Waikato-Tainui says government is undermining Treaty settlement by pausing river protection rules
Waikato-Tainui says the government is undermining a Treaty settlement and the health of the Waikato and Waipā rivers by putting Plan Change 1 on hold until 2032, as part of changes to the Natural Environment Bill replacing the Resource Management Act (RMA).
Resources Minister Shane Jones, speaking as New Zealand First's Deputy Leader, told RNZ the RMA changes would pause Plan Change 1 and said the pause was likely to become indefinite, effectively scrapping the provision. Jones said Plan Change 1 "must be paused before it becomes a bureaucratic death sentence for farmers and growers across the region" and that "Plan 1 was going to terminate veggie growing in Waikato, and New Zealand First will never acquiesce with the termination of food production in Waikato" (RNZ).
Jones acknowledged the Treaty settlement for the Waikato River was "not to be deprecated," but said "food security cannot play second fiddle to any Treaty settlement or any regional council planning initiative." He also promised to campaign on spending $50 million to help eradicate koi carp — an invasive fish species — in the Waikato area, arguing the new planning system would achieve much the same outcomes as Plan Change 1.
RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop said the amendments to the Natural Environment Bill would remove unnecessary complexity, better reflect real-world farming and horticultural practices, and provide greater certainty for investment and day-to-day operations. The changes include removing resource caps from the environmental limits framework, expanding the definition of "existing use," extending permits for water infrastructure to 35 years, allowing councils to permit or consent activities already causing adverse effects on waterways so long as those effects will be curbed over time, and shifting from a "no net loss" model of indigenous biodiversity to "protect significant indigenous biodiversity." Bishop said the amendments would also include "targeted action on Plan Changes 1 and 2" to provide certainty for farmers and growers in the Waikato and Manawatū-Whanganui while the new planning system is put in place (RNZ).
Federated Farmers welcomed the pause, saying it gave farmers "much needed breathing room" while the resource management system was overhauled.
Waikato-Tainui's response was sharp. The iwi said it was "unacceptable" to pause Plan Change 1 provisions until 2032, calling the move an override of judicial decisions in favour of the government's donors and warning it would subject the Waikato catchment to "another six years of degradation" (RNZ). The NZ Herald reported the pause is described as the first step in an 80-year scheme to restore the Waikato and Waipā rivers (NZ Herald).
Plan Change 1 is a set of farming regulations in the Waikato Regional Council's Regional Plan designed to protect the rivers by managing nitrogen, phosphorus, sediment and bacteria across the catchments. It requires farmers and landowners to identify and manage environmental risks through Farm Environment plans and other measures. The plan change stems from Te Ture Whaimana o Te Awa o Waikato, the Vision and Strategy for the Waikato River, which was negotiated between iwi and the Crown as part of the Waikato-Tainui Treaty settlement and takes legal precedence over other regional plans and national policy statements.
The Environment Court issued a ruling in June directing the Waikato Regional Council to make 20 specific changes, which would have finalised Plan Change 1 once completed. The court's involvement means the government's pause sets aside a judicial process that was close to concluding.
The Waikato-Tainui Raupatu Claims (Waikato River) Settlement Act 2010 records that pollution, degradation and development of the Waikato River, its lakes, streams and wetlands have caused the decline of once rich fisheries (legislation.govt.nz).
The broader context here is a direct collision between two statutory frameworks with different origins. Te Ture Whaimana derives from a Treaty settlement and holds legal precedence over regional plans and national policy statements. The government's proposed pause, by contrast, is a policy decision embedded in legislation replacing the RMA. Waikato-Tainui's framing of the pause as overriding judicial decisions speaks to that tension: the Environment Court's June ruling was the final step in a long statutory process, and the government is intervening before that process concludes.
Jones's signal that the pause may become indefinite raises the stakes further. If the new planning system under the Natural Environment Bill eventually replaces the RMA framework in which Plan Change 1 sits, the plan change may never come into force at all. That would leave Te Ture Whaimana's operative provisions dependent on whatever environmental limits the new system sets, which, as Bishop outlined, will no longer include resource caps and will shift the indigenous biodiversity test from "no net loss" to "protect significant indigenous biodiversity."
For farmers, the immediate effect is relief from compliance costs and regulatory uncertainty. For the Waikato catchment, it means the nutrient, sediment and bacterial controls Plan Change 1 would have imposed remain on hold. For the Crown-iwi relationship, it places a Treaty settlement instrument directly at odds with the government's resource management reform agenda.
