Environment Minister David Parker: amending the Resource Management Act is likely but won't happen quickly.

The Government will attempt to reverse a National-led law change that has removed the public's right to participate in discretionary resource consent processes, Environment Minister David Parker says.

The Resource Legislation Amendment Act 2017 also removed the right for applicants and submitters to appeal discretionary resource consent decisions made by district councils.

The law came into effect on October 18.

MARJORIE COOK Upper Clutha Environmental Society spokesman Julian Haworth: ecstatic that Parker is contemplating reversing the law.

Upper Clutha Environmental Society chairman Julian Haworth says the law threatens landscape protection and informed decision making. He was "ecstatic" Parker was supporting a law change.

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"It is great to see the new Government cares about landscapes. I'm rapt. Though, the council can do it much more quickly, if it wants," Haworth said.

Supplied The late Barry Lawrence (QSM) was the Wakatipu Environmental Society's spokesman in the Environment Court.

Haworth last week called for the Queenstown Lakes District Council to change the district plan so rural developments were all treated as non-complying, an approach the council's planning and development general manager Tony Avery said the council did not intend to take.

The Queenstown Lakes District submitted against the law change when it went through Parliament.

After taking legal advice on the new law, it issued a practice note in October, stating all discretionary rural subdivisions would not be notified to the public. Only in limited, special circumstances can some people have a say.

Marjorie Cook A typical Wanaka rural landscape, here viewed from Rippon Vineyard.

Independent Queenstown planning barrister Warwick Goldsmith has queried whether the new practice is legally correct.

When former Environment Minister Dr Nick Smith's amendment bill went through Parliament, Parker said it was "an appalling piece of legislation".

Parker told Stuff this week removing public notification and appeal rights was going "a step too far" for applicants and submitters.

"We still think that was wrong. We are intending to have some reform of the Resource Management Act and that would be one of the things that we would fix," he said.

However, he did not want to give the impression a law change would be a quick fix.

Amending the Resource Management Act required "a big piece of work", he said.

People had a right to be heard about landscape issues, he said.

"We have the general view that we ought not to take away the public's right to participate but we should make sure processes under the Resource Management Act are dealt with quickly . . . ​We don't think the right way to go is to rip people's rights off them," Parker said.

​Landscape was one of the most precious things in Queenstown and Wanaka and if environmental watchdogs such as Julian Haworth and the late Barry Lawrence had not fought to protect landscapes, the district would be very different today, he said.

Parker said he had two queries regarding the council's practice note but he could not attempt to answer them: firstly, whether the council was appropriately applying the new law; secondly, whether an application for a "building platform" fell within the meaning of a "subdivision".

"People will have to explore for themselves . . .. If the council is wrong and is acting ultra vires [beyond one's legal power], that is not for me to determine," Parker said.

The text of council's submission to Parliament against the non-notification clause was:

"QLDC is particularly concerned the proposal includes the preclusion of notification for subdivision activities under the proposed section 95A(5)(b)(ii). Subdivision informs the landuse. Most subdivisions activities in the Rural General zone at QLDC are publicly notified and QLDC would be reluctant to see this opportunity lost given the pressure for development in such a sensitive landscape. QLDC seeks the clause that precludes the subdivision of land from being publicly notified be removed."