a Pākehā I was sort of entering into terra incognita and that it was incumbent on me to do it well. I had a sense of obligation and I’m not generally particularly studious, but I actually tried pretty hard to do it.”_P8

“I just loved it. I always have done, right from the beginning. It was like falling in love. It’s the best thing I could say about it, it’s really what it was like. It was like, ‘Whoa, this is so awesome, what an adventure!’ So I was in boots and all, loving it and having such a great time.”_P11

“Nothing’s ever big-time changed, but you start to get a bigger view of it as you start to think, ‘Maybe I could have a bit more of an influence here, or I could just be more actively involved in the whole te reo Māori revival project’.”_P12

Importance to relationships

Te reo became an integral part of many key relationships, which were fed by continuing learning and involvement. For those who used te reo with their children, the need to learn new language to support them, and the desire to pass the language on, become significant motivators.

“Now my motivation is to leave a legacy for my children too, like I said, to hold space but to leave a legacy that they can be proud of, that their mum did this, their mum was part of this. That’s part of it, but it’s not in a whakahīhī way. I’m always humble to be allowed into those spaces.”_P5

“Being able to give support to your friends and whānau at tangi in those times of difficulty in an appropriate way. I later translated what was said about his father to [a Māori friend] who does not speak Māori.”_P7

The language becomes inseparable from the speaker

For most, te reo became an inseparable part of who they were. Even if they wanted to walk away, they could not. It melded into their identity, their purpose in life, and their very being. Continuing to learn and use te reo was inextricably linked with continuing to exist.

“It’s part of who I am. I won’t lose it. Even though at times I want to run away, that part of me is so strong. So when I’m at hui, or at a pōwhiri, or listening to speakers, there’s something in there that touches my inner core, that comes from a place of being very, very young. And for me, that’s something that is beautiful. And it comes with a whole lot – a sense of beauty and a sense of commitment, and there has been a real sense of obligation for a long time. It’s about me giving time and space to a part of me that is part of my identity.”_P4

Discussion and analysis: Motivations

The findings of this research around motivations for learning te reo were unexpected. Anecdotally, many Pākehā have said they chose to learn te reo to fulfil their sense of Treaty of Waitangi responsibilities, to support social justice, or for professional development. However, for this cohort, those motivations had been secondary – and by a very long way.

For respondents in this research, the primary (and for most, the only) motivation to right-shift from Zero or Passive to Active [Note: This refers to the ZePA model which analyses receptiveness and use of te reo Māori from left-to right - moving from Zero on the left, through Passive, to Active on the Right], and start to learn te reo Māori, was a deep calling – variously described as an innate desire or an inherent or spiritual pull. This calling seems to have been of such depth, and so inherent to the person, that potentially, it could have provided the necessary resilience and sense of purpose required during the inevitable vicissitudes of a language-learning and cross-cultural journey.

The predetermining factors that were identified were thought-provoking findings. A childhood love of learning and books, and an academic predisposition, were common features for many. This was in spite of the fact that the prevailing attitude in society at that time was that te reo had little academic or career value.

A notable proportion of the respondents had a parent who had inhabited the Passive zone on the ZePA spectrum, or an ancestor who had inhabited the Passive or Active zones. It makes sense that this tendency could quietly nurture an awareness and openness in a child, which eventually leads them to take action. Many also had at least one parent who had inhabited the Zero zone, but this was not prohibitive to their eventual learning. The implications of these predetermining factors are discussed in more depth in the Overall Discussion section at the end of this report.

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At its heart is the idea of regulatory takings — that when regulation restricts the use or value of private property, the owner should receive compensation. It’s the same property-rights philosophy embedded in the Regulatory Standards Act, but the RMA replacement takes it a major step further: turning that abstract principle into a regime councils would have to implement through legally enforceable processes.

In this episode of Coherent, I’m joined by Dr Greg Severinsen, Reform Director at the Environmental Defence Society, to look at what this could actually mean on the ground — and whether the RMA replacement is effectively a testing ground for a much wider shift in how New Zealand regulates in the public interest.

Under the proposed “regulatory relief” regime, councils may be required to compensate landowners when rules protecting biodiversity, outstanding landscapes, heritage or sites of significance to Māori have a significant impact on the “reasonable use” of private land. But what counts as a significant impact? What is a reasonable use? And what happens when councils simply cannot afford to pay?

Greg warns that councils may face an extraordinarily complex and litigious process — and that the most likely result is not widespread compensation, but councils retreating from environmental protection altogether.

We use Auckland as a case study, where potentially tens of thousands of properties could be caught by the regime, and explore the implications for Significant Natural Areas, notable trees, outstanding landscapes, sites of significance to Māori and existing protections carried over from current RMA plans. We also look at the huge uncertainty around how compensation would be calculated, including whether landowners could seek relief for hypothetical future development that has never been consented and may never have occurred.

We also explore the deeper intellectual roots of regulatory takings, including American libertarian scholar Richard Epstein’s theory that compensation requirements can be used to constrain the regulatory state by making regulation more expensive, difficult and litigious.

And we ask what a genuinely balanced approach to property rights would look like. Why should the public compensate a landowner for protecting biodiversity when the public often bears the environmental costs of private land use? And is there already a much simpler and more proportionate solution within the existing RMA?

Greg’s conclusion is stark: the current regulatory-relief framework is unnecessary, potentially unworkable, and could leave New Zealand with fewer environmental protections, more litigation and considerably more uncertainty — not less.

Watch the video above, or listen to the audio here:

Resources mentioned:

• Greg’s EDS webinar on this subject

• Article on influence of Richard Epstein’s theory in NZ

• Interview with Sir Geoffrey Palmer on the Regulatory Standards Bill (now Act)

If this conversation helps make sense of what “regulatory relief” could mean in practice — and why it matters far beyond the RMA — please share it. These are major changes to how New Zealand regulates in the public interest, and they deserve much wider scrutiny.

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Jonathan Boston

Emeritus Professor of Public Policy

Victoria University of Wellington – Te Herenga Waka

10 July 2026

Overview and key points

1. The Climate Change Response (Tort Liability) Bill (henceforth, the Bill) is designed to exclude tort liability for climate change, including all climate change-related damage, caused by greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Without doubt, the Bill is short-sighted, misguided, unnecessary, and wholly unjustified. It has a retrospective nature that is thoroughly repugnant. It is contrary to the long-term public interest. It is inconsistent with the rule of law. It violates the country’s obligations under international law, as reflected in the recent advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice (ICJ). Whether it is also unconstitutional is open to debate, but it certainly shows contempt for the role of the courts as guardians of justice and protectors of citizens’ rights and interests, not least those of Māori, iwi and hapū. The Bill should be withdrawn.

2. Fundamentally, the Bill fails to give proper weight to the wide-ranging and profound risks to humanity, along with the risks to multiple other species and ecosystems, posed by climate change. Currently, humanity faces two relentless and inherently interconnected tragedies: the tragedy of the commons and the tragedy of the horizon. The Bill risks making these tragedies worse. Its negative impact will be even greater if the Bill, once enacted, encourages the passage of similar legislation in other jurisdictions (e.g. the Stop Climate Shakedowns Bill proposed by Republican in the US Senate earlier in 2026) (see Setzer and Higham, 2026).

3. The Bill assumes that measures to mitigate climate change (e.g. by using price-based mechanisms to reduce GHG emissions) should be the sole preserve of the executive and legislative branches of government. As such, the courts should play no role. But there are compelling reasons for not relying exclusively on the executive and legislative branches to mitigate climate change or to address issues of compensation and redress for climate change-related harm.

a. First, there is unequivocal evidence that governments in Aotearoa New Zealand, along with most, if not all, their democratic counterparts across the world, have failed for decades to mitigate climate change adequately.^[1] Globally, the decarbonization of energy systems has been almost universally slow, hesitant, uneven and beset by constant policy flip-flops. As a result, global GHG emissions have continued to rise (albeit at a much slower pace in recent years than previously), and global mean surface temperatures are destined to overshoot the temperature guardrails agreed in Paris in 2015.

b. Second, there is little reason to believe that future governments in Aotearoa will be more successful than their predecessors in delivering rapid and sustained reductions in GHG emissions, let alone contributing to global efforts to achieve sustained net-negative GHG emissions (which will ultimately be essential to reduce the global mean surface temperature to a much safer level).

c. Third, the Bill removes the possibility of legal accountability for those most responsible for the grave and multiple harms of climate change (e.g. high-emitting firms). In this way, the proposed liability shield forecloses a vital mechanism for mitigating climate-related risks and enhancing climate justice. Inevitably, this means that a greater share of the burden of climate-related impacts, along with any related compensatory measures, will be borne by taxpayers (Bookman, 2026). This is not in the long-term public interest.

d. Fourth, globally, there is a lack of effective enforcement mechanisms to safeguard well-recognized planetary boundaries. Moreover, the pressure from global institutions on nation states to reduce climate-related risks is relatively weak, all the more so in recent years following the actions of the US Trump Administration to undermine a rules-based international order and withdraw from the UNFCCC and the Paris Agreement.

4. It might be argued that those whose livelihoods and properties are negatively affected by climate change will be able to secure fair compensation from their insurers. But there is already evidence that insurers are retreating from high-risk areas, a trend that is bound to accelerate (Boston, 2026). Equally important, insurers are charging increasingly high premiums for properties in areas exposed to significant climate-related risks (e.g. flooding), thus rendering property insurance more unaffordable, especially for those with limited means.

5. Insurers, meanwhile, will also be affected by the Bill, rendering them unable to seek damages from high-emitting firms – and this applies retrospectively. Such a development is potentially highly significant. As it stands, under the doctrine of subrogation, insurance companies can, in effect, ‘step into the shoes’ of their policyholders once a claim has been settled. By this means, they can pursue and recover damages from the party or parties who has caused the loss or damage. The Bill renders the doctrine of subrogation null and void in relation to all climate change-related matters. Among other things, this could worsen the insurance protection gap, thus increasing the social and economic costs of climate change.

6. The Minister of Justice, Hon Paul Goldsmith, maintains that the legislation would bring greater ‘legal clarity and certainty’, and that tort law claims such as those of Mike Smith’s are ‘not well-suited to respond to a problem like climate change which involves a range of complex environmental, economic and social factors’. But:

a. There is little reason to believe that the Bill will enhance ‘legal clarity and certainty’. Indeed, given that opposition parties have committed to repealing the proposed legislation, there can be no guarantee that such legislation will remain in force over an extended period of time.

b. The proposition that the courts lack the competence to deal with the challenge of climate change is open to serious doubt. To be sure, the courts may struggle, as have legislators, with the complexities of climate change-related issues, and some of their judgements may not be flawless. But there are good reasons for enabling the courts to develop and apply centuries-old principles – such as those relating to nuisance and negligence – to the current challenges of climate change. Further, to the extent that any court decisions are found to be seriously wanting, appeal provisions will be available. Additionally, legislators will retain the right to intervene and address any remaining issues through legislation.

7. Moreover, the Bill is inconsistent with the government’s support several years ago for the ICJ to provide an advisory opinion on the legal obligations of states to reduce GHG emissions under international law. Why, for instance, is the ICJ competent to rule on climate change-related matters, while our courts in Aotearoa apparently are not competent to do so? Note, too, that New Zealand was among the 141 countries that endorsed the General Assembly Resolution earlier this year welcoming the ICJ’s advisory opinion. How ironic that the same government is now claiming that the courts should not be involved in such matters. Put differently, the government somehow saw fit to vote for climate accountability through legal mechanisms in New York, but now wants legal immunity from such accountability at home.

8. Finally, I fully concur with the conclusion of the Ministry of Justice, as stated in the relevant Regulatory Impact Statement: Targeted reform of emissions-related torts:

‘… officials have not been able to identify clear evidence that the current litigation has affected business confidence; while defendant companies may face costs if the court finds in favour of Mr Smith and imposes additional obligations to reduce emissions, the Ministry considers there is broader public value in upholding the rule of law by allowing litigation underway to conclude before considering whether to change the law; and the status quo maintains access to justice for people seeking remedies relating to environmental harm to property and otherwise supports New Zealand’s constitutional arrangements’ (2026, p.4).

Elaboration

9. Several points in the preceding summary deserve elaboration.

10. Undoubtedly, human-induced climate change, for multiple reasons, constitutes a uniquely challenging issue for all the available mechanisms of governance and regulation and for every kind of public institution, whether representative, administrative or judicial. Unless the distinctive and perilous nature of challenge is properly understood, there is a risk that policy decisions will be taken, such as those proposed in the Bill, that further restrict the capacity of nation states and their citizens, along with the wider international community, to respond adequately to the scope and scale of the issues needing to be addressed. Rather than foreclosing specific regulatory options, whether representative, administrative or judicial, it is imperative to keep all possible options on the table. To be sure, every currently available option has well recognized flaws and imperfections. But that makes it even more important to retain a full range of potential responses.

11. The claim that human-induced climate change constitutes a perilous and uniquely challenging issue for humanity has long been recognized within the global scientific and policy communities. In his landmark review of the economics of climate change in 2006, the distinguished British economist, Lord Nicholas Stern, commented that climate change represents the ‘greatest market failure the world has seen’.^[2] Similarly, a few years later in 2008 the leading Australian economist, Professor Ross Garnaut, described climate change as a ‘diabolical policy problem harder than another other issue of high importance in living memory’.^[3] Nothing has happened since that changes these observations.

12. According to the government, tort law is not an appropriate mechanism for responding to GHG emissions. This is because the regulation of such emissions requires careful consideration of social, economic, and distributional implications of different policy choices. Consequently, any regulatory response to climate change should be managed through legislation, such as the Climate Change Response Act 2002. But the claim that the regulation of GHG emissions should rest exclusively with the executive and legislative branches of government, with the courts having no effective role, is based on at least two highly questionable assumptions.

a. First, it is assumed that the executive and legislative branches of government can deal adequately with the challenge of mitigating climate change.

b. Second, it is assumed that the courts lack the relevant expertise, competence and capacity to contribute effectively and/or fairly to minimizing the public and private harm caused by climate change.

Both assumptions are explored below.

