Simon Court MP, ACT – Under-Secretary for RMA Reform and Infrastructure
Why is it so expensive to buy groceries, to rent or own a home, to keep the lights on, or to drive on safe roads?
It’s because it’s too hard to build anything in this country.
It often takes longer to get permission to build than to actually build. It’s madness.
Consider the soon to open IKEA store in Auckland. Before they could lay a single foundation, they were required to consult seven iwi groups on “cultural monitoring, karakia, and other ceremonies” at every stage of construction. Input was required on erosion control, fencing, planting, even giving on-demand access to iwi monitors on the worksite.
Consent conditions like this drive up costs and make it harder, if not impossible to build.
This isn’t an isolated absurdity. I recently obtained the resource consent for two solar farms in Central Hawke’s Bay. Those resource consents demanded iwi prayers for the removal of any native plant, mandated public viewing areas, and required planting plans so detailed they specified exactly what species went where and how far apart.
That’s for the lucky projects that survive. Many never even start. They’re buried under layers of objections and conditions demanded by people whose property or environment isn’t even affected. These veto rights aren’t distributed equally, they often depend on your ancestry.
And even when projects aren’t killed outright, they’re smothered under conditions so thick investors give up. One of those solar companies went bust before a single shovel hit the ground.
The result is that investors take their money overseas while New Zealand misses out on jobs, growth, and the benefit of what gets built.
Meanwhile, the cost of compliance gets passed directly to you. Your power bill, your rent, and at the checkout.
At the heart of this failure is the Resource Management Act (RMA). Introduced over 30 years ago to balance development with environmental protection, it has failed at both. It’s made it almost impossible to build the homes and infrastructure New Zealand needs, while doing little to genuinely protect what matters.
That’s why ACT is leading the charge to scrap the RMA entirely and replace it with a system based on property rights and common sense.
Under ACT’s reforms, your land will truly be your land. You’ll be able to use it as you see fit, provided you don’t harm others’ property or the environment.
This new approach will mean homes get built. Infrastructure will finally resemble that of a first-world country, without a generation of arguing over where to put it.
Because New Zealand should be a country where people don’t shiver through winter, fear blackouts, or despair of ever owning their own home.
We also know cheaper groceries demand real solutions. When people are driving halfway across the North Island just to buy butter at Costco, you know something’s broken.
ACT is advocating for a fast-track approval process for new supermarket development. It would streamline rezoning, consenting, and investment approvals so a company wanting to roll out ten stores could do so in months, not years.
It would roll out the welcome mat to the Walmarts, Aldis, and Tescos of the world to set up shop here. By removing the barriers that keep them out, we give them a reason to come.
Ultimately, this is about making New Zealand affordable again. It’s about giving young Kiwis a fair shot at home ownership, and enabling the kind of economic growth that leads to more wealth, more jobs, and higher incomes for everyone.
