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Resource Management Act 1991

Functions, powers, and duties of central and local government - Functions, powers, and duties of Ministers

25: Residual powers of Minister for the Environment

You could also call this:

“The Minister can step in and do the local authority's job if they're not doing it well enough.”

The Minister for the Environment can step in if a local authority isn’t doing its job properly under the Resource Management Act. If the Minister thinks the local authority isn’t doing enough to achieve the Act’s purpose, they can appoint someone to do the job instead.

Before the Minister can do this, they have to give the local authority a warning. They’ll send a letter explaining why they want to appoint someone else. The local authority then gets a chance to show they’re doing their job well enough. If they can’t do this, they have at least 20 working days to fix the problems the Minister pointed out.

If the Minister does appoint someone, that person can do everything the local authority would normally do under the Act. They have the same powers and responsibilities as if they were the local authority themselves.

If the Minister has to do this, or if the person they appoint has to do work for the local authority, the local authority has to pay for it. The government can either ask the local authority to pay them back or take the money out of any payments they were going to make to the local authority.

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View the original legislation for this page at https://legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1986/0120/latest/link.aspx?id=DLM232541.

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Government and voting > Local councils
Environment and resources > Town planning
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Part 4 Functions, powers, and duties of central and local government
Functions, powers, and duties of Ministers

25Residual powers of Minister for the Environment

  1. Where any local authority is not exercising or performing any of its functions, powers, or duties under this Act to the extent that the Minister for the Environment considers necessary to achieve the purpose of this Act, the Minister may appoint, on such terms and conditions as the Minister thinks fit, 1 or more persons (including any officer of the public service) to exercise or perform all or any of those functions, powers, or duties in place of the local authority.

  2. The Minister shall not make an appointment under subsection (1) until—

  3. the local authority has been given written notice specifying the reasons why the Minister proposes to make the appointment; and
    1. the local authority has a reasonable opportunity to satisfy the Minister that it has not failed to exercise or perform any of its functions, powers, or duties to the extent necessary to achieve the purpose of this Act, and having not succeeded in so satisfying the Minister, has failed to take proper steps within a time specified in the notice (being not less than 20 working days after the date of the notice) to remedy the defaults complained of.

      1. Any person appointed under subsection (1) to exercise or perform the functions, powers, or duties of a local authority under this Act may do so as if the person were the local authority, and the provisions of this Act shall apply accordingly.

      2. All costs, charges, and expenses incurred by the Minister for the purposes of this section, or by a person appointed by the Minister under this section in exercising or performing functions, powers, or duties of a local authority, shall be recoverable from the local authority as a debt due to the Crown or may be deducted from any money payable to the local authority by the Crown.