Assumption 1: the executive and legislation branches can deal adequately with the challenges of mitigating climate change

13. While it might be comforting to believe that executive and legislative institutions are fully capable of successfully mitigating human-induced climate change, there is now overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Governments in Aotearoa and other democracies have publicly recognized the risks of climate change since at least the mid-to-late 1980s. And most sought to reduce their domestic GHG emissions for more than three decades. But at best, their success to date has been limited; at worst, it has been lamentable, if not a dismal failure.^[4]

14. In Aotearoa, for instance, both gross and net emissions in 2024 remained well above their levels in 1990 when the country’s first climate change policies were announced.^[5] And while some democracies have managed to reduce their GHG emissions over recent decades more significantly than Aotearoa, in many cases this has been because some of their emissions have, in effect, been exported to other countries, particularly China and other emerging economies. Hence, while GHG emissions have declined, in some cases substantially, on a production basis, the decline on a consumption basis has typically been much less marked. Britain provides a good example: production GHG emissions have fallen by over 50% since 1990, but consumption emissions have fallen by much less than half this amount.^[6]

Policy failures

15. The failure to reduce GHG emissions rapidly, despite the overwhelming evidence of serious climate-related risks, reflects an unwillingness by democratically-elected government to employ the available policy tools effectively, fairly and consistently over extended periods of time. For instance, GHG emissions have not been priced at a level sufficient to bring about a rapid decarbonisation of energy systems (both stationary and transport-related). Likewise, governments have been reluctant to employ a full range of non-price or complementary policy mechanisms – or at least to do so efficiently and cost-effectively. Instead, policy response, both in Aotearoa and most other democracies, has been characterised by hesitancy, procrastination and delay, half-hearted and sometimes inconsistent interventions, and frequent policy reversals. Time inconsistency (also known as dynamic inconsistency) has been commonplace. Accordingly, it is now increasingly likely that the goals of the Paris Climate Change Agreement in 2015 will not be met and that major tipping points in the Earth system will be crossed, with many irreversible impacts, not least multi-metre sea level rise over the next few centuries.^[7]

16. The fact that the policy responses in Aotearoa and elsewhere have fallen far short of that required to secure rapid and sustained reductions in GHG emissions (and thereby stabilize the climate system and avoid massively damaging economic, social, cultural, and ecological impacts), reflect the enormity of the challenge that climate change poses for democratic – and indeed, non-democratic – political systems. A brief explanation must suffice. The focus here is on democratic political systems and their respective representative institutions and processes, as these are most relevant to our local context.

The underlying reasons for policy failure

17. Fundamentally, climate change constitutes a global collective action problem: humanity has an indisputable, collective, long-term interest in rapid decarbonization; but most countries have incentives to free ride, procrastinate and contribute little to global efforts. The reason is simple: most mitigation measures, whether demand-side or supply-side in nature, impose short-to-medium term costs on citizens, such as higher fuel prices. Alternatively, they entail additional near-term fiscal costs. Geopolitics, misaligned incentives, deep uncertainty, American exceptionalism, and weak global enforcement mechanisms all compound the mitigation challenge. Yet sensible investments in mitigation not only generate a range of important co-benefits (e.g. better health), but they also reduce the long-term societal and ecological costs of climate change adaptation. Unfortunately, for a variety of reasons (see below) the short-term costs of mitigation are politically more salient than the wider and long-term benefits.

18. Moreover, notwithstanding major technological advances over the past decade that have dramatically lowered decarbonization costs, thereby transforming the payoff structure of the policy problem, mitigation efforts remain painfully slow, globally and locally.

19. The reasons for this slow progress reflect the unprecedented nature of climate change as a domestic policy problem (Hale, 2024). Uniquely, it embodies the defining features of multiple policy problems all of which reduce, if not severely constrain, the likelihood of effective decision-making by elected officials and representative institutions in contemporary democracies. For instance, climate change has the core features of:

a. a creeping problem

b. a long problem

c. an intergenerational problem

d. a super-wicked problem

e. a political economy problem and

f. a highly contested problem

Additionally, climate change is characterized by huge path dependencies and long policy lags. Policy problems with such features all generate or exacerbate politically-salient asymmetries that discourage anticipatory, precautionary, proactive and effective governmental interventions. In the case of climate change, the policy problem is compounded by the fact that it is not merely a creeping problem or a long problem, but it embodies multiple problem types simultaneously.

20. Creeping problems, as the name suggests, emerge slowly, gradually, and often imperceptibly.^[8] For most citizens, the impacts remain largely out of sight and out of mind, perhaps for decades. Unlike pandemics and massive earthquakes, creeping problems lack dramatic, incontrovertible warning signals and politically-salient focusing events during their early stages sufficient to prompt urgent governmental responses. Instead, by the time the seriousness of the problem becomes undeniable, critical tipping points may have been crossed, with unavoidable and often irreversible damage.

21. Long problems, as commonly defined, are not only enduring and persistent; they also exhibit a significant temporal gap between their causes and their full effects. As with creeping problems, therefore, the political incentives for early intervention are weak (Hale, 2024).

22. Intergenerational problems, like long problems, are marked by an uneven distribution of costs and benefits across multiple generations and unavoidable inter-temporal trade-offs. Regarding climate change, the main costs fall on the young and future generations. But such people lack voting rights. Hence, they depend on the goodwill and foresight of current voters to protect their interests. Yet voters are often myopic, ill-informed, and narrowly self-interested or unduly influenced by echo chambers, selective moral disengagement, attention deficits, and multiple cognitive biases. These include confirmation bias, optimism bias and status quo bias, along with the undervaluing of unfamiliar risks and cumulative, long-term threats.

23. Superwicked policy problems exhibit all the features of wicked problems, namely contested problem definitions, a lack of politically convenient or technically feasible solutions, and the fact that every intervention prompts new problems.^[9] But they also embrace three additional features: time is running out; there is no governance mechanism to direct, coordinate and enforce effective responses; are those disproportionately contributing to the problem have the least incentive to tackle it. Climate change exhibits all these features.

24. Underpinning the climate-relate political-economy problem are interest group asymmetries that are highly salient politically.^[10] In brief, the contestants in the fight for decarbonization are unevenly matched: politically powerful, well-resourced opponents of decarbonization, notably the world’s major fossil fuel companies, are ranged against dispersed, poorly resourced advocates, notably environmental groups and scientists. Worse, many countries pivotal for speedy decarbonization possess large fossil-fuel sectors – for instance, Australia, Canada, China, Russia, the US and Saudi Arabia. This gross political imbalance has profoundly shaped both the domestic politics and geopolitics of decarbonization since the 1990s. In Aotearoa, the disproportionate political influence of the dairy industry has profoundly shaped domestic policy responses to climate change since the 1990s.

25. For all such reasons, it is hardly surprising that Professor Garnaut concluded in 2008 that climate change constitutes a ‘diabolical policy problem’. Unsurprisingly, therefore, it has tested and generally exceeded the capacities, competences and resolve of democratic governments all over the world. Equally, it has exposed the deep, enduring flaws in Earth system governance.

Prospects

26. It might be argued that future democratically-elected governments will be more successful than their predecessors in mitigating climate change. But this contention is open to serious doubt. To be sure, the rapid advances in renewable energy technologies will almost certainly contribute to a faster pace of decarbonisation over the next few decades. But the mitigation challenges are destined to become harder as the century progresses, not easier. In particular, given the expected overshooting of the Paris temperature guardrails, it will be necessary globally to undertake a long process of managed temperature decline later this century. This will require not only achieving net-zero global GHG emissions by mid-century, but also securing sustained net-negative global GHG emissions during the second half of the century and almost certainly well beyond. The best available evidence currently suggests that this task will pose formidable technical, fiscal, political and geopolitical challenges.^[11] For one thing, it will raise difficult issues globally, including: the nature of the long-term temperature goal that should be set for the planet; how quickly this goal should be achieved; and how the substantial long-term burden of adjustment should be shared globally and over time. For another, it poses equally profound domestic issues, including how to share the inevitable costs of achieving net-negative GHG emissions fairly across the community and how to sustain the effort, potentially for generations.

27. To make matters worse, all these issues will need to be dealt with in a context where climate change is imposing ever greater and more costly economic, social and ecological impacts (see Theokritoff, et al., 2026). In all likelihood, therefore, democratically-elected governments will struggle with such matters as least as much as they have struggled with the task of peaking and then reducing domestic GHG emissions. Accordingly, there can be little confidence that the executive and legislative branches of government will cope better in the future with the task of mitigating climate change than they have coped in the past.

Assumption 2: the courts lack the competence to address climate change-related issues

28. As noted earlier, Hon Paul Goldsmith, the Minister of Justice, maintains that tort law claims such as those of Mike Smith’s are ‘not well-suited to respond to a problem like climate change which involves a range of complex environmental, economic and social factors’. In other words, it is contended that the courts lack the competence to deal with the challenge of climate change mitigation. This assumption, however, is open to serious question.

29. To be sure, the Minister can find support for his view in the decision of the Court of Appeal in Smith v Fonterra in 2022 which considered that ‘climate change simply cannot be appropriately or adequately address by common law tort claims’. This is because it is ‘quintessentially a matter that calls for a sophisticated regulatory response at a national level supported by international coordination’ (quote in SC 149/2021 [2024], para 154). But contrary views were advanced by the Supreme Court in 2024:

a. While climate change arising from GHG emissions is plainly ‘different in scale’ from other negative environmental externalities, whether such emissions are lawful depends on ‘whether the harm they cause to others is capable of assessment and attribution’ (para 155).

b. Similarly, while ‘the common law has not previously grappled with a crisis as all-embracing as climate change’, it has previously ‘had to deal with another existential crisis, albeit one of a lesser scale, when the industrial revolution dramatically enlarged the risk of accidents through the mechanisation of factors, transportation and mining’ (para 156). Likewise, the common law has ‘had to deal with new, widespread risk and damage caused by air and water pollution and the escape of biohazards’ (para 157).

c. The ‘complexities’ raised by climate change are ‘comparable’ to various other issues to which the common law has responded, ‘albeit at a quantum leap scale enlargement’ (para 157). Likewise, ‘The principles governing public nuisance ought not to stand still in the face of massive environmental challenges attributable to human economic activity. The common law, where it is not clearly excluded, responds to challenge and change in a considered way, through trials involving the testing of evidence’ (para 172).

d. There is no question that the case of Smith v Fonterra raises fundamental issues, notably of causation, substantiality, unreasonableness and the nature of any appropriate remedies (para 170); but: ‘How the law of torts should respond to cumulative causation in a public nuisance case involving newer technologies and newer harms (GHGs, rather than sewage and other water pollution) is a matter that should not be answered pre-emptively … (para 166). Nor should courts ‘dismiss the power of purely declaratory relief in private law (para 171).

30. There is another objection to the courts having a role in regulating climate change-related harm, namely the risk of creating unnecessary and costly regulatory inconsistencies and complexities. In particular, it is argued that if the common law were to intervene in controlling GHG emissions it would establish ‘a parallel and inconsistent regulatory regime’ (para 45). Against this, as the Supreme Court pointed out in 2024, there is ‘no basis to conclude that Parliament has displaced the law of torts in the realm of climate change in New Zealand. Rather, it has left a pathway open for the common law to operate, develop and evolve (if that is thought to be required in this case) amid a statutory landscape that does not displace the common law by the interposition of permits, immunities, policies, rules and resource consents’ (para 101).

31. In short, it may well be the case that the courts will struggle, as have legislators, with the complexities, scale and scope of climate change-related issues. No doubt, some of their judgements will be open to serious question. But there are good reasons for enabling the courts to develop and apply centuries-old principles – such as those relating to nuisance and negligence – to the current challenges of climate change. Further, to the extent that any court decisions are found to be seriously wanting, appeal provisions will be available. Additionally, legislators will retain the right to intervene and address any remaining issues through legislation.

32. Overall, therefore, rather than excluding any possibility of tort liability for climate change-related damage caused by GHG emissions, there are good reasons to believe that the courts have a vital role to play in the area of climate change mitigation, as they have in previous cases where human activities have caused various kinds of public and private harm. Governments should have confidence in the competence of judges to make wise decisions in the interests of justice and to protect the public interest. They should not assume the opposite.

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References

Bookman, S. (2026) ‘Climate litigants should be allowed their day in court’, Commentary, LSE Global School of Sustainability, Grantham Climate Change Research Institute, London, 19 May https://www.lse.ac.uk/granthaminstitute/news/climate-litigants-should-be-allowed-their-day-in-court/

Boston, J. (2026) Insuring the Future: Reimagining Home Insurance in Aotearoa, Wellington, Te Herenga Waka University Press.

Hale, T. (2024) Climate Change and the Challenge of Governing Across Time, Princeton, Princeton University Press.

Ministry of Justice (2026) Regulatory Impact Statement: Targeted reform of emissions-related torts, Ministry of Justice, Wellington, 21 April https://www.justice.govt.nz/assets/Documents/Publications/Regulatory-Impact-Statement-Targeted-reform-of-emissions-related-tort.pdf

Setzer, J. and C. Higham (2026) Global Trends in Climate Mitigation: 2026 Snapshot, Grantham Climate Change Research Institute, LSE, London, https://www.lse.ac.uk/granthaminstitute/publication/global-trends-in-climate-change-litigation-2026-snapshot/

Theokritoff, E. et al. (2026) ‘Climate overshoot implications for local adaptation planning’, Climate Policy, 26:2, 344-351, DOI: 10.1080/14693062.2025.2502111

^[1] See, for instance: https://www.unep.org/resources/emissions-gap-report-2025; and https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg3/

^[2] See: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2007/nov/29/climatechange.carbonemissions

^[3] See: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/227389894_The_Garnaut_Climate_Change_Review

^[4] See, for instance: https://www.unep.org/resources/emissions-gap-report-2025; and https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg3/

^[5] See: https://unfccc.int/sites/default/files/resource/Volume%201%20-%20GHG%20inventory%202026.pdf

^[6] See: https://www.carbonindependent.org/31.html

^[7] See:

https://global-tipping-points.org/

^[8] Such problems are also called ‘slow problems’ and ‘slow burner problems’. See: file:///C:/Users/jonat/Downloads/tomsla,+Journal+manager,+pq12-3-boston.pdf

^[9] See: https://scholarship.law.georgetown.edu/facpub/159/

^[10]See:https://www.researchgate.net/publication/227429000_Climate_change_Explaining_and_solving_the_mismatch_between_scientific_urgency_and_political_inertia

^[11] See: https://www.annualreviews.org/content/journals/10.1146/annurev-environ-111523-102029; https://www.swp-berlin.org/en/publication/overshoot-returning-to-15c-requires-net-negative-emissions-targets

These conservation maps sparked nationwide concern by showing that up to 60% of public conservation land could be technically eligible for sale or exchange. The Government has since said those disposal provisions will be removed - although NZ First may yet seek to reinstate and strengthen those provisions through coalition negotiations after the election.

But Forest & Bird’s Nicky Snoyink warns that every coloured area on those maps — effectively all public conservation land — remains exposed to a key major change through the Bill: a new requirement for the Department of Conservation to enable the economic use and development of public conservation land “to the greatest extent practicable”.

In this episode, Nicky returns to Coherent to explain how that wording could overturn the existing hierarchy in conservation law, in which economic use is permitted only where it is consistent with conservation.

We then take a tour through Forest & Bird’s maps, from Northland’s remaining kauri forests and the Coromandel, through the North Island’s “green spine”, across the top of the South and into Canterbury, the West Coast, Otago, Fiordland, the Chatham Islands and the Sub-Antarctic Islands.

Along the way, we look at what increased commercial pressure could mean in practice: mining, hydro schemes, roads, tourism developments, expanded grazing, trophy hunting, ski-field expansion and development within national parks.

We also discuss the years of public investment, legal protection and community conservation work that have gone into many of these places - and why opening them to greater commercial exploitation would represent a profound change in what public conservation land is for.

