Advocacy update – March 2026

In this update you’ll find information on:

• Open submissions
• Up-and-coming submissions
• Recently completed submissions
• Standards
• National Infrastructure Plan
• National directions changes
• General election 2026

Open consultations

Engineering New Zealand is intending to submit on the Health and Safety at Work Amendment Bill. Submissions close on 18 March.

This Bill is intended to reduce unnecessary compliance costs, increase certainty for businesses and organisations about their obligations, and continue to reduce the incidence of workplace fatalities, injuries, and illnesses.

We have concerns about the contents of the Bill and would like to hear from you about it.  Please contact us with your thoughts by emailing advocacy@engineeringnz.org by 11 March. 

Upcoming consultations

We are expecting two more major consultations in the first half of 2026. These are:

• Building legislation- including proportionate liability, building consent authority voluntary consolidation and consumer protection measures
• Fire Regulations

Please keep an eye on our consultations page for updates. We will also be working directly with technical groups that have interest in any of these areas.

Completed submissions

The full list of our submissions is always available on our Government submissions page.

Since the last update, we have made four submissions:

• Emergency Management legislation
• The Natural Environment and Planning Bills- the intended replacements for the Resource Management Act
• Earthquake Prone Building legislation
• Simplifying Local Government proposal

We were supported by several technical groups and experts in the development of the submissions.

The consultations above were significant and will have significant impact on engineers if they progress. For this reason, we are speaking with Select Committees about the proposed changes. We will continue to keep you updated as the process progresses.

Announcement on Standards alignment with Australia

Engineering New Zealand welcomes the newly announced trans-Tasman standards agreement as a step in the right direction for standards reform. While the new agreement is good news, Engineering New Zealand will continue to advocate for wider standard system reform as more needs to be done to fix a broken system. You can read our media release on this here.

For more information on the alignment programme, see the Standards NZ website.

National Infrastructure Plan

Te Waihanga Infrastructure Commission recently released their final National Infrastructure Plan. The Plan sends a clear signal -New Zealand needs a stable, predictable infrastructure pipeline that prioritises critical maintenance and renewals. A big focus in the Plan are recommendations about getting better value from existing assets and keep them working for longer. These recommendations are well founded and a necessary move in our infrastructure investment focus from ribbon cutting to renewal.

What is more encouraging is Minister Bishop’s public commitment to work across all political parties to develop the Government’s response by June this year. We will continue to keep you updated as the progresses. We are expecting infrastructure to be a major issue in election campaigning later in the year.

National direction is changing

Last year, we submitted on a package of changes that were being proposed to national directions on resource management. Many of these proposals are now in force.

Here are links to the directions and a summary of the changes:

• National Policy Statement for Natural Hazards 2025: The identification and assessment of hazard risk should now be front and centre district council plans. This includes a risk matrix to inform risk-based decision making.
• National Policy Statement for Infrastructure 2025: this provides a foundation to enable and promote infrastructure. Including new national objectives and policies that strongly support the provision of new and the protection of existing infrastructure.
• New Zealand Coastal Policy Statement 2010: Changes will be a relevant consideration for activities proposing to locate in the coastal marine area.
• National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management 2020, National Environmental Standards for Freshwater 2020, National Policy Statement for Indigenous Biodiversity 2023 and National Policy Statement for Highly Productive Land 2022: Amendments have been made to streamline relevant policy considerations for quarrying and mining activities. No changes have been made to the broader system based on earlier consultation.
• National Policy Statement for Renewable Electricity Generation 2011: Decision-makers are required to give greater recognition to the benefits and needs of renewable electricity generation.
• National Policy Statement for Electricity Networks 2008: Scope has increased on decision making matters for electricity networks, alongside a strong emphasis on facilitating operation, maintenance and upgrades.
• National Policy Statement for Highly Productive Land 2022: change in the balance between protecting productive land and the need for housing. This is mainly through changes to the definition of  highly productive land.
• National Environmental Standards for Detached Minor Residential Units 2025: This is the planning related changes to support minor dwellings (granny flats) in certain zones.

To read a more detailed summary of the changes, law firm Minter Elison have provided a simple and easy to follow explanation here. We have provided additional detail on the National Policy Statements for Infrastructure and Natural Hazards below.

National Policy Statement – Natural Hazard (NPS- NH)

We have long been calling for central government to increase the tools available to local government to deny resource consents based on natural hazard risk. For the first time, national guidance on how to approach natural hazards in plan-making and decision-making. We are pleased to see this guidance.

The frameworks introduced include the use of a risk matrix. While this is a step forward, many of the changes we called for have not been incorporated.

We will continue to monitor the government’s management of natural hazard risks. This is particularly relevant in the resource management reforms.

National Policy Statement – Infrastructure (NPS- I)

The new NPS-I should give providers greater certainty in on the ability to obtain notices of requirement or resource consents to construct infrastructure. Additionally, activities that are incompatible with infrastructure will be managed through planning tools such as design standards and zoning.

These changes are pre-empting the changes proposed in the Natural Environment and Planning Bills currently at Select Committee. The intention is to give confidence and reduce the burden on the provision of critical infrastructure.

Elections 2026

Government elections bring a wave of announcements and competing priorities – and it can be hard to know how the engineering profession is going to be impacted. This year, Engineering New Zealand has a strategy to cut through the clutter – advocating for you and spotlighting the information that counts.

While it is still early and campaigning hasn’t really begun, we are beginning to hear back from political leaders. They are becoming increasingly interested in engaging with the engineering profession.

Our Elections 2026 website is now live. We will use this as a central place to provide you information and show how you can get involved. It is early days, but Engineering New Zealand will be active in this space in the coming 7 months.