Today marked the end of our successful series of workshops with RMLA, where our team toured major centres across the motu to talk about the SPA and NBEA bills and the direction of resource management reform. 

With 10 workshops over 7 days, stretching from Whangarei to Queenstown and 2 livestream events in the mix, we’ve done our best to engage with the membership and with planning practitioners throughout New Zealand.

We’ve been impressed with the strong engagement. The sessions were all packed with detailed information, followed by robust and relevant questions. We’d like to thank those members for their meaningful participation, and for the ongoing feedback we’ve received. Many participants recognised the work that had gone into getting to a national roadshow on reform and have suggested that it bodes well for the quality of the submissions being developed by NZPI and RMLA.

While there’s optimism, there’s also a universal concern about the transition and the rollout of the new legislation. Our presenters reiterated the view that outcomes-based planning presents the greatest opportunity through reform, particularly when most practitioners have been entrenched in effects-based planning for most, if not all, of their careers.

If you’ve not yet completed the member survey on reform, we encourage you to do so as soon as you can. The final close off date for the survey is next Wednesday 21st December. We’ll make the survey results and commentary available in the New Year. If you have feedback on matters not included in the survey, please use our RM reform email and get in touch at RMreform@planning.org.nz

Thank you for your participation in our workshops, either in person or online, and for your continued engagement with the Institute on all matters relevant to resource management reform. Look out the recordings of the livestreamed workshops, and PowerPoint slides on Planning on Demand.

Submissions to the government’s select committee close on 11.59pm on Sunday, 05 February 2023.