Nicky encourages to submit to the select committee about their special places - why they are important to them, and how they want to see them protected and enhanced.

This episode was recorded shortly before submissions on the Conservation Amendment Bill close - submissions close at midday on Monday 13th July .

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Changes to section 4 affect Treaty settlements

I have written previously about the implications of the Conservation Amendment Bill for section 4 of the Conservation Act in Part 1 of this pair of articles.

Section 4 is one of the strongest Treaty principles clauses in legislation, and requires those interpreting and administering the Act, and the other conservation enactments specified in Schedule 1, to give effect to the Treaty principles. That is a high threshold to meet, and as my previous analysis shows, the addition of section 4A through the Bill would reduce this legal obligation for policy, plans, concessions and land disposals to merely inviting comments and considering those comments, or consulting.

Changing the meaning of section 4 in these key areas also impacts on Treaty settlements, because many settlements reference section 4 directly. Thus, the meaning of Treaty settlements would be changed unilaterally by narrowing what is required to meet section 4 requirements in certain circumstances.

At the time of negotiation, the government required that settlements were not to include provisions if they were already in existing laws. Therefore, amending the Conservation Act upends the legal landscape as it was at the time of settlement – and removes significant protections for iwi rights and interests that were justifiably assumed to be continuing.

700 Treaty settlement commitments affected by conservation reforms

The conservation reforms agreed by Cabinet in June 2025 interacted with about 700 Treaty settlement commitments in the conservation portfolio. Cabinet paper talking points for the Minister of Conservation, Tama Potaka, from 22 September 2025 outlined that about 90% of those commitments can be upheld in the new system with relatively minor consequential changes, and Cabinet approval was sought for those changes which would then be included in the Bill at introduction. The paper noted that, “PSGEs will have views on whether these arrangements are sufficient. I expect further fine-tuning through select committee if needed.”

A preliminary timeline for engagement with Post Settlement Governance Entities (PSGEs) on Treaty settlements showed letters to be sent to PSGEs in March and April 2025, with engagement from April to July, escalation meetings in August and September, and final policy decisions by Cabinet in September. It was expected that the Bill would be introduced in November of the same year.

This timeline was subsequently revised, with PSGEs expected to receive formal proposals prior to Christmas 2025, at a similar time to the Bill being introduced, with formal engagement with PSGEs ongoing throughout the select committee process, and the Bill having its third reading in July 2026.

The complex issues remaining at that point were described as approximately 30 settlements having statutory planning roles; the status of environmental plans, vision, strategies and legal weightings (such as Waikato River and Taranaki Maunga); the intent of the Ngāi Tahu membership on the NZCA being undercut by the changing role of the NZCA; and 13 settlements which provided for Conservation Board membership, again with the intent of redress being undercut by the changing role of Conservation Boards. Possible solutions were identified but redacted in the released documents.

Advice to the Minister in August 2025 noted that to avoid undermining Treaty settlements and the Māori-Crown relationship more broadly, amendments to the conservation system will uphold Treaty settlements.

Much of the content on this has been redacted, however it did note that, “obtaining individual and locally bespoke agreements could undermine your intent for a nationally consistent approach to management planning.”

It noted that engagement with a range of PSGEs had occurred across 2025 to discuss, in good faith, what equivalence or carve outs of redress look like in the context of regulatory reform, rather than to seek agreement.

Officials’ risk assessment was that there were high risks to Crown-Māori relations, durability of Treaty settlements and timeframes for the Conservation Act Amendment Bill.

They recommended that, “the Crown writes to post-settlement governance entities, and groups in negotiations, outlining your intention to proceed with reform, whilst upholding Treaty settlement redress preferably (but not necessarily) with agreement, on what timeframes, Cabinet’s decisions on standard and complex redress, and outlining the process should agreement not be possible before enactment.”

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On 29 September 2025, Cabinet agreed to carry over to the new system co-approval and/or co-development roles for PSGEs directly provided through Treaty settlements in relation to statutory planning documents; and the substantive effect of legal weightings provided through settlement redress. It was also decided to include temporary arrangements preserving redress commitments to enable further engagement on about 45 more complex commitments prior to enactment.

Advice to the Minister on 17 October 2025, which accompanied letters for his approval to send to PSGEs, noted that various PSGEs, iwi and hapū had “raised concern about potential impacts of reform on their Treaty settlement commitments and the level of engagement thus far.”

The letter encouraged engagement, through the select committee process and alongside it, however, it also stated, “It is important to me to understand your views on how best to uphold Treaty settlement redress, and for us to seek agreement where possible.”

At this point it had become clear in the documents that the Government intended to proceed with the reforms on its own time-frame, regardless of whether agreement was reached on how to uphold Treaty settlement legislation.

The Government intended to introduce the Bill in December 2025, and pass it prior to the election. It was delayed, which the documents released suggest was due to the change to the purpose of the Conservation Act to enable economic development “to the greatest extent practicable” being added in late in the piece, rather than because of iwi engagement. That cabinet paper noted that the scale of drafting required would mean it cannot be delivered during the current parliamentary term.

Iwi engagement becomes litigation

The delay did, however, allow further discussions with iwi. From the outside this appears to have not gone so well, as Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu announced court action to protect its Treaty settlement in November 2025.

The Crown sought a stay arguing that it infringed parliamentary sovereignty and the Parliamentary Privilege Act, as the Bill was already being prepared for Parliament. The court put the proceedings on hold, with the effects on the Ngāi Tahu Treaty settlement to be scrutinised after enactment. The Conservation Amendment Bill was subsequently introduced in May 2026.

Former Attorney General, Chris Finlayson, spoke last week on a panel at the EDS conference about whether current law-making practices are putting the constitution at risk. He used the Ngāi Tahu court action on the conservation reforms as an example, saying, “I find in many areas that the executive is increasingly purporting to act on behalf of Parliament… a good example of that is weaponising parliamentary privilege”.

He went on to say that he “chaired the privileges committee that looked at that issue many years ago, and it was never intended that parliamentary privilege be appropriated by the Crown to prevent the courts looking at the proposed reforms in that way.”

Rights of first refusal to land disposals

An aspect of the Conservation Amendment Bill which has attracted most attention is the sale and exchange provisions, which would have technically enabled up to 60% of public conservation land to be disposed of – subject to much weaker tests than current disposals, but with caveats on land which is subject to Treaty claims. This may have been unexpected to many, as transfer of conservation land was generally off the table during settlement negotiations.

When asked by Radio New Zealand whether iwi will get first right of refusal on any conservation land the government plans to sell, Potaka said that is already locked in. However, his answer referred to the commitments in Treaty settlements that will be upheld – he did not say that the Bill would extend and strengthen that right for all iwi.

A close read of the Bill shows that there does not appear to be a clause creating any new first right of refusal for iwi. Under the Bill land exchanges and disposals could not be authorised if they would trigger a right of first refusal or a right of offer or return, unless the holder of the right has agreed in writing.

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Whether this applies in any given situation depends on the finer wording of the Treaty settlements in question. Some right of first refusal clauses are broad, potentially covering all conservation land. Others pertain only to specific sites. Some are only triggered by sales. Others may also be triggered by exchanges. Some iwi may not have right of first refusal clauses pertaining to conservation land in their settlements at all.

Following significant public backlash, the government has now agreed that the exchange and disposal provisions will be removed from the Bill, and earlier this week Minister Potaka wrote to the select committee to convey that.

Despite this, Shane Jones, Deputy Leader of NZ First made it clear on a panel at the EDS conference last week that he wishes to dispose of significant areas of conservation land, and would push that even more strongly in any coalition negotiations after the upcoming election. Given that the Bill will now not be passed until after the election, it remains to be seen whether those clauses could be reinserted in a few months’ time.

A process and a Bill which breach Treaty commitments?

Although the Government had expressed its commitment to upholding the intent of Treaty settlement commitments, the released documents show that in practice it pursued a rushed process that arguably breached the Treaty principles and pushed on without reaching agreement. Furthermore, the Conservation Amendment Bill was introduced before mutual agreement had been reached on how to uphold Treaty settlements in the new law.

The process is like to breach the Treaty principles, in addition to the outcome impacting the terms of Treaty settlements without the agreement of the other party to those binding agreements which are enshrined in legislation. Iwi, of course, are the party which received those settlements in recognition of past injustices and to set the foundations for a new relationship for the future.

Officials warned the Minister of this in their papers, suggesting that, “You could seek to pause the introduction of the bill by 18 to 24 months to provide more time for good faith engagement and testing of proposals to enable PSGEs and the Crown to be better informed in their decision-making”. This wording is an implicit warning to the Crown that their process could be in breach of the Treaty principles, which include good faith and informed decision making, and therefore subject to judicial review or a Waitangi Tribunal claim.

By pushing through with legislation prior to reaching agreement, Treaty settlement arrangements are up in the air, litigation is suspended in court, and trust in the Crown significantly damaged.

Rhianna Morar, Associate of Kāhui Legal, spoke on the same panel at the EDS conference:

Also on that panel, Paranihia Walker, Special Counsel at Kāhui Legal, spoke further on the conservation reforms. She said, “There is going to be an impact on Treaty settlements, and a lot of that discussion is being parked to be had after the enactment of the legislation, and that’s just simply not okay. It’s a breach of settlements.”

She noted that each settlement is a compact with the particular iwi, a recommitment to the Treaty relationship as it was expressed in te Tiriti o Waitangi, and often negotiated over decades.

Paranihia described how Treaty settlements are usually supported by all members of the House when they are enacted because of their significance to our nation and future, however “things are playing out at the moment which will undermine those arrangements, and they’re perfectly happy to move ahead without the… agreement of the Treaty partner.”

A process and a Bill which breach Treaty commitments?

Although the Government had expressed its commitment to upholding the intent of Treaty commitments, the released documents show that in practice it pursued a rushed process that arguably breached the Treaty principles and pushed on without reaching agreement. Furthermore, the Conservation Amendment Bill was introduced before mutual agreement had been reached on how to uphold Treaty settlements in the new law.

The Government’s determination to push ahead regardless of whether iwi had agreed to change the terms of their Treaty settlements is hard to reconcile with the purpose of settlements: to reset the Crown-iwi relationship on the basis of te Tiriti o Waitangi and/or the Treaty principles. The process is likely to also breach the Treaty principles, and the obligations Section 4 and Treaty settlements place on the Crown for this process.

Officials warned the Minister of this in their papers, suggesting that, “You could seek to pause the introduction of the bill by 18 to 24 months to provide more time for good faith engagement and testing of proposals to enable PSGEs and the Crown to be better informed in their decision-making”. This wording is an implicit warning to the Crown that their process could be in breach of the Treaty principles, which include good faith and informed decision making, and therefore subject to judicial review or a Waitangi Tribunal claim.

By pushing through with legislation prior to reaching agreement, Treaty settlement arrangements are up in the air, litigation is suspended in court, and trust in the Crown significantly damaged.

Rhianna Morar, Associate of Kāhui Legal, spoke on the same panel at the EDS conference: “We’re not talking about an absence of good faith anymore. We’re actually talking about calculated, intentional breaches and intentional disregard for the Treaty. And that is really problematic because the Treaty is enduring”.

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Also on that panel, Paranihia Walker, Special Counsel at Kāhui Legal, spoke further on the conservation reforms. She said, “There is going to be an impact on Treaty settlements, and a lot of that discussion is being parked to be had after the enactment of the legislation, and that’s just simply not okay. It’s a breach of settlements.”

She noted that each settlement is a compact with the particular iwi, a recommitment to the Treaty relationship as it was expressed in te Tiriti o Waitangi, and often negotiated over decades.

“For something as fundamental as Treaty settlements, which represent a renewed commitment to our founding document, that’s just not okay.”

Paranihia described how Treaty settlements are usually supported by all members of the House when they are enacted because of their significance to our nation and future, however “things are playing out at the moment which will undermine those arrangements, and they’re perfectly happy to move ahead without the… agreement of the Treaty partner.”

A promise to collaborate, a threat to double down

The Minister announced at the EDS conference that he would work with Forest & Bird and EDS to explore suitable wording for what has since been coined the “Shane Jones clauses”. These clauses, as currently written, would require DOC to enable economic development on all public conservation land “to the greatest extent practicable”.

This was a somewhat surprising move, given that engagement with iwi had not resolved issues, and in at least one situation has resulted in court action. On Tuesday Potaka updated this announcement, and posted on Facebook that he had “asked the Committee to work with conservation groups, iwi and others to make sure we get these changes right”.

Whether this creates a genuine opportunity to pause the Bill and reach agreement with iwi remains to be seen. Government documents suggested 18–24 months would be needed for good faith engagement and informed decision-making. The select committee report is currently due on 12 November 2026.

The delay of the Conservation Amendment Bill being introduced to Parliament for its first reading means that it will not be passed before the election. It will therefore be the next Government that is the key decision-maker about whether to pass it, and in what form.

Shane Jones made clear to the EDS conference that NZ First will campaign on the economic development of public conservation lands and opening them up to industry. He said:

This could mean that NZ First doubles down through coalition negotiations leading to the retention of the economic development provisions as written, and the return of the sale and exchange provisions, potentially with even more permissive settings than those in the current Bill.

The Conservation Amendment Bill is shaping up to be a significant election issue, and one that is likely to unite most New Zealanders regardless of their political leanings.

UPDATE: Submissions deadline extended - submissions to the select committee close at midday on 13 July 2026.

Make a koha

Any koha or donations are most gratefully received. Trawling through hundreds or thousands of released government documents takes days! And rigorous analysis takes even more time. If you are able to contribute to supporting this work, it makes more of it possible. Ka nui te mihi!

Stepping back in time, the land we now know as the conservation estate – approximately one third of the land area of Aotearoa New Zealand – was Māori land. In a short space of time land shifted from Māori control to Crown ownership, largely through unjust means. Māori were excluded from decision making, and from traditional use of the land and its resources.

Importance of section 4

When the Conservation Act 1987 was passed, it was based on the inheritance of Western conservation values brought here from the European and American traditions of preservation and protection. Neither the definition of conservation nor the purpose of the Act explicitly includes our indigenous conservation values.

Section 4 of the Act was critical to starting to redress the balance from the legacy of colonisation and displacement from what had become the conservation estate. It is a doorway for tangata whenua to influence what happens on their ancestral lands and to reconnect with those places.

As the Waitangi Tribunal described in the Wai 262 report:

Section 4 requires the Act to be interpreted and administered to give effect to the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi. It applies not only to the entire Conservation Act, including its purpose framework, but also to the long list of other laws on Schedule 4.

This essentially means that conservation legislation must be read through the lens of the Treaty principles, and all activities on conservation land need to put them into practice. It is not optional – that has been confirmed by the Supreme Court. In theory, this adds a layer of recognition of Māori values, facilitating participation, and to some degree, shared decision-making across the conservation estate. Treaty settlements also codify numerous arrangements with iwi, but were intended to complement, not replace, the global application of section 4.

