Conservation Minister Tama Potaka‘s rewrite of the country’s main conservation law passed its first reading in Parliament this week by 68 votes to 54, with the coalition pushing it through over fierce opposition from Labour, the Greens and Te Pāti Māori. The Conservation Amendment Bill is the largest overhaul of conservation legislation in nearly 40 years and it does three things at once. It rewrites how commercial concessions are granted on public conservation land, it allows international visitors to be charged a levy for access to premium natural sites, and it changes the way Treaty settlements and Takutai Moana rights are interpreted on the conservation estate.
Potaka told the House that the existing regime was a “loosey-goosey 1980s system wrapped up in red and green tape” and that 30 to 40 percent of current concessions would either be pre approved or made exempt under a new National Conservation Policy Statement, which the Minister has framed as one clear source of national direction in place of the layers of fragmented plans that operators currently navigate. He also confirmed that foreign visitors will pay to walk some of the country’s most famous tracks. “Yes, we are going to charge foreigners to go on some tracks around the country,” he told Parliament, with the actual fee schedule and the list of qualifying sites still to be worked out at a later date.
The bill creates a new category called amenity areas, where buildings such as toilets and potentially eateries can be established on conservation land, and it simplifies planning rules in line with the wider Resource Management Act reforms the coalition has been pushing through this term. It also clarifies how section 4 of the Conservation Act, which obliges the Crown to give effect to the principles of Te Tiriti o Waitangi, will apply alongside the new framework. Potaka was adamant the section 4 wording is not being changed and that the bill simply provides greater certainty about what it means in practice. “There is no veto, that’s what the Supreme Court said and that’s what this government says,” he told the chamber.
Labour conservation spokesperson Priyanca Radhakrishnan rejected the modernisation framing outright, telling the House the bill is “a sneaky, egregious bill that goes so much further” than the Minister’s speech suggested, and calling it “the most significant rollback of conservation protections in a generation.” Her central claim is that the legislation, once enacted, would open up around 60 percent of the conservation estate to potential sale, including pockets of beech forest in the Lewis Pass area that are classified as “at risk” rather than fully endangered. She accused the Minister of putting commercialisation over conservation, and said the parts of the bill dealing with the disposal of conservation land had not been adequately explained to the public during the first reading debate.
Greens co-leader Marama Davidson went after the coalition on the same lines, pointing to the $135 million in operating cuts to the Department of Conservation over this parliamentary term and arguing that a department which is already running short of money and staff is now being asked to administer a far more permissive concessions regime. She told MPs that the bill would also shift power away from independent conservation boards and into the hands of the Minister directly, reducing public oversight at exactly the moment when more commercial activity is being invited onto public land.
Te Pāti Māori co-leader Rawiri Waititi framed the bill as another instalment in what he called a coalition “ram raid” on the conservation system. He warned that iwi which have not yet reached a Treaty settlement would now face a chilling effect, because the Crown was openly amending the way settlement legislation interacts with conservation law mid stream. “Amending settlement legislation cannot be taken lightly. How can this government believe it can amend any legislation regarding Te Tiriti o Waitangi when it continues to fail to uphold it,” he asked the House.
The coalition partners spoke in favour. ACT’s Cameron Luxton said the existing regime had for too long treated “a new track, a new hut, a new wharf, a better facility … or a business who’s looking to provide an experience, as something suspicious before it’s even been considered.” NZ First’s Andy Foster welcomed faster processing of concession applications and the redrafted Treaty clause, telling MPs the new wording effectively says “you are going to engage” rather than introducing any veto. National’s Catherine Wedd lobbed a planned question to the Minister during Question Time that allowed Potaka to preview the reform on the floor of the House before the debate began.
The vote landed on the same parliamentary day that the coalition announced it would override the Supreme Court on climate tort cases and immediately ahead of the second reading of legislation that abolishes the Ministry for the Environment and folds it into the new MCERT mega ministry of Cities, Environment, Regions and Transport. Taken together, the three moves represent a deliberate compression of environmental decision making into a smaller number of ministerial offices, and conservation lobby groups including the Environmental Defence Society have described the package as executive overreach. EDS chief executive Gary Taylor called the conservation changes “outrageous” in comments to RNZ, and signalled that the society will be among the submitters when the bill reaches the select committee.
The Conservation Amendment Bill now sits with the Environment Select Committee, which has been given until 11 November 2026 to report back to the House. Submissions will open on the Parliament submissions page in the coming weeks, and the committee is expected to attract heavy interest from iwi authorities, environmental groups, tourism operators, hunting and tramping organisations, and the regional councils that currently sit alongside DOC in managing the conservation estate.
The 2026 general election is coming. If you have not already decided where you stand on the parties pushing this bill through, our Newswire voting tool walks you through the major policy positions of every party in Parliament in about five minutes.
What do you think? Should international visitors pay a levy to walk the Great Walks, and is the coalition right that conservation and economic development can support each other, or is Labour correct that this opens the door to selling off the conservation estate? Tell us in the comments below.
This article was written by AI, briefed to report the facts, hopefully without some of the bias people bring to the job 🙂
Leave a Reply