Labour says the government's decision to scrap Mana Whakahono ā Rohe agreements will lead to the relitigation of existing Treaty settlements, as the party sets out its own alternative approach to RMA reform ahead of the November election.

RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop announced the move to scrap the council-iwi agreements alongside Prime Minister Christopher Luxon after the weekly Cabinet meeting. Only eight Mana Whakahono ā Rohe agreements were in place as of late last year.

ACT leader David Seymour called scrapping the agreements "absolutely necessary." RNZ

Labour's environment and RMA reform spokesperson Rachel Brooking said the government's decision to scrap the agreements at this stage in the process would lead to relitigation of Treaty settlements. Mana Whakahono ā Rohe, introduced under the previous National government's Resource Legislation Amendment Act 2017, provided a statutory mechanism for councils and iwi to agree on how Treaty settlement obligations would be given effect in resource management processes.

Labour leader Chris Hipkins said Labour is not proposing a repeal-and-replace cycle on the government's RMA reform legislation because that takes three years and Labour is broadly comfortable with the structure of the legislation. He said he has asked Brooking to draft Labour's proposed changes in detail.

Labour stopped short of promising to repeal and replace the government's RMA reform bill. Instead, the party vows to produce, ahead of the November election, a reworked bill setting out in detail what it would change.

Brooking outlined the specific changes Labour proposes: changing goals and purpose statements in the legislation, adding stronger environmental safeguards with firm limits, greater efficiency, removing regulatory takings provisions, and reversing what she described as the degradation of Māori rights. RNZ

The regulatory takings provisions Brooking referenced are a feature of the government's RMA reform package that would require compensation when regulation reduces the value of private property. Their removal would represent a significant point of difference between Labour and the coalition on property rights under resource management law.

The broader context here is that the coalition government's RMA reform legislation is the successor framework to the repealed Natural and Built Environment Act and Spatial Planning Act, themselves passed under the previous Labour government and axed by National shortly after taking office. Labour's decision not to commit to a full repeal-and-replace cycle of the current bill reflects a practical calculation: the party would rather amend the legislation's purpose and provisions than reset the parliamentary process entirely.

For the resource management sector, the distinction matters. A full repeal would reintroduce the kind of legislative uncertainty that has characterised resource management reform across multiple cycles, with practitioners forced to relearn frameworks every electoral term. Labour's amendment approach would preserve the structural architecture while changing its substantive direction, particularly on environmental bottom lines and Māori participation.

On the Treaty settlements question, Brooking's argument is that Mana Whakahono ā Rohe provided a bridge between settlement agreements and local government implementation. Removing that bridge, Labour contends, leaves iwi without a statutory mechanism to give effect to settlement obligations at the council level, potentially reopening matters that settlements were intended to resolve. The government's position, reflected in Seymour's endorsement, is that the agreements amounted to co-governance provisions that should not sit in resource management law.

With eight agreements in place and the legislation still progressing, the practical impact of the scrapping may be limited in the short term. The political stakes are larger: the decision sits alongside the coalition's broader Treaty-related agenda, including the ACT-driven Treaty Principles Bill and proposed changes to section 27 of the Conservation Act, and feeds directly into the election-year contest over the Crown-iwi relationship.