In addition to providing the opportunity for tangata whenua to reclaim and maintain a relationship with places and exercise their kaitiaki responsibilities, section 4 also enables them to gain some modern-day sustenance from the lands and waters that were the foundation of the Māori economy prior to colonisation. While much of the country is now out of reach in private ownership, conservation lands are seen by some iwi as places to grow local businesses and support their people through opportunities in their special places.

Furthermore, section 4 also offers the opportunity for true nation-building – bringing together our respective cultural legacies of values and relationships to place and finding creative ways to weave them together – so we can all have ongoing meaningful relationships with our most special places.

Evolution of understanding of section 4

Historically, these obligations have not been well understood or followed by the Crown, resulting in significant court cases and the well-known Wai 262 inquiry by the Waitangi Tribunal on native flora and fauna. Early on, the Whales case determined that the application of section 4 required giving a reasonable degree of preference for Ngāi Tahu for a business permit.

The meanings of the Treaty principles have been defined by the Courts and the Waitangi Tribunal for around half a century. They include the principles of partnership, good faith, active protection, informed decision-making, mutual benefit, options, development and redress.

In 2011 the Waitangi Tribunal published a set of books with its findings in the Wai 262 inquiry, Ko Aotearoa Tēnei. This report opened a window to the nation to understand the supreme importance of the conservation estate to Māori, and offered a framework which could ensure that tangata whenua relationships with their ancestral places and species were restored and empowered, alongside the ongoing role of the Crown and all New Zealanders.

Wai 262 has yet to be formally responded to by the Crown, and although some progress has since been made on inclusion of iwi and their values, the partnerships it envisaged have not yet come to pass.

Ngāi Tai ki Tāmaki and the meaning of section 4

Leaping forward, another milestone court judgment on section 4 was issued by the Supreme Court in the Ngāi Tai ki Tāmaki case (Ngāi Tai) in 2018. The Supreme Court found that section 4 is a powerful Treaty clause that requires more than just procedural steps – substantive outcomes for iwi may be necessary. It requires consideration of whether there should be a preference in favour of iwi in the concession process, and the potential for iwi to receive an economic benefit from the concessions. DOC must also consider whether section 4 requires that no concessions be granted in the circumstances.

It also stated that section 4, and hence the Treaty principles, should not be trumped by other considerations or be part of a general “balancing” exercise.

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As the analysis produced in June 2025 to inform final Cabinet decisions on the Conservation Amendment Bill explained, “The Supreme Court stated in Ngāi Tai ki Tāmaki that section 4 is not to be balanced with other considerations. Instead, what is required is a process under which the meeting of other statutory or non-statutory objectives is achieved, to the extent that this can be done consistently with section 4, in a way that best gives effect to the relevant Treaty principles.”

This does not automatically mean that iwi views always have priority – it instead means that they are not an optional add-on, and that conservation management decisions must be consistent with the Treaty principles. What this means in any given situation is dependent on the context, the relevant Treaty principles and other statutory considerations.

The Supreme Court also found in the Ngāi Tai case that DOC’s general policies were in breach of their own legislation, by stating that where legislation and the Treaty principles conflict, the legislation prevails.

In response to this ruling an external reference group, the Options Development Group (ODG), was established to provide recommendations on how to meet the law’s requirements in interpreting and applying the Treaty principles through the general policies. The ODG engaged extensively, working through pragmatic and practical solutions which would implement the law through rewriting DOC’s general policies which would then flow down to planning and day-to-day decision-making.

In March 2022, the ODG highlighted the importance of the active protection principle in conservation “particularly when DOC is granting concessions, and the need to take the interests (including the economic interest) of tangata whenua into account.”

A memo to the current Minister about “clarifying section 4 in conservation processes” in April 2025 notes that, “the Group’s report was not taken to Cabinet and there has been no Government response. That process has been, in essence, overtaken by later events.”

“Later events” appears to refer to the government’s decision to amend the Conservation Act. By choosing to rewrite the law, they would avoid having to do what the Supreme Court ordered – and changing the law is the only way to achieve that without significant legal proceedings. It appears to mirror the approach taken by the coalition Government in response to the court’s findings on the Marine & Coastal Area (Takutai Moana) Act. The Government’s decision to amend the Act effectively overtook the policy work that had been intended to implement Ngāi Tai.

Ngāi Tai impact on rewriting the law

The implications of the Ngāi Tai decision appear to have been a key driver for the changes to section 4 being progressed through the Conservation Amendment Bill. Cabinet materials early on in the policy development refer to the Ngāi Tai ruling, and note that the government not having a clear policy decision on how it is to be implemented, “including when ‘preference’ for Treaty partners would be appropriate for concessions on economic or other grounds… means there is ongoing ambiguity about how to give effect to Treaty principles and a range of divergent views and competing interests in different situations.”

“This pervades statutory processes and decision-making and creates ongoing tension in areas where Treaty partners consider the current law or policy settings do not provide for their interests to be actively protected. Because section 4 is part of the legislative framework, different views about its application mean that there is a high risk of legal challenge in many such processes.”

They stated that some of the delays in processing concessions and reviewing plans can be attributed to ambiguities about how to give effect to the Treaty principles as required by section 4.

A cabinet paper from the Minister in November 2024 presented the reforms as a way to remove ambiguity from the current system, by setting out more clearly how Treaty rights and interests are to be considered in conservation planning and concessions. That includes clarifying engagement with iwi and hapū, and providing for the active protection of taonga, in a form “clearly endorsed by Parliament”.

It went on to say, “It is possible that many Iwi/Hapū will view the proposals as diminishing the requirements on the Crown. The proposals reflect the existing requirement for reasonable engagement but may not aspire to the level of involvement many Iwi/Hapū aspire to. There is some expectation of this as it has been provided for in some of the more contemporary Treaty settlements. It is also highly likely that efforts to add statutory requirements to account for Iwi/Hapū rights and interests in the competitive allocation of concessions will be met with suspicion and opposition. Iwi/Hapū may view the criteria as insufficient protection of their access to taonga and wāhi tapu on PCL, and their economic interests in development.”

But the premise of “clarification” is contestable. Ngāi Tai did not leave section 4 meaningless or unknowable. It made clear that DOC had unlawfully narrowed it, and that section 4 needed to be applied more fully across conservation decision-making.

Conservation removed from Treaty clause review due to its significance

In July last year, the Conservation Act and the Crown Minerals Act were excluded from the Government’s review of Treaty clauses in legislation. This was apparently to separate them out due to their significance, and the risk of litigation.

Newsroom reported that Minister Goldsmith said DOC advised that a proper good-faith engagement and policy process for reviewing conservation legislation would take at least two years, because of the breadth of the law and Māori relationships with public conservation land.

He also warned there would be a high litigation risk if the process was rushed or seen as prejudicing Māori rights, interests, or Treaty settlements, as the Conservation Act is closely tied to more than 70 Treaty settlement statutes, and section 4 is specifically referenced in several settlements. Removing or amending it could therefore be seen by settled iwi and hapū as undermining their redress.

However, in reality, the Government has pushed ahead with the Conservation Amendment Bill over a similar timeframe to the Treaty clause review, and introduced the Conservation Amendment Bill prior to the separate Bill which would reduce other Treaty principles clauses to “take into account”. Furthermore, the Conservation Amendment Bill appears to be reducing section 4 to have even less legal weight than the other Treaty clauses subject to the review.

Conservation Amendment Bill narrows section 4

Although the Government is claiming that section 4 will remain, and ostensibly it does, the Conservation Amendment Bill, if passed, would add section 4A to “clarify” how section 4 is required to be applied in certain areas. Although this addition only covers four matters, they happen to be where many of the most impactful decisions are made – policy (which translates broad legal purposes and duties into detailed directions), planning (which determines what can happen at place), concessions (permissions for commercial activities on public conservation land), and land disposals and exchanges.

The proposed section 4A provides a checklist of procedural steps that must be taken. The steps outlined range from inviting comments to consultation, and a low bar to meet of “considering” the comments received.

In fact, it is hard to detect any of the genuine meaning of section 4 in section 4A. There’s no “give effect”, simply a requirement to consider. There’s no requirement that the comments received influence the decision. And there’s no obvious Treaty principles in Section 4A. Partnership? No. Active protection of Māori values? No. Informed decision making? It could still happen, but it couldn’t be enforced. Good faith? Not really.

In codifying how the Treaty principles are to be applied, the actual Treaty principles have been lost. Section 4A appears to “clarify” the Treaty principles almost out of existence in relation to what happens on public conservation land, its economic development and commercial exploitation, and even whether conservation land remains in public ownership. It does this by defining in law that the section 4 obligations are met by merely inviting and considering comments from iwi.

This appears to narrow the Treaty principles so substantially that, for these key decisions, little of their current legal force would remain. In doing so, it removes any meaningful te Tiriti obligations from several of the most important decision points for the conservation estate. The requirement is certainly not “give effect to”, as section 4 makes explicit. It is a shadow of what was envisaged by Wai 262 and seems to be running in the opposite direction to the Supreme Court’s ruling in the Ngāi Tai case.

The procedural steps listed in the tabled section 4A on their own are inconsistent with the Treaty principles. If these processes were followed without being written into the law itself, they would be a potential breach of section 4. If the contents of section 4A were outlined in conservation general policy under the current law, the courts would likely find that they were in breach of section 4. This is exactly what happened in the Ngāi Tai case.

Removing brakes from economic development on conservation land

Documents which are now in the public domain give the impression that the Government’s focus in decisions on the Bill, was more on getting tangata whenua out of the way in processes in order to “unlock economic activity on public conservation land”, rather than enhancing their access to opportunities and decision making. This may have been partly due to lobbying, as one of the relevant Regulatory Impact Statements (RIS) notes that affected concessionaires have previously raised concerns about the interpretation of section 4.

Another paper notes: “Areas particularly impacted in recent years relate to concessions and management plans (as these are the core documents which determine what can happen where on conservation land, and therefore how Treaty partners and others both conserve and use it). These areas also need to be tackled to support the Government’s priority to fix concession processes and thereby unlock economic activity on conservation land.”

According to briefing papers to the Minister, Cabinet had initially agreed “to codify section 4 for management planning, concessions, and land exchanges and disposals.” Amenity areas, which have been described by ENGOs as commercial nodes, were not included originally. The advice notes that “the same risks exist for this as for the other processes – it is very likely to be seen as narrowing section 4. However, there is no reason to take a different approach to amenities areas than the other processes.”

Class concessions are also being introduced through the Bill. This will exempt approximately 40% of concessions from needing to go through an approvals process, or consultation. On the upside, this will significantly reduce the workload for iwi to provide feedback on individual applications. However, it will also reduce the ability of iwi to ensure active protection in areas of importance to them.

Officials warned that class concessions create a trade-off. If there is no way to exclude particular places from a class concession, the Government may either have to make the concessions much narrower, or risk enabling activities in places where they could cause unmanaged cultural or conservation harm.

They noted that setting a high threshold for excluding cultural sites from class concessions could be challenged under section 4 of the Conservation Act, because it may not adequately protect taonga, whenua, or Treaty rights and interests. But a lower threshold would make class concessions much less enabling, which would cut against the Government’s policy objective.

A pattern is apparent in officials’ advice of noting that the proposals “may be regarded as a narrowing of what section 4 requires”, but deferring to Cabinet’s decisions and advising that “clarifying the relationship with section 4 ensures the applicability of your proposed approach.”

Little analysis has been released about the actual feedback from iwi, real-world impacts, legal risks, or threat to relationships that these reforms pose. It is likely that at least some of that work was done, and it may form part of the significant redactions in the documents released.

The Shane Jones clauses and the real stakes of section 4A

To recap, the Ngāi Tai case outlined earlier was about commercial concessions. As outlined above, Ngāi Tai matters here because it was about concessions – and because it required DOC to consider substantive outcomes for iwi, including preference in some circumstances or opportunities to reconnect with ancestral lands.

The Government papers are also explicit that the Bill is intended to “clarify” that section 4 does not require preference to be given to iwi. In substance, that means the law is being changed because the Government does not like the meaning the Supreme Court has already given it.

Last week Shane Jones told the EDS conference that NZ First was responsible for inserting the last-minute changes to the purpose framework of the Conservation Act, which will require DOC to enable economic development on all public conservation land “to the greatest extent practicable”.

These “Shane Jones clauses” include section 6(ea), section 13D(2)(b), and section 13H(2)(b) of the Conservation Amendment Bill. Section 6(ea) changes DOC’s function to place enabling economic development front and centre, and similar wording is woven into the policy and planning parts of the Bill through the other clauses.

Had this not been done, Jones’ aspirations for commercial exploitation of public conservation land would have been limited by the overarching purpose of the Conservation Act – that is conservation, while fostering recreation and allowing tourism to the extent it is consistent with conservation. As the Bill is written, critics contend that the new aspect of DOC’s function could even be at the top of the hierarchy and not restrained by a requirement to be consistent with conservation.

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Under the Ngāi Tai ruling, the decision-maker would have been required to consider extending a degree of preference to iwi when enabling such economic development and look at the potential economic benefit of doing so. However, section 4A would remove that obligation under the Treaty principles.

Cabinet also decided in June 2025 to rule out competitive allocation of concessions on the basis of section 4. In briefing papers on 14^th August officials advised that they considered that decision to go “some of the way to addressing the concerns from existing concessionaires about contestability of major concessions.”

Conclusion

Iwi have been communicating these changes to their members and challenging through court action. Some ENGOs have recently spoken up in support of retaining and strengthening section 4. During an interview on my podcast Coherent Forest & Bird representative Nicky Snoyink said that in their view this Bill waters down that requirement and that obligation. “This is really concerning. The Treaty should be central to our conservation system and the government needs to ensure that it upholds its obligations as a Treaty partner. So we don’t want to see any weakening of the current provisions that are in there. In fact, we want to see them strengthened.”

However, awareness of the immensity of the proposed changes to section 4 through the Conservation Amendment Bill appears limited. This aspect of the Bill has not received much recognition or publicity, despite it being one of the most impactful changes which would sideline the influence of the Treaty principles in conservation and the protection te Tiriti provides for public conservation land, for all New Zealanders.

The Conservation Amendment Bill also has significant implications for Treaty settlements, and that will be detailed in the second part of this article, to be published soon.

UPDATE: Submissions deadline extended - submissions to the select committee close at midday on 13 July 2026..

Make a koha

After a huge public response, Conservation Minister Tama Potaka announced that the Government would remove the bill’s disposal and exchange provisions. In this episode, Forest & Bird regional conservation manager Nicky Snoyink explains why that is a significant win — but not the end of the story.

Nicky talks through Forest & Bird’s remaining concerns with the bill, including the proposed new economic development function now known as '“the Shane Jones clause”, the weakening of Section 4 Treaty obligations, the reduction of decision-making roles for the New Zealand Conservation Authority and conservation boards, and the risk of new amenity areas becoming commercial nodes inside public conservation land. She also breaks down how these changes would work in practice, what they could mean for different types of conservation land, and why they matter for the future of conservation law in Aotearoa.

