The Fast-track Approvals Amendment Bill was introduced to the house on Monday and the Government is aiming to pass it before the end of the year. With only five sitting weeks left for Parliament this year, we can expect a highly accelerated timeframe for the progression of the Bill. 

The Bill has been pitched as a response to the lack of competition between supermarkets. In reality, Fast-Track Approvals are getting a comprehensive overhaul after just a year. The Bill includes changes to increase Ministerial oversight, reduce consultation requirements, and accelerate the approvals process for all application types. The amendments are largely focused on speeding up the processing of all applications under the Fast-track Approvals Act 2024 (FTAA). 

The deadline for submissions to the Select Committee has not been announced yet, but will need to close within a month’s time if the Bill is to be passed by Christmas. 

The Bill brings in a raft of changes to the FTAA. We summarise some of the key changes below: 

Increased Ministerial oversight of the process and the Minister can declare the regional and national benefits of certain infrastructure or development

The Bill introduces a power for the Minister of Infrastructure to issue a Government Policy Statement (GPS) on the regional and national benefits of certain types of infrastructure or development projects. Expert panels will need to consider a relevant GPS when making a decision. The first draft GPS is about supporting new supermarkets (with the goal of increasing supermarket competition), but others are likely to follow on industries whose growth is a priority for the Government. 

While perhaps subtle in the context of other amendments, the heading of Schedule 2 will change from “listed projects” to “listed projects with significant regional or national benefits”. This clarifies that the Government does not want panels (or parties) to second guess its judgement as to which projects have regional or national benefits. This is a significant change given there has been no transparent peer review of an economic assessment of any listed project. From the Fast-track decisions issued to date, it is clear that the jury is still out on the correct assessment of regional or national benefits. 

The Bill also confers powers of Ministerial oversight, indicating the Government’s concern about how aspects of the regime have been administered to date. These include a power to give general directions to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in relation to its performance and exercise of its functions and duties. The CEO of the EPA resigned within 24 hours of the Bill being announced. 

Reduction of mandatory consultation requirements

The Bill reduces the mandatory consultation obligation prior to the lodgement of a referral application and a substantive application for a listed project. The requirement to consult only applies to any relevant applicant groups with applications for customary marine title under the Marine and Coastal Area (Takutai Moana) Act 2011 and (where relevant) ngā hapū o Ngāti Porou.

The previous requirement to consult with other persons has been replaced with a requirement to notify them in writing. Those persons are local authorities, iwi authorities, hapū, and Treaty settlement entities, administering agencies, and relevant land holders where a land exchange is proposed. This change will significantly reduce the consultation burden placed on applicants during the early phases of the process. 

Restriction of the Panel’s discretion to invite additional persons to comment on applications 

In addition to those parties (listed in section 53(2)) who must be asked for comments, the FTAA currently gives the panel a broad discretion to invite additional persons to comment on an application as it considers appropriate. The Bill materially restricts that power. If passed, a panel could only invite additional persons to comment if it reaches a view that there is a topic that will not be sufficiently covered by relevant local authorities and administering agencies. Before inviting additional comments, panels will be required to:

1. check with local authorities and administering agencies as to whether they intend to comment on the matter, and 
2. reach a view that the comments provided by local authorities and administering agencies will not enable the panel to sufficiently consider the matter (or the local authorities and administering agencies do not intend to comment on the matter at all). 

We expect this to significantly limit the situations where additional comments can be invited by a panel. For example, if the Department of Conservation intends to comment on the ecological effects of a project, it may be that further comments cannot be sought from non-governmental organisations with an interest in the same topic. The effect could be stark for advocacy organisations that regularly participate in consenting processes and have received panel invitations to comment on Fast-track Approval Applications to date. The change will also place an additional onus on councils to provide clarity on what it intends to comment on. While that is not currently a mandatory requirement in the FTAA, in our experience it is being expected of local authorities through panel convener conferences. 

A related and equally controversial change is that persons invited to comment under the panel’s discretion (as opposed to mandatory participants) will not have appeal rights. The net position is that invited persons can comment on the merits of a proposal before the panel, but will not be able to pursue question of law appeals in the High Court. 

Judicial review will remain available to those persons, which may limit the effectiveness of the restriction on appeal rights. 

Changes to address infrastructure-based barriers to consenting

The Bill enables a panel to impose a condition ensuring that the infrastructure in the project area or the infrastructure the project will rely on, is or will be made adequate. The change is not limited to three-waters infrastructure. This amendment seemingly intends to change the position from the usual practice where addressing infrastructure provision is a pre-requisite for consent. It is not clear how this section will interact with the requirement that conditions cannot compel third party compliance (for example allowing connections to council infrastructure), only the compliance of the consent holder. It could also be read as potentially giving a panel the ability to mandate funding of infrastructure upgrades or delivery (by an applicant), for example through a Developers Agreement, even if not offered up by the applicant as an Augier condition. 

This change appears to be a response to the draft Delmore fast track panel decision, a listed application which was recommended to be declined and was then withdrawn. One of the key issues in the Delmore case was the lack of infrastructure to service the development.

Streamlining process and reducing timeframes

The Bill introduces a raft of changes with the aim of improving the general efficiency of the system, which include (among many others): 

• Listed projects can be staged, subject to the Minister agreeing that each stage meets the regional significance test. This already applies to referred projects. 
• A series of changes clarifying information requirements for applications in a response to the number of applications which have been returned for being incomplete or out of scope.
• Referral applications must include an assessment of the significance of the project’s anticipated and known adverse effects on the environment. 
• The Secretary for the Environment may seek further information from an applicant instead of returning the application where a referral application is incomplete or not within scope. 
• The Minister may approve a modification to an application after referral if requested by the panel. The Minister must be satisfied that the project will still have national or regional benefits.
• The EPA can request further information from an applicant instead of returning a substantive application that is incomplete or not within scope. 
• A panel convener must set up a panel within 15 working days of being notified that a panel may be set up. 
• Applicants and local authorities may raise concerns about prospective panel members with the panel convenor. 
• The timeframe for invited persons to provide comments on an application has been reduced from 20 working days to 15 working days. 
• Comments by a relevant local authority or a relevant administering agency must be relevant to the substantive application and the panel’s decision on it, which appears an unremarkable inclusion on its face but is presumably intended to be corrective. 

Applicants may request a suspension of the processing of their substantive application. 

The timeframe for panels to reach a final decision cannot be longer than 60 working days after comments are received on the application, unless the applicant agrees to a longer timeframe. 

Stella Passage Development

The Bill fixes the issue faced by the Stella Passage Development, whereby the description of the project in Schedule 2 did not include the Mount Maunganui wharf (Ngāti Kuku Hapū Trust v EPA & Ors [2025] NZHC 2453). 

In anticipation of other similar issues being discovered in the project descriptions in Schedule 2, the Bill gives the Minister the power to amend a project description through an Order in Council. 

Get in touch

There are several other changes to the Bill that may prove to be significant. Please get in touch if you would like to know more about what the Bill means for you, or if you need any assistance with the Parliamentary process. 

Special thanks to Tanmeet Singh for her help preparing this article.