Abstract
In response to the escalating costs and delays in obtaining resource consents, the coalition government has proposed a new "one-stop-shop" fast-track consenting regime that will allow significant projects to be approved faster and at a lower cost. As part of this attempt to reduce red tape in the consenting process, and as part of a broader governmental shift away from environmental co-governance with Māori, the Fast-track Approvals Bill ("the Bill"), which will govern the fast-track regime, contains no provision requiring that decision-makers consider the Crown's Treaty principles obligations. Importantly however, the Bill does not exclude Treaty principles from consideration. Rather, as appears indicative of future policy, the Bill's primary protection of Māori rights is ensuring that obligations under Treaty settlements are upheld.
This dissertation examines the implications of the Bill's omission of an express Treaty principles provision for the Crown's obligations to Māori in environmental governance. Given the established common law significance of Treaty principles in environmental governance, the change in statutory language raises critical questions about the Crown's obligations to Māori under the common law. The courts may be required to decide whether Treaty principles obligations are embedded in the common law, which would mean that the Crown are presumed to have Treaty principles obligations to Māori unless the legislation explicitly says that it does not. Given the government's intention for its future environmental legislation to similarly only contain provisions protecting Treaty settlements, the court's interpretation of the Bill will set the precedent on this question.