This episode also includes a lot of practical, accessible information for anyone thinking about making a submission on the bill — including what to focus on, how to frame concerns, and why public input still matters at this stage of the process.

Her central message is clear: public pressure has already made a difference, but the bill still needs major changes if conservation is to remain at the heart of conservation law.

Watch the video above or listen to the audio here or on most podcast platforms:

Buy me a coffee!

FMC has described the Bill as possibly the biggest threat to conservation law and outdoor recreation in 40 years. Allan explains why: from the proposed new economic development function for DOC, to the much broader powers to sell or exchange conservation land, to the weakening of the New Zealand Conservation Authority and local conservation boards.

We talk about what can sound abstract in the law, but is very real on the ground: gravel pits, river margins, access strips, huts, tracks, backcountry valleys, ski field leases, tourism developments, and the ordinary ways people get into the hills. Allan also explains why even small areas of apparently low-value land can be critical for access to much larger landscapes.

The conversation also covers the Bill’s changes to Section 4 of the Conservation Act, the risks of concentrating more decision-making power in the Minister, and why Allan thinks the Government should stop, step back, and have a proper national conversation about what public conservation land is for.

At its heart, this is a conversation about land held for conservation, for public access, and as ancestral whenua — and whether decisions about that land should be made through a rushed law change, or through a much deeper democratic process.

Watch the video above or listen to the audio here:

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Minister of Conservation, Tama Potaka, has hit back at Forest & Bird maps showing that 60% of public conservation land could be eligible for sale or exchange under the coalition government’s Conservation Amendment Bill.

Potaka posted on Facebook on Monday morning saying, “National parks remain protected and wilderness areas remain protected. Around 40 percent of public conservation land will be completely ineligible for disposal.”

It’s a fairly simple maths equation that:

100% of public conservation land

- 40% of public conservation land ineligible for disposal

= 60% of public conservation land eligible for consideration for disposal (i.e. sale or exchange).

This is consistent with the government’s own consultation documents which state, “The most precious and high value conservation land - around 40% of conservation land - will not be eligible for the new settings for land exchange and sale. This includes wilderness areas, ecological areas, sanctuary areas, national parks, national reserves, nature reserves, scientific reserves, marine reserves, Ramsar sites.”

It is also consistent with the wording of the Conservation Amendment Bill – Schedule 5 lists the land categories that would be ineligible for exchange or disposal. This leaves a long list of land categories that would be eligible for exchange or disposal – totalling approximately 60% of public conservation land.

This appears to be confirmed by the Minister’s Facebook post, albeit he prefers to state it as 40% being ineligible for disposal, rather than 60% being potentially eligible for disposal. This seems to be more a case of wording than differing on the facts.

No plan for big sales, just a plan to make it easy

Minister Potaka was also interviewed on Radio NZ this Monday morning, following the release of new polling which showed that two thirds of New Zealand voters oppose the sale of conservation land, including the majority of National, ACT and NZ First voters.

During the interview Potaka criticised the Forest & Bird maps, which illustrate in red the 60% of conservation land that may be eligible for sale or exchange, if the Bill is passed. He stated, “The Bill doesn’t set up a plan or a programme to sell 60% of the conservation land, that’s just scaremongering and mischievous.”

He was answering a question that wasn’t being asked, and countering a statement that hadn’t been made. The maps did not claim that 60% of conservation land would be sold – the label and press releases are clear that 60% would be enabled for exchange or disposal.

The interviewer patiently attempted to clarify the situation. “But you are changing the rules so that you can sell it if you want to?” She asked if the maps are wrong, and Potaka responded, “What we’ve said in the Bill is that there’s a whole bunch of land that can never be disposed of – that includes national parks, and wilderness reserves and nature reserves. Then there’s other types of land that we should consider.”

Interviewer: “Is that map wrong?”

Potaka: “Well, I’m not, uh, in a position to say whether that map’s right or wrong, that’s what Forest & Bird have suggested.”

Interviewer: “But you’re the Minister of Conservation, you’re changing the rules so it’s easier and quicker to sell the land, and you don’t know what land is eligible?”

Potaka: “No we’re clarifying stringent tests around disposal of the land, and that’s slightly different to how it’s being imputed… the purpose of the Bill is not to sell conservation land.”

Interviewer: “I don’t know that they’re saying there is a plan, they’re saying the rules are changing.”

My summary: The government is not planning to sell 60% of public conservation land, just giving themselves (or future governments) permission to sell up to 60% of public conservation land more easily. That is, if it meets certain tests, and a prescribed process is followed.

The Minister described the test as being “clarified” by the Bill; however, many are arguing that what has been proposed is a very low threshold and a significant change. I will be publishing further articles and podcasts analysing these aspects of the Bill.

Change to purpose of Conservation Act

The interviewer then shifted to asking Potaka about the change to the purpose of the Conservation Act – to require the Department of Conservation to enable economic development on all conservation lands “to the greatest extent practicable”.

Potaka suggested she was starting to “mix up the kombucha with the coffee”, saying, “That particular provision sits within the overarching purpose of the Bill and the Conservation Act, which is conservation.”

Potaka then avoided addressing the interviewer’s questions around the extremely significant change in purpose to the Conservation Act he has tabled in Parliament through the same Bill, redirecting the conversation back to sales and disposals of conservation land – the very topic he had appeared to be avoiding addressing openly in the first part of the interview.

When directly asked if there is a greater emphasis on economic development required from DOC now, he appeared to evade the question, saying, “That is a completely different part of the Bill compared to what we’re talking about in the disposal and exchange.”

Could Tararua Forest Park be disposed of?

When asked whether his term “bits and bobs” was a good description of what could be sold or exchanged, the Minister responded, “We’re talking about small parcels, that’s what we’re talking about.”

Interviewer: “Could a recreation reserve like the Tararuas be privatised or sold? I’m just trying to ascertain the type of land that might be up for sale or privatised.”

Minister: “No-one’s talking about the Tararua Range.”

Interviewer: “But could it be?”

Minister: “No, no one’s talking about the Tararua Range, there’s no programme, there’s no plan.”

Interviewer: “No, but could it be under these rules?”

Minister: “No, no one’s talking about that.”

Again, that was an answer to a question that wasn’t asked. The question was not about whether the Government is talking about selling the Tararua Forest Park, or whether they have a plan or programme to do so.

The question was whether it would be eligible for sale or exchange under the proposed law – the correct answer was a simple yes. Anyone can go to Schedule 5 of the Conservation Amendment Bill and see that the land classification of Forest Park is not on the list of land ineligible for exchange or disposal.

On reading the Bill it is clear that Tararua Forest Park, and many other favourite local areas around the country, would not be ineligible for sale or exchange, therefore, they may be eligible for sale or exchange. That does not mean that they would be sold or exchanged. That is a different question. It simply means that they could be. This government, or any future government, could then apply the prescribed test and process to pursue that outcome. But that, it seems, is further than most New Zealanders are prepared to let the law go.

Mapping the “bits and bobs” intended for sale

The “bits and bobs” that the government has clearly identified they want to sell are:

• the Metservice building in Wellington

• the Levin boys borstal home which is laden with asbestos and squatters

• a section in between two houses in Reefton

• sections in Ohakune

• a West Coast gravel reserve outside of Inangahua

And to achieve the disposal of those “bits and bobs”, the coalition government is proposing to change the law to make 60% of public conservation land more easily able to be sold or exchanged – this despite there already being a mechanism in place to enable to disposal of public conservation land, where appropriate.

Here is a map of the land which under the Bill would be potentially eligible for sale or exchange, overlaid with the lands identified for disposal which are being used to justify the law change.

At this stage National has given no guarantee that conservation land beyond the “bits and bobs” will not be disposed of. And even if they read the room (or the polling) and shift their tone or make clearer statements, that will not change the fact that they are in a coalition government.

Does NZ First want to “sell baby sell”?

The Conservation Amendment Bill is a government bill, introduced to Parliament by all coalition parties. One of those parties, NZ First, has made no secret of its opposition to conservation.

On Friday, Newsroom quoted its deputy leader Shane Jones as saying that the conservation estate was too big. “I do accept that it’s heresy for some members of Parliament, but I just look at the state of our economy, and I think it’s time that we exploit part of that.”

Newsroom also outlined that Labour’s Rachel Brooking asked Potaka why he was changing broad rules about which public land could be swapped or developed, rather than specifically recording in legislation the “bits and bobs” he had identified, and sought reassurance that the development-first approach wouldn’t take hold across the conservation estate.

His answers failed to allay her concerns, and she said to Newsroom, “You have to read that with Shane Jones in mind, and what he wants to do on the conservation estate, which is, you know, ‘drill, baby, drill, mine, baby, mine’.”

One wonders then, if “sell, baby, sell” would enable more “drill, baby, drill”, whether NZ First would agree to water down those provisions of the Conservation Amendment Bill – even if National realises it may hurt them electorally. Or perhaps, especially if it hurts National electorally.

With submissions on the Conservation Amendment Bill open until 2^nd July, and the select committee not due to report back until after the election, there is plenty of water to go under the bridge. There is little chance that this issue will be able to be ignored in the interim, given the widespread concerns it has created across New Zealand.

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New polling shows New Zealanders oppose allowing the sale of public conservation land, as the Government pushes ahead with conservation law changes that could make large areas of the conservation estate easier to sell.

The Curia Market Research poll, commissioned by Forest & Bird, found 64% of voters oppose allowing the sale of public conservation land, including 46% who strongly oppose it. Only 25% support allowing sale, while 11% are unsure.

“New Zealanders are sending a very clear message: conservation land is for protection, not sale,” says Richard Capie, Forest & Bird’s Group Manager for Conservation Advocacy and Policy.

“These are the places people tramp, swim, camp, climb, hunt, fish, and take their kids. They are the wild places that we treasure.”

The Conservation Amendment Bill, currently out for public submissions, could make up to 60% of public conservation land eligible for sale or exchange.

Forest & Bird recently released maps showing the areas which could become eligible for sale or exchange (60% of the conservation estate) and the areas in which DOC would be required to enable economic development to the greatest extent practicable (100% of the conservation estate) if the Bill is to pass.

Results show opposition to selling conservation land is widespread across the country, including in Auckland, towns, and rural areas.

The poll found opposition to allowing sales of conservation land in Auckland at 60%, towns at 68%, and rural areas at 63%. Opposition was also strong in Wellington at 83%, Christchurch at 63%, and provincial cities at 59%.

“New Zealanders are telling us loud and clear in an election year that selling conservation land is something they will not support,” says Mr Capie.

The poll also shows a majority of regular voters for the Government coalition parties oppose selling conservation land. Opposition was recorded among 54% of National voters, 63% of ACT voters, and 50% of New Zealand First voters.

“Political parties should be paying close attention. The voters that every political party needs to win this election do not want conservation land up for sale,” says Mr Capie.

Nearly half of voters said they would be less likely to vote for a political party that supported allowing the sale of public conservation land.

“At a time when native species are in crisis, the Government should be protecting conservation land for nature, climate, and future generations,” says Mr Capie.

“Nature can’t vote, but we can. Every voter should ask candidates where they stand on selling public conservation land.”

Other sweeping changes being advanced by the Conservation Amendment Bill include:

• changing the overarching purpose of the Conservation Act to require the Department of Conservation to enable economic development on all conservation land “to the greatest extent practicable”;

• narrowing Section 4 which currently requires DOC to give effect to the Treaty principles (more detail to come on my Substack);

• shifting key decisions away from Conservation Boards and the New Zealand Conservation Authority to rest solely with the Minister of Conservation.

A wide range of interest groups, experts, academics and public figures are calling on the public to submit in opposition and ask the select committee to reject the entire Conservation Amendment Bill. Even if some high-profile provisions were changed through the select committee process, the remainder of the Bill could dramatically change the conservation landscape and our relationship with it permanently.

Submissions to the Select Committee close on 2nd July.

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Currently, two things are happening simultaneously – the Conservation Amendment Bill is progressing through Parliament, and the NCPS is being prepared in parallel. The NCPS is not just an internal DOC guideline or a minor operational document but instead is secondary legislation. It would replace the existing national conservation policies and become the central policy instrument shaping decisions about how public conservation land is protected, engaged with, developed and used commercially.

The concern about this process is not that officials are preparing for legislative changes before they have passed – governments do that. The concern is that the public is being asked to comment on a powerful new policy instrument while the legal framework that gives it force is still before Parliament – and while feedback on that framework is being treated as a separate matter.

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What the NCPS would replace

Conservation management is currently guided by two national policies: the Conservation General Policy and the General Policy for National Parks. Beneath those sit conservation management strategies, conservation management plans and national park management plans. These are statutory documents that provide detailed, place-based direction, tailored for localities and their specific needs.

The proposed system would replace the two general policies with a single National Conservation Policy Statement. It would also replace conservation management strategies, conservation management plans and national park management plans with a single layer of generic ‘area plans’.

That is not just a change in paperwork but instead will change how conservation decisions are made – and potentially what decisions are made. As explained in a previous article in this series, the purpose of the Conservation Act is being changed through the Bill, to require the Department of Conservation (DOC) to enable economic use and development “to the greatest extent practicable”.

The proposed NCPS would help give practical meaning to the amended purpose of the Conservation Act, helping determine what is decided nationally, what is left to area plans, what area plans can and cannot contain, and how activities on public conservation land are assessed, exempted, pre-approved or standardised.

That makes the content of the first NCPS highly significant. But it also makes the process for creating it important.

The consultation split

At the present time, DOC is asking for feedback on the proposed content of the first NCPS, while treating that consultation as entirely separate from the select committee process on the Conservation Amendment Bill, which is also currently open for submissions.

The consultation document says feedback on the Bill should go to the select committee, and that comments on the Bill may not be captured through the NCPS consultation. That separation of the two is where the problems really begin.

The proposed NCPS content is not freestanding. It is built around the Bill. The Bill supplies the framework that would make the NCPS possible: what it is, who approves it, what it can contain, how it relates to area plans, and how it can be used to exempt, pre-approve or standardise activities on public conservation land. That makes any boundary between ‘NCPS content’ and ‘the wider Bill’ difficult to maintain.

Content and framework cannot be separated

That split between the two is hard to maintain because the proposed NCPS is already built around the Bill’s assumptions.

It assumes the existing general policies will be replaced. It assumes the Minister of Conservation will be the sole decision-maker. It assumes the purpose framework of the Conservation Act will be changed to recognise economic opportunities from the use and development of conservation land, and to enable that use and development to the greatest extent practicable. It assumes conservation management strategies, conservation management plans and national park management plans will give way to area plans. It assumes these replacement area plans will have a narrower role than current statutory planning documents. It assumes that the NCPS can and will set generic national rules for public conservation land. It assumes some activities can be exempt from concessions, some concessions can be pre-approved, and other activities can be pre-assessed against land classifications and visitor zones to indicate where they are likely to be approved.

