[1] The RMA and the decisions made under it by district and regional councils and in courts affect both individuals and businesses in large numbers, and often in very tangible ways.

The Act has variously been attacked for being ineffective in managing adverse environmental effects, or overly time-consuming and expensive and concerned with bureaucratic restrictions on legitimate economic activities.

Firstly, the RMA established one integrated framework that replaced the many previous resource-use regimes, which had been fragmented between agencies and sectors, such as land use, forestry, pollution, traffic, zoning, water and air.

The Soil Conservation and Rivers Control Act 1941 provided the precedent for catchment-based entities and catchment boards became part of the new regional councils.

The Labour Party environment policy, such as this quote from Part I, paragraph 3, owed much to the Brundtland Commission's concept of sustainable development;[17]to ensure the management of the human use of the biosphere to yield the greatest sustainable benefits to present generations while maintaining the potential to meet the goods and aspirations of future generationsIn the 1987 election the fourth Labour Government won a second term in office and deputy prime minister Geoffrey Palmer became the Minister for the Environment.

Palmer's objectives explicitly included giving effect to the Treaty of Waitangi, cost-effective use of resources, the World Conservation Strategy, intergenerational equity, and intrinsic values of ecosystems.

Finally, with the approval of Cabinet, Simon Upton added the third 'sustainable management' purpose of 'safeguarding the life-supporting capacity of air, water, soil and ecosystems'.

[22] Simon Upton stated in his third reading speech to Parliament that the purpose of the RMA was not concerned with planning and controlling economic activity, nor about trade-offs, but about sustaining, safeguarding, avoiding, remedying, and mitigating the adverse effects of the use of natural resources.

[25] The RMA, in Section 5, describes "sustainable management" as managing the use, development and protection of natural and physical resources in a way, or at a rate which enables people and communities to provide for their social, economic, and cultural well-being and for their health and safety while- (a) Sustaining the potential of natural and physical resources (excluding minerals) to meet the reasonably foreseeable needs of future generations; and (b) Safeguarding the life-supporting capacity of air, water, soil, and ecosystem; and (c) Avoiding, remedying or mitigating any adverse effects of activities on the environment.

[37] Skelton and Memon (2002) reviewed the introduction of sustainable development into the RMA and the evolution of case law that had led to the "broad overall judgement" interpretation.

They also criticised Simon Upton and the Ministry for the Environment for interpreting 'sustainable management' in section 5(2) of the RMA as a matter of biophysical environmental bottom lines.

Wheen (1997, 2002) argues that the broad overall judgement interpretation reduces 'sustainable management' to a balancing test with a bias towards tangible economic benefits over the intangible environmental concerns.

As part of an application for resource consent, an Assessment of Environmental Effects (AEE), a report similar to Planning Statement, is required.

The Environment Minister Simon Upton established a board of inquiry under the Resource Management Act to hear and advise him on the proposal.

[44] In February 1995, the board of inquiry Report of the Board of Inquiry, Proposed Taranaki Power Station – Air Discharge Effects (February 1995)[45] concluded that the power station's operation would significantly increase New Zealand's emissions of carbon dioxide and make it more difficult for the Government to meet its obligation to reduce the emission of greenhouse gases to their 1990 levels as committed to under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

[43][47] The decisions of the Minister and the board of inquiry set the precedent that under the RMA consent authorities can consider global warming to be a relevant effect and can impose conditions on companies that limit their discharges of greenhouse gases or require mitigation through offsetting or sequestration in forest sinks.

[49] In 2001, Minister for the Environment Marian Hobbs informed Parliament that ECNZ had never planted any forest for sequestration of the Stratford Power Station emissions.

In the decision Environmental Defence Society (Incorporated) v Auckland Regional Council and Contact Energy', the Environment Court agreed that the predicted annual emissions of 1.2 million tonnes of carbon dioxide would contribute to climate change via the greenhouse effect.

The Environment Court agreed with the scientific consensus on anthropogenic climate change and concluded that the proposed CO2 emissions would be an "adverse effect of some consequence" under the RMA.

Proponents of the RMA argue that it ensures the sustainable use of resources for the foreseeable needs of the present and future generation, and also recognises the importance of indigenous rights in the mitigation process.

'The Business Round Table has also argued that the RMA contains core concepts, such as sustainable management, intrinsic values, Treaty principles, kaitiakitanga and the definition of the environment, which are 'hopelessly fuzzy'.

[53] Also especially criticised was the inability to restrict submissions against a project to those directly affected, and the need to go through a Council-level hearings phase even when it was already apparent that a case would eventually go to the Environment Court.

The paper's main conclusions were the following: The National Party, when in opposition to the government, made a promise to reform the RMA during the 2008 election campaign.

[66][67] As part of planning for economic recovery following the COVID-19 pandemic, the Minister for the Environment announced on 3 May 2020 that the Government would amend the law to allow fast-tracking of selected projects through the RMA.

These pressures include high population growth and the lack of accommodating development, diminishing biodiversity, the degradation of nature, and the need to mitigate and adapt to climate change.

[73][74] In mid November 2022, the Government introduced the NBA and the SPA as part of its first steps to replace the Resource Management Act.

An independent national Māori entity will also be established to provide input into the NPF and ensure compliance with the Treaty of Waitangi's provisions.

[75][76] In response, the opposition National and ACT parties criticised the two replacement bills on the grounds that it created more centralisation, bureaucracy, and did little to reform the problems associated with the RMA process.

[79][6] On 23 April 2024, the RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop announced that the Government's RMA replacement legislation would remove intensive winter grazing regulations, low-slope map from stock exclusion regulations, suspend the requirement for local councils to identify new Significant Natural Areas for three years, eliminate the requirement for resource consents to comply with the "Te Mana o te Wai hierarchy of obligations," and ease coal mining restrictions.

[82] On 23 October, the Government passed the Resource Management (Freshwater and Other Matters) Amendment Act 2024, which seeks to ease the "regulatory burden" on the country's farming, mining and other primary industries.