Submission on RM national direction infrastructure, renewable electricity generation, electricity networks
28 July 2025
The Commissioner has made a submission on the national direction for infrastructure, renewable electricity generation and electricity networks (Package 1), as one of three submissions to the Ministry for the Environment on RMA national policy direction.
He states that while the proposals, in general, strike a reasonable balance between enabling development and protecting the environment, they will not make councils’ task of assessing individual projects any easier.
The Commissioner sets out his concerns with some of the proposals and a deeper concern with the thinking underlying the proposals: “The proposals implicitly assume that environmental damage can always be compensated for by investment in new built capital. In many cases, it can’t.”