These are not just policy details. They reflect the structure the Bill would create. That is why the arbitrary line between ‘NCPS content’ and ‘the wider Bill’ is so difficult to hold. If a submitter objects to the narrowing of area plans, are they commenting on the proposed NCPS or on the Bill? If they object to nationally pre-approved activities, are they commenting on policy content or on the statutory power that enables it? If they object to the first NCPS being developed before the law creating it is passed, are they commenting on the policy statement or on the legislation that allows it?

The consultation asks people to stay on one side of a line that the proposal itself keeps crossing.

The moving target

DOC acknowledges that the proposed scope of the first NCPS may change depending on amendments to the Bill resulting from the select committee process. That acknowledgement is important – it recognises that the NCPS depends on the Bill.

But it also confirms the problem that this approach has created. People are being asked to comment on NCPS content that rests on what is as yet unsettled law. If the final Conservation Amendment Act differs from the Bill that has been introduced, and is now at the select committee stage, the public may not get the same opportunity to comment on the version of the NCPS that corresponds to the law Parliament actually passes. Essentially, submitters are being asked to comment on a moving target.

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Two processes, many of the same submitters

There are also practical problems – the select committee process on the Bill and DOC’s consultation on the first NCPS are running in parallel, with NCPS consultation opening before select committee submissions on the Bill had even opened. Initially their respective closing dates were only one week apart. DOC has now extended the NCPS submission closing date from 9 July to 10 August, although at the time of writing the select committee page still appears to refer to the original NCPS closing date.

The extension of the deadline helps, but it does not remove the burden placed on a huge number of New Zealanders affected by these changes – if they are to engage in the process meaningfully. Many of these people, groups and organisations will need to engage with both processes: iwi and hapū, conservation groups, recreational organisations, community groups, councils, businesses, industry bodies, researchers, concessionaires and members of the public.

One process concerns the legal framework. The other concerns the proposed policy instrument built from that framework. For submitters with limited time and capacity, that is a heavy load. To respond effectively, they need to understand not only the finer details of the NCPS, and how it affects their interests, but exactly how the Bill enables, limits and gives the NCPS legal force. Yet DOC has told them that comments on the wider Bill may not be captured through the NCPS consultation.

That leaves submitters on the proposed NCPS content in a difficult position. If they focus only on the NCPS content, they may miss the structural issues. If they address the structure too directly, parts of their submission may be treated as outside the consultation.

There is one advantage to the parallel process. It gives people submitting on the Bill a clearer view of how the government intends the new framework to work in practice. The proposed NCPS shows what the Bill could mean on the ground.

But that does not remove the burden of engaging with the legal framework and its proposed implementation at the same time, or the risk that comments on one intrinsically interrelated process may be treated as outside the scope of the other.

Why the first NCPS matters

This would matter less if the first NCPS were minor in scope or temporary, however that is not the case.

The first NCPS would set the foundation for the new system. It would replace the existing national policies, guide area plans, shape concession decision-making, and influence what is dealt with nationally and what is shifted into other tools such as bylaws, regulations, booking systems, operational policy or concession documents.

That is a significant amount of policy power in a single instrument. The content of the first NCPS deserves close scrutiny, as it will shape conservation for years, if not decades to come. Likewise, the process being used to create it also deserves scrutiny.

The first NCPS carve-out

There is another reason the first NCPS deserves attention. Whereas the Bill builds detailed consultation requirements into future NCPS processes, including iwi consultation and analysis of impacts on Māori rights and interests, the first NCPS is being treated differently. The most fundamental difference is that the Minister may make the first NCPS without following the ordinary process set out for future national policy statements. That raises an obvious question. If those safeguards matter for future NCPS processes, why are they not included for the first, foundational one?

That issue deserves fuller treatment in its own right and will be further examined in a future article in this series. But it also reinforces the central point: the process of drafting the first NCPS is not a technical side issue. It is part of the substance of the reform and will shape the outcomes in lasting ways.

The democratic risk

The democratic risk is that the final form the new framework takes will start to look inevitable even before Parliament has finished scrutinising it. While the public is invited to comment on the contents of the new system, DOC has made it clear that the NCPS consultation is not the place to challenge the Bill’s legal design. Meanwhile, the existence of a detailed proposed NCPS may make the Bill appear more settled, more practical and further advanced than they really are.

Parliament may yet change the Bill. Submitters may persuade the select committee that the framework needs stronger safeguards, different consultation requirements, a different role for conservation boards, stronger Treaty protections, or a different balance between conservation protection and commercial use. But while Parliamentary scrutiny of the Bill is still underway, the first NCPS is already being developed.

This should concern not only anyone who cares about conservation land, but also all who are concerned about how major public decisions are made. The problem is not only what the first NCPS might say. It is that the government is already writing the new conservation rulebook before Parliament has decided whether this is the rulebook New Zealand should have.

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The government’s own newly released analysis of the Conservation Act purpose change contains a puzzle. Public conservation land is already widely available for compatible economic activity. DOC already approves almost all concession applications. Yet, in June 2025, after consultation on the wider reform package had closed, Cabinet directed the Minister of Conservation to amend the Act’s purpose-related provisions so the reforms could enable greater economic development on conservation land.

The timing is not incidental. The purpose change was not among the changes the government had clearly announced and consulted on. Those announced reforms — to concessions, planning documents, decision making, land exchanges and disposals, and Treaty-related processes — are significant in themselves. But the Bill now before Parliament goes much further. It changes the instructions that will guide DOC, Ministers, applicants, planning documents and courts.

I have written for The Spinoff about the late, unconsulted nature of this purpose change. Here, I want to focus on the next question: if the system is already so permissive, why change the Act’s statutory instructions at all?

The government’s reassurance is that conservation will remain the primary purpose of the Conservation Act 1987. In a narrow technical sense, that may be right. The Bill does not strike out conservation and replace it with development. It does not say public conservation land should now be treated as ordinary Crown land, available for whatever economic use can be found for it.

Instead, it does something more difficult to see at first glance. It leaves conservation at the top of the hierarchy, while inserting economic development into the provisions that tell the Department of Conservation (DOC), Ministers, planning documents and concession decisions how that hierarchy is to work. The precise wording is doing a lot of work.

What the Bill actually says

Under the Bill, recreation would continue to be fostered only “to the extent consistent with” conservation. Economic use and development are given a different, stronger instruction. DOC would be required to recognise the economic opportunities arising from the use and development of land and resources it manages, and to enable that use and development “to the greatest extent practicable” under the Conservation Act and other enactments. Those are materially different instructions.

The Bill could have said economic development may be allowed where it is not inconsistent with conservation. It could have kept development in the category of things that may occur on conservation land in appropriate cases, within a conservation-first framework. It could have remained within the parameters of the proposals consulted on last year, and made technical changes to allow increased economic development, without changing the overriding purpose of the Conservation Act.

It does not do that. It tells DOC to recognise economic opportunities, and to enable use and development as far as practicable within the relevant legal limits. Far from being a minor drafting choice, this changes what the conservation system is being asked to keep in view. It also brings the basic question back into view: what is public conservation land for?

Purpose is not housekeeping

The Conservation Act does not have one neat, standalone purpose clause. Its purpose is built through several provisions, including the definitions of conservation, preservation and protection, the long title, the purposes for which different categories of land are held, and the functions of DOC.

That is why changing section 6 matters. This goes well beyond housekeeping. It affects the architecture of the Act, and its interpretation. But section 6 is not the only purpose-related provision being amended. The same enabling logic is carried beyond section 6 — into planning and concessions — a point I return to below.

The government’s own Supplementary Analysis Report, finalised in April 2026 as a retrospective analysis of earlier Cabinet decisions, makes the intention reasonably plain. In June 2025, after public consultation on the wider conservation reform package had closed, Cabinet directed the Minister of Conservation to amend the purpose of the Conservation Act so that the wider reforms to the conservation land management system would enable greater economic development on public conservation land.

The report also says the current prioritisation of conservation values is one factor that constrains how far the new National Conservation Policy Statement and area plans can go in enabling economic development.

That tells us something important. The report is unusually clear that the current conservation-first settings do not let the new planning documents go as far as the government wants. The purpose change is the way around that problem.

A targeted change, or a system-wide signal?

The report presents the proposed amendments as targeted and “incisive”. It says conservation will remain primary. It suggests the change is likely to affect only a small number of concession applications that might otherwise be declined.

That may sound reassuring. It also exposes the central tension in the report: if almost all concessions are already granted, why alter the Act’s interpretive frame? The answer appears to be less about the immediate number of extra approvals, and more about the legal direction of the system.

The report measures the change as if the main issue is how many individual concession applications might move from “declined” to “approved”. But the Bill operates at a higher level than that. It is not written as only making small amendments to individual concession decision tests.

The same development-enabling language is threaded through the purposes of the new planning architecture. The National Conservation Policy Statement would be given the purpose of recognising economic opportunities and enabling use and development to the greatest extent practicable. Area plans would carry the same purpose at regional and local levels. The concessions framework is also reframed around enabling use and development, rather than simply deciding whether particular activities should be allowed. That will shape the rules and assumptions future conservation decisions begin from.

The purpose change will matter when DOC officials write advice. It will also matter when the National Conservation Policy Statement is drafted, when area plans are prepared, when applicants frame their proposals, when the Minister justifies decisions, and when iwi, hapū, conservation groups and local communities object or challenge them. That is why the repeated reassurance is not enough.

What happens when economic development becomes something DOC must actively enable? What happens when the planning documents that guide future decisions are themselves required to recognise economic opportunities and facilitate greater use and development? What happens when applicants can point to that language and argue that Parliament has told DOC and the Minister to enable use and development as far as practicable?

When conservation becomes the threshold

A conservation-first framework asks what a place, species, ecosystem, landscape, or relationship requires, given the purpose for which the land is protected. A development-enabling framework asks how far use and development can be enabled, provided conservation does not rule it out. The distinction may sound subtle, but it is significant. Over time, these two starting points can produce very different answers.

The danger is not that conservation disappears from the Act. It is that conservation risks becoming the line development must not cross, rather than the reason the land is held. Development does not need to advance conservation. It only needs to be framed as not inconsistent with it, while the statutory machinery is told to recognise economic opportunities and enable use and development to the greatest extent practicable.

That is why the phrase matters so much. “To the greatest extent practicable” is active language. It is not a neutral acknowledgement that some economic activity may occur, but is an instruction to go as far as the law practicably allows.

What the report does not test

The Supplementary Analysis Report gives little confidence that those downstream effects have been seriously examined. It acknowledges that the purpose-related changes were not included in the earlier public consultation, and that no subsequent public consultation was undertaken. It says Cabinet had already directed the scope of the change, limiting the options officials considered. It also acknowledges that time, scope and consultation constraints affected DOC’s ability to undertake in-depth analysis.

Officials further acknowledge that, without a fuller understanding of the exact activities the changes are intended to enable, they had limited ability to assess whether those activities would be better enabled on public conservation land. That is a thin basis for changing the legal purpose of conservation law.

The report does not meaningfully examine how the purpose change may affect DOC’s institutional culture, Ministerial decision-making, the content of the first National Conservation Policy Statement, area plans, legal advice, applicant expectations, Treaty settlement redress, iwi relationships, public recreation, or cumulative pressure on particular places.

Instead, it treats that formal hierarchy as the answer. But that does not settle the question. The practical effect of a law also depends on the instructions sitting underneath that hierarchy. If those instructions repeatedly tell decision-makers to recognise economic opportunities and enable use and development as far as practicable, the conservation purpose may remain in place while doing less work than it did before.

The report is also clearer about who is expected to benefit than about what conservation or New Zealanders may lose. Potential concessionaires are identified as the primary beneficiaries, while impacts on cultural, recreational, historic and natural values are treated as minor and manageable through conditions.

It also briefly mentions Treaty settlement implications. Some settlements refer back to the purpose of the Conservation Act, and the report accepts that changing that purpose will have an impact. But again, the impact is effectively minimised on the basis that conservation remains formally primary.

That is a significant assumption, and the report does not explore how a changed statutory purpose may alter the practical context in which Treaty settlement commitments, cultural values, iwi and hapū relationships, and place-based obligations are interpreted.

Those flow-on effects are important, and I will come back to the Treaty settlement and cultural implications in more detail soon in this series of articles.

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Legal risk is part of the objective

The government’s report is explicit on this point: greater economic development on public conservation land is the primary objective, and mitigating the risk of legal challenge is subsidiary. Reducing legal risk is not just a side effect of the change; it is part of the stated objective.

If economic enablement is written into those purpose-related provisions, future Ministers and applicants will have stronger statutory language to defend development-enabling decisions. Communities, conservation groups, iwi and hapū may still object to particular proposals. But they will be doing so under provisions that direct DOC and the Minister to enable use and development to the greatest extent practicable.

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That does not mean every proposed activity will be approved. But it may alter the centre of gravity: from “why should this be allowed on conservation land?” to “why should this not be enabled, if it can be made not inconsistent with conservation?”

Where the contest moves

It is also likely to affect where the real contests happen. If the National Conservation Policy Statement and area plans are required to enable use and development, then the most important decisions may be made upstream, in the documents that set the frame before individual concession applications are even lodged.

That matters even more because, through the same Bill, as previously announced, key planning decisions are being shifted away from the New Zealand Conservation Authority and community-based conservation boards, and towards the Minister. Those bodies would still be able to comment and advise, but they would no longer hold the same approval role in the planning system. In a framework newly directed towards enabling economic development, concentrating power in the Minister also increases the risk that commercial lobbying will shape the rules before any particular application is considered.

Once an activity, place, or category of use has been framed as appropriate in those documents, later decisions may become much harder to contest. Communities and iwi may find themselves having to fight earlier, in more technical planning processes, rather than at the point where a concrete proposal is before them.

The report does not appear to grapple with that shift: how decision-making power shifts, and what assumptions are built into the system before the public sees a particular application.

The government says this is not a fundamental shift away from conservation. But a change does not need to be presented as fundamental to have serious consequences over time.

What public conservation land is for

Public conservation land is not ordinary Crown land. It is land held because some places, species, ecosystems, landscapes and relationships are meant to be protected from the ordinary pressures of commercial use. For many iwi, hapū and whānau, it is ancestral land, holding wāhi tapu, taonga and relationships that long predate the conservation estate.

None of this means no use can occur. It never has. But use has been organised around conservation, and increasingly also around local relationships to place, not the other way around.

That is what this Bill begins to change. It does not need to say development comes first. It only needs to tell the conservation system, again and again, to recognise economic opportunities and enable them as far as practicable.

A change of that significance should have been openly consulted on, closely scrutinised, and properly analysed before it was put before Parliament. It was not.

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In this episode of the Coherent podcast, I speak with journalist and author Rebecca Macfie about her recent books Hardship and Hope: Stories of Resistance in the Fight Against Poverty in Aotearoa and Pakukore: Poverty by Design. We also discuss the upcoming conference, Kia Tika, Kia Pono: For a Just Society, which she is helping to organise.

We explore what sits behind the idea of “poverty by design” — from labour market reforms and welfare systems, to education, housing, and the long shadow of colonisation. Rebecca explains how disadvantage compounds across generations, and how policy settings, institutional behaviour, and public narratives all play a role in shaping outcomes.

