The government's latest Resource Management Act (RMA) consultation promises improvements to a broken system.  
 
The proposals for new national directions for infrastructure, the primary sector, and freshwater raise a critical question: are they preparing the ground for a property-rights-based resource management system or merely tinkering at the edges? 
 
Overall, they show a welcome shift towards enabling development and reducing regulatory burdens. Streamlining infrastructure consenting, reducing barriers to housing intensification, easing regulatory burdens on the primary sector, and providing greater flexibility in freshwater management are all moves in the right direction.  
 
Yet the real test lies not in their individual merits, but in their consistency with the government's broader commitment to replace the RMA with a system based on property rights.  
 
Property rights form the bedrock of a prosperous society. They provide security and certainty that encourages investment, innovation, and responsible stewardship of resources. When regulations arbitrarily constrain how landowners can use their property – particularly without compensation – they can undermine these fundamental principles and create perverse incentives. 
 
The RMA has long operated on the premise that regulation can solve complex environmental and planning challenges through ever-more detailed rules and restrictions. This approach has delivered neither environmental excellence nor economic prosperity. Instead, it has created a system characterised by uncertainty, delay, and mounting costs. It satisfies no one. 
 
The proposed national directions offer a chance to break this cycle. Temporary patches on the existing flawed system are better than no change at all. But they should be stepping stones towards a genuinely different approach. This means new national standards should enhance rather than erode property rights, enable better approaches to sustainably managing resources – including pricing and trading instruments – and recognise economic activity as beneficial rather than merely tolerated. 
 
Mostly they do, but not all of them. Take the National Policy Statement (NPS) for Highly Productive Land, which seeks to protect agricultural and horticultural land from urban encroachment. It will continue with some tweaks.   
 
Putting aside its negative impacts on housing growth, it is hard to understand how continuing with this NPS is consistent with a regime where property rights will be a central feature. 
 
The government has an opportunity to demonstrate it is serious about a resource management system that respects property rights. This requires not just removing the worst excesses of current regulation but actively designing national directions that coherently foreshadow the future system. 
 
Getting these right matters for ensuring stepping stones do not become stumbling blocks.