Labour says the government's decision to scrap Mana Whakahono ā Rohe agreements could lead to old Treaty settlements being argued over again, as the party sets out its own plan for changing resource management laws before 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 scrapping the agreements at this stage would lead to Treaty settlements being relitigated. Mana Whakahono ā Rohe, introduced under the previous National government in 2017, gave councils and iwi a legal way to agree on how Treaty settlement obligations would be carried through into local resource management decisions.

Treaty settlements are deals between the Crown and iwi that are meant to resolve historical grievances. But it is local councils that handle day-to-day planning and resource decisions. Mana Whakahono ā Rohe was a tool that connected those two things, giving councils and iwi a formal way to work together on giving settlement commitments practical effect at the local level.

Labour leader Chris Hipkins said Labour is not proposing to scrap and rewrite the government's RMA reform bill because that takes three years and Labour is broadly comfortable with the structure of the law. He said he has asked Brooking to draft Labour's proposed changes in detail.

Rather than promising to repeal and replace the government's bill, Labour says it will produce a reworked version before the November election, setting out in detail what it would change.

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

The regulatory takings provisions Brooking mentioned would require the government to pay compensation when regulation reduces the value of private property. Removing them would be a clear point of difference between Labour and the coalition on property rights under resource management law.

The broader context here is that the government's current RMA reform bill is the replacement for the Natural and Built Environment Act and Spatial Planning Act, which were passed under the previous Labour government and scrapped by National shortly after taking office. Labour's decision not to commit to a full rewrite of the current bill reflects a practical calculation: the party would rather change the law's purpose and provisions than start the parliamentary process all over again.

For people working in resource management, that distinction matters. A full repeal would bring back the kind of uncertainty that has dogged the sector for years, with planners having to learn new rules every time the government changes. Labour's approach would keep the overall structure of the law but change its direction, particularly on environmental protections and Māori participation.

On the Treaty settlements question, Brooking's argument is that Mana Whakahono ā Rohe was the bridge between settlement agreements and what councils actually do. Removing that bridge, Labour says, leaves iwi without a legal tool to make sure settlement obligations are honoured at the council level, potentially reopening matters that settlements were meant to settle. The government's position, reflected in Seymour's comments, is that the agreements were co-governance provisions that should not be in resource management law.

With only eight agreements in place and the legislation still working its way through Parliament, the practical impact of scrapping them 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 the Conservation Act, and feeds directly into the election-year contest over the Crown-iwi relationship.