But this conversation isn’t only about diagnosis.

Drawing on her writing, Rebecca also shares stories of resistance, community-led solutions, and what she’s come to understand about hope — not as optimism, but as action. From papakāinga developments to frontline service innovation, she reflects on the depth of talent and capability that exists within communities, and what’s lost when systems fail to support it.

We also discuss:

• why poverty is often framed as individual failure — and what that obscures

• how distrust and rigid systems can make crises worse

• the concept of a “pipeline” into the justice system for Māori

• what a genuinely “just society” might look like in practice

• and whether we’re moving closer to it — or further away

This is a wide-ranging and deeply grounded conversation about how inequality is produced - and what it would take to do things differently.

The Kia Tika, Kia Pono: For a Just Society conference is open to anyone wanting to engage with these ideas and explore new ways of thinking about justice in New Zealand.

Watch the video above or listen to the audio here:

Resources:

Kia Tika, Kia Pono - For a Just Society Conference

Rebecca’s books at BWB

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In this episode of Coherent, I’m joined by planner and geographer Tina Porou (Ngāti Tūwharetoa, Ngāti Porou), who has spent her career working with iwi, hapū and organisations at the intersection of planning, te Tiriti, and tikanga Māori. Tina explains why planning law is never neutral: it shapes who has power, who gets heard, and what kinds of futures become possible.

We talk through what is being lost as the Resource Management Act is replaced by the Planning Act and the Natural Environment Act, including the removal of the RMA’s Part 2 foundations — and the decades of practice and case law that have enabled Māori participation and more relational, place-based decision-making.

Tina unpacks what “systemic racism” can look like in the planning system in practical terms, and why the reforms risk narrowing Māori participation into Crown-defined boxes while shifting conflict from collaborative processes into courts, private negotiations, and protest. She also explains why Treaty settlements cannot simply be treated as the only avenue for Māori involvement — because many were negotiated on the explicit assumption that the RMA’s core protections and participation pathways would remain in place.

We explore the reforms’ push toward speed and “efficiency”, the centralising force of national direction, and the chilling effect of a regulatory takings approach that could lock councils into lower environmental standards. Tina argues that the real costs are likely to land on communities, iwi and hapū, and the environment — while any apparent upfront streamlining may simply defer complexity into long-term ecological harm, legal risk, and fractured relationships.

Finally, Tina offers a clear bird’s-eye guide for people engaging with the select committee process: what to focus on, how to collaborate, and why submissions still matter — not only to influence the law, but to build public expertise and collective capacity. We end on a hopeful note: the best blueprint may still be a better RMA — and New Zealand can still choose to lead, rather than retreat, on environmental limits, indigenous partnership, and future-focused governance.

Submissions on the new bills are currently open. If you’ve been wondering where to start, this kōrero is a powerful place to begin.

Watch the video above or listen to the audio here:

Resources:

Tina’s website: https://www.poipoia.co.nz/

Link to Tina’s paper on the RMA reforms

Link to government information on the reforms, including links for making a submission on each bill to the select committee

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I’d like to offer my paid subscribers the opportunity to put forward questions you would like answered through my pending interviews about the RMA reforms, on the Coherent podcast (published here).

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To my valued paid subscribers, there is a note to you at the bottom of this post.

The path to widespread awareness and opposition

When I first encountered the RSB in the Act-National coalition agreement, I was drawn to look further due to its boring sounding name and knowing that regulation affects everything. On my first skim-read of previous iterations of the RSB, I was immediately struck by its significance. So in late 2024 I took several weeks off to fastidiously work through its content and analyse its likely consequences, with the intention of bringing it to public awareness – assuming that would be in early 2025.

Unexpectedly, consultation on a discussion document was launched at the time the Hīkoi mō te Tiriti arrived at Parliament – in mid-November 2024. Although some media had covered the launch of the consultation, they had not undertaken deeper analysis of the Bill’s content and implications, and their coverage did not sufficiently highlight its significance.

I hastened to complete my analysis, write it up, and undertake extensive legal checks, then sought publication. However, publication was harder to achieve than anticipated, and acutely aware time was ticking on the submissions period, I decided to publish the first article on my Substack. This was followed closely by an article in E-Tangata, and interviews with Big Hairy News and veteran documentary maker Bryan Bruce.

Word quickly spread from these early sources who had instantly recognised the importance of the proposal, and put time and effort into bringing awareness to it, despite the busy time of year. Interest from the public exponentially increased.

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Long-term experts who have argued against the RSB for decades, such as Emeritus Professors Jane Kelsey and Jonathan Boston, had renewed their critique of the proposal yet again on its fourth attempt, hoping it would remain “three strikes and you’re out” for the RSB. They and their contemporaries shared their depth of knowledge and experience opposing it through interviews and publishing their submissions. Thought leaders including Tania Waikato, Tina Ngata, and many other individuals and groups, spent their summer “break” growing awareness and understanding of the RSB. Tania Waikato subsequently led a claim to the Waitangi Tribunal for an urgent inquiry into the RSB.

Despite falling over Christmas and New Year, nearly 23,000 submissions were made through the Ministry for Regulation’s consultation process on the discussion document – taking both the Ministry and media by surprise. Minister for Regulation, David Seymour, dismissed the extensive democratic participation as being primarily bots, without providing any evidence, but later distancing himself from that assertion.

Media attention on the RSB increased, and in January 2025, RNZ published an article analysing the democratic participation in the processes on the Treaty principles bill and the RSB, with experts noting that it had been fascinating to watch people engaging directly with government proposals, and to witness what social media could potentially do in the political realm in a positive way.

Later in mid-2025, 159,000 submissions were received by the select committee considering the RSB – the second largest number ever to submit on a Bill, with the vast majority (98.7%) opposed. Only 1,191 were in support, and 927 neutral or unclear.

Three strikes and you’re in

The country’s widespread opposition to the RSB – across most of the political spectrum – was seemingly entirely ignored by the coalition government. On its fourth attempt over a nearly 20 year period, it was passed on 18^th November 2025 – exactly a year from the date the agency consultation opened in 2024 as the Hīkoi mō te Tiriti arrived at Parliament.

Time has now moved on, and less than a fortnight ago, as we were welcoming in the new year on 1^st January, the RSB, now the Regulatory Standards Act (RSA) came into force.

Part 2 of the Act, including the “principles of responsible regulation” and the establishment of the Regulatory Standards Board will come into force at a later date – either through Order in Council, or automatically on 1^st July 2026.

Vacancies open for Regulatory Standards Board – who’s applying?

Despite the part of the law which establishes the Board not yet being in force, applications are now open for its chair and members. The Board will have between five and seven members, who are appointed by the Governor-General on the recommendation of the regulatory standards Minister, David Seymour.

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The Regulatory Standards Board was one of the features of the Regulatory Standards Bill that was most strongly opposed by submitters – both the general public and experts alike. In a rare example of any response the concerns raised to the select committee, the formal appointment of Board members was shifted from the Minister for Regulation to the Governor-General on the Minister for Regulation’s recommendation, although it is thought that this is unlikely to make a material difference to appointments, with the appointments considered likely to be political in nature, and the Board therefore partisan.

The overall role of the Board was also heavily criticised by submitters. The Board will have two key functions. One is to inquire into existing legislation – this includes most laws (primary legislation) and some regulation (secondary legislation). Through its inquiries, the Board will consider whether such legislation is consistent with the “principles of responsible regulation”. The Board’s other function is to consider “consistency accountability statements” for Government Bills (laws yet to be passed), and report its findings to the relevant select committees.

While the Board’s recommendations are not binding, critics have argued that the unelected Board will hold significant soft-power to influence the decisions of democratically elected representatives and to narrow what options officials consider before policy even reaches Ministers. This phenomenon is known as a chilling effect, and is one of the primary mechanisms by which the RSA is expected to effect change.

The skills which the Minister for Regulation had indicated would be required for the members of the Board, primarily in regulatory economics, were also critiqued as being overly narrow.

Furthermore, the “principles of responsible regulation” which the Board will assess legislation against were broadly condemned by nearly all experts as being highly selective, elevating a libertarian set of values, and excluding many significant principles and values which are currently central to our lawmaking, and are considered key to ensuring that a range of issues and interests are balanced.

So how do those criticisms stack up now the rubber is hitting the road? The knowledge, skills and experience required by the currently advertised job descriptions for the chair and members of the Board, is technically broader than what was earlier indicated. Experience and expertise in one or more of the areas of law; regulatory design; economics and the cost and benefits of regulating; and the perspective of a regulated party (e.g. business experience or industry representation) are sought.

It is also clear that, as experts warned, the role descriptions for the Board do not require knowledge, skills and experience in other areas of importance to New Zealanders. There is no requirement for expertise in international obligations, te Tiriti o Waitangi or human rights. Likewise, there is no focus given to the areas that affect many peoples’ lives, such as safety regulation (think of the recent public health crisis of asbestos contaminated coloured play sand in schools and homes, or of the Pike River disaster), the regulation of working conditions (such as health, minimum wage and working hours), or the safeguarding of the environment and a liveable planet through regulation.

However, the requirements in the position descriptions do not narrow the particular areas of law or economics that an applicant may be experienced in. There is nothing stopping people applying, if they have the requisite amount of experience, in law, regulatory design, or economics, yet have skills in areas such as te Tiriti or environmental law; or regulatory design to protect workers; or economics and the benefits of regulating for climate resilience. All applications must be considered fairly and be subject to due process.

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Given the wording of the position descriptions, there is a possibility that a Regulatory Standards Board, comprising members more representative of society than had been envisaged, could be appointed if they are the most qualified applicants. This would surely lead to more robust discussions, independent thinking, and outcomes which are more widely accepted.

Despite that, the Board is still likely to function within its clearly defined yet explicitly narrow thought and value framework, in addition to being limited by the legislative set of “principles of responsible regulation”. This was emphasised by the arguments made through submissions that the full range of matters which are important to New Zealanders are likely to become labelled as “irresponsible regulation” wherever they exist in current laws or are proposed in future laws.

The RSA also requires that the Board’s inquiries and consideration of accountability statements for Bills are to be carried out on paper, rather than by holding hearings. Inquiries can be initiated by the Board itself, at direction of the Minister for Regulation, or following a complaint made by a member of the public.

The Ministry for Regulation is required to establish and maintain a system for receiving and dealing with complaints that legislation is inconsistent with one or more of the “principles of responsible regulation”. The law does not appear to restrict complainants to New Zealand citizens or residents. Similarly, it should be remembered that under New Zealand law corporations are considered legal persons, so could conceivably also make complaints.

The Board cannot investigate specific cases, but must focus on the legislation itself. Their findings will be made public, although may be redacted in accordance with the Official Information Act.

Board vacancies closing before Board legally established

The timing of recruitment for the Board is also worthy of some attention. The opening of the vacancies for application was posted on 10^th December 2025, just weeks after the law was passed, with applications closing on 14^th January 2026. The roles were therefore advertised before the RSA came into force, and applications close before Part 2 of the RSA – which establishes the Board – comes into effect.

This is not highly unusual in itself, and may show a desire by the government to have the board members appointed, trained, and ready to go immediately when Part 2 is brought into force.

However, it may also indicate some nervousness on the part of the Minister for Regulation, David Seymour, given that despite the RSA being passed by the coalition government, it is highly unpopular and vulnerable to repeal – with Act being the only political party currently in Parliament to clearly state that they would not repeal the RSA.

Days after voting to pass the law, New Zealand First leader Winston Peters announced that his party would campaign to repeal it at the next election. Earlier, Shane Jones had made a soft announcement at the party’s annual convention that despite their dislike of the RSB, New Zealand First had decided to vote for it in order to demonstrate their reliability as a coalition partner. More surprisingly, National followed suit by indicating that they may also consider repealing the RSA. Labour, the Greens and Te Pāti Māori have all promised to repeal it at the earliest opportunity.

However, while a future government can still repeal the RSA, appointing Board members early would make that a more complex process. Board members are appointed for a fixed term of five years, and can be reappointed for further terms. If the RSA remains under the next government, the Board members would stay the same. A future government who repealed the RSA, would also need to terminate the role of statutory officeholders.

Because Board members are being appointed early, it is likely that even before Part 2 of the RSA comes into force, the appointees will be able to prepare internal guidance and interpretative frameworks, develop views and approaches on what counts as “consistency” with the “principles of responsible regulation”, and shape their overall approach.

The Board could then be ready to hit the ground running as soon as Part 2 is brought into force, and rather than just finding its feet, it could be a functioning institution and operating body prior to the next election.

Once in existence, the Board is likely to be framed as the expert body on responsible regulation, rather than ideologically based as many have argued. Early appointments will likely make clear the direction that the Board is likely to go in, pre-emptively affecting advice to ministers and leading to narrowing of what is even able to discussed, let alone attempted, by the Government bureaucracy, even before coming into force.

Strategically, the timing of the appointments can be seen as an early soft entrenchment mechanism of the new law, literally getting its feet under the table of power. The people selected to fill the vacancies are also likely to give the public an indication of the Board’s anticipated direction and positioning.

Given the significant interest demonstrated through submissions and discussions on the Regulatory Standards Bill, no doubt there will be much attention on the Regulatory Standards Board and the Regulatory Standards Act as implementation progresses over the course of the coming year.

Applications for the vacancies of chair and members of the Regulatory Standards Board close at 5pm on 14 January 2026. Please share this link with anyone you know who may qualify.

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Eugenie explains what stewardship land is, why vast areas of high‑value conservation land were left in legal limbo following the state sector reforms of the 1980s, and how the long‑running reclassification process has unfolded. Together, they walk through the panel process, public submissions, and the Minister’s final decisions — and why the outcome represents a major lost opportunity for stronger protection.

The conversation ranges across some of the most ecologically and politically contested landscapes in the country, including Paparoa National Park, Denniston Plateau, the Waitaha River, and the rainforests of South Westland within the Te Wahi Pounamu World Heritage Area. Eugenie outlines why many areas with outstanding ecological, landscape, and biodiversity values were not upgraded to National Park status — and what that means for mining, large‑scale development, and climate resilience.

Melanie and Eugenie also examine the implications for Te Tiriti o Waitangi, Ngāi Tahu aspirations, public access, and river systems, including concerns about proposed land disposals within a World Heritage Area. The discussion situates these decisions within the wider context of upcoming conservation law reforms, warning that land reclassified into weaker categories may soon be even more vulnerable.

This is a detailed, clear‑eyed conversation about conservation law, political influence, and what is at stake for New Zealand’s public lands — and why the stewardship land decisions matter far beyond the West Coast.

Watch the video above or listen to the audio here:

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More surprisingly, the week after voting to pass it, and his party expressing their support for it – albeit with brief and muted speeches – Winston Peters announced that New Zealand First would campaign on repealing it at the next election. Their opposition to its content was not unforeseen, as the RSA values are in stark contrast to New Zealand First’s, at least stated, values.

