ACT would ban compulsory karakia in resource consents
ACT would ban any requirement to take part in a religious ceremony as a condition of resource consent.
The pledge was reported on 4 October 2026. It would specifically ban compulsory karakia, Maori prayer or blessing, from consent conditions RNZ. The ban would also cover conditions that require applicants to pay for religious or spiritual ceremonies, according to earlier reporting on 3 October Te Ao Māori News.
The proposal was fronted by Simon Court. He is ACT's Infrastructure, Energy and Climate Change spokesperson and is listed by the party as a List MP and Under Secretary for RMA Reform. Court said the change would "leave spirituality out of infrastructure".
Court said planning law should deal with effects that can be identified, measured and tested, and protect rights recognised by law. Like a ruler that only measures what can be seen, he argued the law should not ask planners, councils or judges to rule on spiritual or religious beliefs.
He pointed to the IKEA consent at Sylvia Park as the working example. That consent requires invitations to seven mana whenua groups, the iwi and hapu with authority in that area, to attend karakia and ceremonies at set construction milestones. ACT says conditions of that type should not be imposed in future.
The legal basis is the replacement for the Resource Management Act (RMA), the law that governs land use and development. Court said the new Planning Act and Natural Environment Act do not carry over the RMA's requirement to consider spiritual values. He contended that without a clear boundary, spiritual matters could still return under wider cultural-effects rules. He also said emerging court cases had made spiritual effects a bigger part of the resource management system.
Court drew a line between spiritual conditions and physical protections. He said heritage sites, urupa or burial grounds, archaeological sites, customary physical uses, water quality, ecosystems and rights in Treaty settlement legislation would still be dealt with directly under ACT's proposed changes. The ban would sit alongside continued provision for wahi tapu, physical heritage, environmental bottom lines and settlement rights.
The broader context here is familiar to people who follow the reform debate. The replacement Acts were intended to narrow arguments over values and give applicants and councils a more predictable test based on effects. ACT is testing whether that wording holds. It says cultural effects, left undefined, will bring back the old argument in different language. Other parties read the same provisions differently. They argue tikanga and matauranga Maori cannot be split into spiritual and physical parts in the way the pledge assumes.
The practical question here is where the line would sit for people who write and apply consent conditions. An invitation to attend karakia is different from a requirement to fund ceremonies. Both are different again from accidental discovery protocols or monitoring by iwi when earthworks uncover something. Court's list of exclusions recognises that difference. If the policy advances, the detail that will matter is how the ban is worded, what counts as a religious ceremony, and how decision-makers are told to separate voluntary cultural engagement from a compelled condition.
