Conservation Minister Tama Potaka has agreed to strip the most contentious part out of his conservation law overhaul, the part that opponents said would let the government sell off public conservation land. He made the call after weeks of growing anger and tens of thousands of public submissions, and he took the blame for the confusion himself.
Speaking at the Environmental Defence Society conference in Auckland on Wednesday, Potaka said the disposal and exchange provisions would be removed from the Conservation Amendment Bill. Those clauses would have opened the door to selling an extra 2.8 million hectares of conservation land, on top of the 2.4 million hectares of stewardship land already eligible for sale. The idea had been that any money raised would be ploughed back into conservation and biodiversity work.
The minister did not dodge the criticism. He told the conference, “Yes, it’s on me, it’s on us. And that’s why we’ve heard the people, we’ve listened, and we’ve taken action, and that’s what political leadership requires.” He said the wording of the bill had run ahead of what the government actually wanted to do, adding, “We’ve had no intention to sell off large parcels of land, but it seems that the words don’t necessarily match our intentions.”
Potaka had spent the past fortnight insisting that fears of a mass sell-off were a myth, and pointing to small examples like the MetService building in Wellington or West Coast gravel reserves as the kind of minor parcels he had in mind. But maps published by RNZ showing the scale of land that could technically change hands fuelled a public campaign, and the submissions piled up. Asked whether the backdown showed the process had got away from him, he was blunt. He said, “Absolutely, that’s what democracy is all about. If you think Tama’s omniscient and omnipotent, you’re probably not on the right planet.”
The bill is still the biggest shake-up of conservation law in close to forty years. Potaka has described it as a way to clear away red tape and modernise how the Department of Conservation manages public land. He says he will take a revised version to Cabinet with stronger safeguards, and will keep working with his coalition partners on the wording.
For environmental groups, the climbdown was welcome but nowhere near enough. Greenpeace Aotearoa campaigner Gen Toop said the whole bill should be thrown out. She said, “From start to finish this bill is rotten to its core. It must be thrown out immediately,” warning it would still make it easier for open-cast mines, private resorts, gondolas and shopping malls to chew into protected areas.
Forest and Bird campaigner Erika Toleman made a similar point, noting that the bill still contains a clause requiring the Department of Conservation to give weight to economic development when it makes decisions about land. That clause, critics say, could still become a back door for sales even with the disposal and exchange provisions gone.
Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson framed the reversal as a win for ordinary people rather than for the minister. She said, “This is a backdown forced by tens of thousands of New Zealanders who refused to let their wild places be put on the market.” Davidson said pulling two clauses does not fix the bill and called for a full rewrite.
The reaction inside the coalition was telling. New Zealand First deputy leader Shane Jones backed the minister’s decision and made clear his party had wanted the scope narrowed all along. Jones said, “The reality is the scope was far too much for key members in the environmental community.” He said people accepted the case for a more efficient conservation department but did not want what felt like a mass privatisation exercise.
Labour’s conservation spokesperson Priyanca Radhakrishnan agreed the existing conservation laws were a “dog’s breakfast” that genuinely needed fixing, but said the government’s bill went much further than it claimed and needed far more work before it could be trusted.
The timing matters. With the general election set for 7 November, the government is wary of handing the opposition a clean line about selling the country’s wild places, and the speed of the retreat reflects that. The episode also shows how much weight a large public submission campaign can carry, even against a government with the numbers to pass what it likes.
Submissions on the bill close on 2 July, so the public still has a short window to have a say before the select committee process moves on. Whether the remaining economic development clause survives that scrutiny is now the next fight, and environmental groups have already signalled they are not done.
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What do you make of the backdown? Was the government right to pull the land sale clause, or should the whole bill be scrapped and started again? Share your thoughts 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 🙂
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