As I have outlined previously in the Spinoff, many of New Zealand First’s policies would be assessed as “inconsistent” with the principles now enshrined in the RSA as the gold standard of “responsible regulation”. A government would therefore be required to publicly justify passing “irresponsible” laws, if implementing many of New Zealand First’s policies.

However, to declare it “not fit for a modern democracy” merely days after voting it into law, seems to be more aligned to tactics seen recently in other parts of the world. ACT Party leader and Minister for Regulation, David Seymour, was quick to jibe that New Zealand First seemed to be preparing to go with Labour at the next election.

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But what the…?

Peters’ approach was largely shrugged off as typical of Winston Peters’ politicking. But no doubt the repeal would be welcomed by a significant proportion of New Zealand First’s voters.

Hypothesising about the reasons for this about-turn, Martyn Bradbury noted on Radio Waatea that New Zealand First’s supporter base had been active on social media the weekend following the third reading, voicing their disbelief and disappointment that New Zealand First had voted to pass the RSB into law.

Possibly the recently articulated intention to repeal it was an actual change in policy based on seeing that discussion, as previously New Zealand First had only signalled that they would campaign on amendments to the RSA at the next election.

However, people had already been vocal about the likely repercussions for issues New Zealand First voters care about, such as deregulating the use of glyphosate and other toxins, rest-home safety and support to the elderly, nationalising electricity production, and the power given to big corporates, such as pharmaceutical and grocery companies. So the strong opposition to the Bill from New Zealand First voters should not have caught them unawares.

Possibly the party didn’t receive much feedback on their soft announcement at the New Zealand First Convention in September, that they had compromised and would be voting for the RSB to strengthen the perception that they are a stable coalition partner. At the time, Shane Jones quoted Winston Peters quoting Shakespeare, “It’s like Shakespeare said, to do a great right, sometimes you have to do a little wrong.”

A cynical view might be that this had been their back-up plan all along. Agree to it in the coalition agreement in order to form government. Try and negotiate amendments to the Bill, which after all, had not yet been drafted at the time of coalition negotiations. And if they didn’t achieve all their desired amendments or prevent it passing, to then campaign to repeal it.

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Dropped ball in coalition negotiations?

Alternatively, perhaps they erred in coalition negotiations and didn’t realise quite what they were signing up to. However, Peters has been around long enough to see the previous three iterations that have been introduced to Parliament since 2006, so should have been well aware of its content. Did they simply overestimate the leverage they would have on this around the Cabinet table, and underestimate ACT’s determination to pass it?

The scenario of dropping the ball in coalition negotiations looks more plausible with National’s surprise move this week. It was noticeable that National downplayed Peters’ deciding to campaign to repeal the RSA.

A curveball from National

Maybe this was because they were quietly considering the same thing. In an unexpected turn of events, Nicola Willis stated yesterday to Newstalk ZB, that National also hasn’t ruled out repealing it.

Willis was quoted in the Herald as saying, “We haven’t ruled out repealing it either. We haven’t taken a position yet, but it’s not impossible that we would go to the campaign trail saying, ‘yes, we met our coalition commitment, we supported that into law, but actually we agree with the concerns of some people, it hasn’t operated as we’d hoped and we want to repeal it’.

“We haven’t come to a position yet, but we haven’t ruled it out.”

I haven’t yet seen a response from David Seymour to Willis’ statements. Will he proffer that National is also preparing to go into coalition with Labour? The idea of a National, Labour and New Zealand First coalition makes the mind boggle.

Or might Seymour be starting to get a bit anxious, given that the successful culmination of a 20-year attempt to achieve an even longer-standing neoliberal goal in New Zealand, might only be a one year wonder?

Riding the wave of public opinion

Perhaps National and New Zealand First have both seen the writing on the wall. The Regulatory Standards Bill (RSB) received the second largest number of submissions ever. Contrary to Seymour’s attempts to dismiss the 23,000 submissions on the departmental consultation document as being done by bots, and the 159,000 submissions as simple form submissions, which the select committee evidence does not bear out.

The vast majority of expert oral submissions to the select committee also opposed the RSB – coherent and logical arguments from a very broad range of highly regarded individuals, groups and organisations.

For National and New Zealand First to pass a bill which is opposed by 98.7% of submitters, and which makes their own policies less likely to succeed in future, did seem like an act of great political naivety.

If voters experience amnesia, and forget that New Zealand First enabled the RSB to pass, then their tactic for the election may well draw votes away from National, while also giving Labour less of an edge campaigning to repeal what was perhaps the most unpopular bill ever.

If National also campaigns to repeal the RSA, that could be a clever move on their part – potentially neutralising the advantage Labour, the Greens, Te Pāti Māori and New Zealand First would gain by promoting such a popular policy.

A strategic move from Labour

Another twist in the plot came as Labour MP Duncan Webb lodged a member’s bill to repeal the RSA last week. He invited New Zealand First to support that bill. While there is only a small chance that it will be drawn this term, its main effect may be to call Peters’ bluff.

Peters has said that they would not vote for it before the election, and National is likely to take a similar stance, both prioritising the stability of the coalition government.

It is possible that other parties or MPs will add further private member’s bills to the biscuit tin, seeking to repeal the RSA. This would increase the chances of one of them being drawn within the next year, and enable the ground to be tested. It is hard to see voters keeping faith in Peters should he vote to retain the RSA in the months before the election, while campaigning to repeal it.

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A win for democracy?

Regardless of the next steps taken by the various political parties, a couple of things are clear.

Firstly that New Zealanders’ voices have been heard.

While many rightly felt demoralised by the RSA being passed by the coalition government, despite less than 1% of submissions supporting it, the numbers and the strength of the many arguments against the bill appear to have hit home.

When asked what the point of submitting was, when the government was likely to pass it anyway, some of those encouraging submissions against the RSB responded that the submissions would help strengthen opposition parties in choosing to repeal it when next in power.

It seems that both the quality and quantity of submissions may have achieved more than had been anticipated, and encouraged two of the government parties to also consider repealing it. People should take heart from those recent statements, and know that expressing their views can have unexpected flow-on effects down the line, even when something seems like a lost cause. Democratic participation still matters in New Zealand.

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Secondly, it appears that a law designed to exercise soft-power to constrain the focus and powers of government and to push it towards acting within a libertarian and neoliberal set of boundaries, may only have had the genuine support of one minor party. While parts of National may support it, and others tolerate it, their stance appears to be malleable if supporting it will cost them votes.

159,000 submissions represent a lot of politically active voters, and many were from the heartland where National and New Zealand First draw both voters. There may be significant downstream effects for both parties.

Politicians’ promises are also not set in stone. Though a pre-election commitment to repeal it by National and New Zealand First might be made, if it was to exclude them from power via a potential coalition agreement with ACT at the next election, such a promise might quickly get chucked out the window following the election.

No doubt both National and New Zealand First will come under pressure from lobbyists to allow the RSA to remain in force. If the wider public, small businesses, and other organisations also keep up their communications about their dislike of the RSA with MPs – including those in the current government – the next election will be interesting indeed.

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At the NZ First Convention on Saturday, Shane Jones criticised Act Party leader David Seymour’s Regulatory Standards Bill, but implied that NZ First had compromised and agreed to pass it.

Yet despite his attempt to shift responsibility onto Act, the RSB 2025 was drafted by the coalition government after cabinet policy approvals, introduced as a government bill, and requires all coalition partners need to negotiate and agree on its content before it can proceed.

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An about-turn by NZ First?

The soft-announcement was left to Jones who quoted Winston Peters quoting Shakespeare, “It’s like Shakespeare said, to do a great right, sometimes you have to do a little wrong.”

If the “great right” is NZ First’s hope of proving itself indispensable to a future National–Act coalition, the “little wrong” is no small matter: pushing through the second-most opposed bill in New Zealand’s history, in direct conflict with the party’s own founding values, and doing so when it is well within NZ First’s power to stop it.

Jones tried to dress this up as pragmatism: “See it as a reflection of the pragmatism, the grown-up attitude that Winston and our caucus have about maintaining fidelity to deliver upon what we said we’d do. Stability, and ensuring that society and our voters next time round can see that we’re not a three year wonder.”

But this pragmatism jars with his earlier claim to Waatea News, where he said that the coalition agreement to pass a “Regulatory Standards Act” was subject to two caveats around good governance [good law-making] and economic efficiency.

“We need to work out, once the select committee process has exhausted itself, how can we ensure that the final shape and form of that bill doesn’t impede economic efficiency and does not corrode good governance.”

Yet substantial expert evidence put before the select committee argued that, as drafted, the RSB meets neither of those caveats.

NZ First also pledged to listen to what the public said to the select committee process. Peters told Waatea News “New Zealand First position was to have the matter go to the select committee, pay attention to what the select committee submitters say, and we’ll give you our answer then.”

And the public did speak. Media have reported that the select committee received around 157,000 written submissions, the second highest number on record – with 98.7% opposed to the RSB. While select committees are not intended to serve as referenda, the overwhelming majority of expert oral submissions strongly opposed the RSB and raised serious, wide-ranging concerns, with only 19 out of 208 supporting.

It seems incontrovertible that both expert witnesses and the wider public have said a clear no. But has NZ First listened – and acted on what they heard?

Disputing what was agreed

There appears to have been dispute between the coalition parties over exactly what was agreed to be passed. RNZ reported that, following his speech, Jones explained that the version of the RSB at the time of coalition negotiations (presumably referring to the 2021 bill) was intended to put the regulatory standards regime to a popular vote in a referendum.

He was quoted as saying, “We could have argued incessantly … on the question of what bill did we think we were agreeing to? In the end, we parked up any dogmatism and took a pragmatic view in order to maintain a great right.”

Meanwhile, Newsroom reported on Thursday that sources said Act had made a number of concessions, but that NZ First and National had not managed to secure all the changes they were hoping for. The article noted that while the changes will now be considered by the select committee, they are not understood to alter the overall fabric of the bill.

A curse for NZ First?

Addressing the NZ First Convention, Jones made no secret of his distaste for the RSB, warning “It has the capacity to be meddled with by the judiciary and turned into something in the future that will be akin to a curse.”

That remark may prove prophetic – but not in the way he meant. The RSB is highly likely to become a curse for NZ First, not in some distant courtroom battle, but as early as next year, when David Seymour, as Minister for Regulation, and the Regulatory Standards Board begin wielding the powers it would grant them.

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As I outlined to the select committee in my oral submission:

You can watch the full 5 minutes of my oral submission here:

Swayed by Act’s framing?

Shane Jones also described the RSB as “filigree” – delicate ornamental work – potentially implying that it will not have substantial effect unless the courts start “meddling”. This line of argument echoes its proponents’ framing: that the RSB is insignificant because it is not directly enforceable in the domestic courts.

But that framing sidesteps the real issue. The RSB is designed to exert influence through layers of soft-power – mechanisms that shape behaviour, constrain choices, and shift the centre of political gravity without ever needing a court ruling. I have analysed expert assessments of this by Sir Geoffrey Palmer, Professor Dean Knight and others here.

As I told the select committee, “The RSB will shape lawmaking through narrative dominance and soft power. It’s claimed the RSB will cut red tape — but it replaces it with pink and yellow tape, tying government in knots and obstructing the work of good governance. In theory, Parliament remains sovereign. In reality, it will answer to Act’s worldview — shifting its focus away from balancing the interests of all citizens.”

From referendum to regulatory board

The principles at the core of the RSB have remained largely unchanged between the 2021 bill and the current version. It has not yet been revealed whether NZ First has secured any changes to them. As many expert submissions noted, this selective list of principles essentially embeds Act Party values as the fundamental benchmark by which all government legislation must be measured.

Although Parliament would technically remain free to legislate outside these principles, the bill creates multiple layers of soft power that would pressure governments – and eventually voters – to increasingly conform to them.

Jones noted that the 2021 bill, the most recent iteration at the time of the coalition agreement, was to be enacted only if supported by a public referendum. On closer inspection, this element is complex. A referendum would have given the public a definitive say, though the technical nature of the proposal would have made meaningful public debate difficult. At the same time, if passed by binding referendum, convention would suggest the bill could be entrenched by a simple parliamentary majority — requiring a super-majority for repeal – usually 75% of Parliament.

Despite both Labour and the Greens pledging to repeal the RSB, and Te Pāti Māori being unequivocal in its opposition, entrenchment could make repeal close to impossible. It remains unclear from Jones’ comments whether NZ First has pressed for a referendum requirement in the 2025 bill.

Other key changes had also been made since the coalition agreement. Notably, the role of assessing legislation for consistency with the RSB principles shifted from the courts to a newly created Regulatory Standards Board. This change raises its own challenges for NZ First, as it centralises power in the hands of the Minister for Regulation, David Seymour, who would appoint the Board. The Board would be tasked with reviewing all existing and proposed regulation against the RSB principles, guided by interpretations issued by the Minister for Regulation and the Attorney-General.

Whether NZ First has sought or achieved changes to these aspects remains unclear – but as they stand, they hand considerable influence over the entire legislative programme to Seymour.

The Minister for Regulation has asked the select committee to report back by 23 September. Its report is likely to signal whatever compromises have been reached by the coalition parties.

From anti-neoliberal roots to neoliberal complicity?

New Zealand First was founded on a platform of opposing the neoliberal reforms of the 1980s and early 1990s. The video commencing Winston Peters’ public address at New Zealand First’s convention this past weekend began with a clip from the party’s launch, declaring, “Ladies and gentlemen, we are going to take our country and our democracy back”.

Yet recently released OIA documents reveal that the regulatory bill is not only an initiative of the Business Roundtable, a key driver of neoliberal reforms in New Zealand, but that the current iteration was influenced by the New Zealand Initiative, its successor organisation.

Bryce Wilkinson – the author of the original bill for the Business Roundtable in 2001 – lobbied the Ministry for Regulation extensively with the work of Richard Epstein, a fringe American legal scholar and libertarian associated with multiple right wing think-tanks. Epstein himself has admitted that his doctrine would invalidate much of the legislation enacted over the past two centuries. If implemented as he proposes, it could invert the role of government – turning efforts to regulate in the public interest into liabilities for the state, and fresh rent-seeking opportunities for investors.

The Business Roundtable had earlier openly acknowledged that the regulatory bill was grounded in Epstein’s doctrine of “regulatory takings”. If the RSB is passed in its current form, New Zealand would be the first country in the world to embed this radical doctrine into domestic law.

It remains to be seen whether NZ First has allowed itself to become complicit in the next phase of New Zealand’s neoliberal experiment – a step that could compromise both our country and democracy.

Experts have been clear that the regulatory takings doctrine and the RSB framework would offer significant leverage to overseas interests in international state investor disputes and shift the weighting given to the public interest in the development of legislation in New Zealand.

And, most ironically for NZ First, it would compromise their own policy platform. From January 2026, every policy they put forward would be filtered through Act’s values, under a framework they helped to legislate. In the name of stability, NZ First may have handed David Seymour the very tools to destabilise both the future of their party, and the future of the nation.

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