31 October 2025

In our second TCG HiveMind chat, we share 21 things we’ve learnt from spending thousands of hours in Council and Environment court planning hearings; along with what Fast-tracking might mean for this tried-and-tested process enshrined in the RMA. But before we rattle on into this like a runaway fast-track train… a little background:

Our team has devoted weeks, and sometimes months of their lives preparing and being part of hearings – whether it’s supporting, speaking, or listening to the experts and everyday folk fronting up in these intimidating planning settings.  We’ve learnt a lot about our dependable, old friend the RMA; how it’s protected our environment for 30+ years and where it has realised or fallen short of its potential.

Now, we’ve got a pushy, new, impatient kid on the block – the Fast-track approvals process – sashaying about on some well-greased rails and looking all skux and making promises that life will be quicker and easier for developers and agencies wanting to ‘get sh*t done’!

So, what’s going to change for the environment if a project gets itself a ticket on the fast-track train...? From myth-busting to general observations, here’s our lessons learnt from around the hearings table AND our take on what’s at stake under this new regime - is the environment strapped to the sleepers or can it flag down the coalition conductors?

Insights from those in the hearing supporter’s, strategist’s & cheerleader’s seats:

1. The hearing process is only built for technical people.  
   The current process doesn’t allow for hapū members to easily add value or have input. It’s a space that’s hard to understand or navigate without help from other experts who know the game and the rules.

2. Hearings hurt and can be very draining for mana whenua. 
   Not only due to the immense time commitment, but from a wairua perspective. Repeatedly having to bring up cultural mamae and rehash it in a formal setting is painful. We see the taumaha, the weight of it on the faces of those who stand and present on behalf of hapū– and it’s not recognised or allowed for. We understand that for Pākehā participating in a hearing, there is ‘the luxury of distance’ – of knowing that it’s not your whenua, not your taonga, or your tīpuna, or your mokopuna you are defending. You can go home each day and just say “that was a real hard day at the office”, and not carry that mamae with you.

3. The amount of work that goes into an individual hearing is astonishing.  
   If you’ve been part of a team helping to prepare evidence, you see the incredible amount of work that goes into researching and writing the ‘evidence story’ that each witness shares. And a lot of printing. So much printing…

4. Everyday New Zealanders have little idea how the Fast-Track process works.
   To be fair, it’s an enigma wrapped in a mystery for most of us at the moment! The RMA hearing process has been around for decades – just long enough for us to start to realise its full potential and intent – but bugger all people know how that works. For many of our clients, it feels a bit like the Fast-track process is shaping up to be, “New Zealand's legislative equivalent of ‘f*ck it, let's just build stuff.” Aka… a resource consent ‘bullet train to approval’ that bypasses core principles of sustainable resource management and the usual RMA checks and balances.

   Insights from those in the expert witness, chair and commissioner seats: 

5. The RMA has been a stunning bit of environmental legislation (we ‘❤️’ the RMA; RIP the RMA 😓).
   Sadly, Aotearoa hasn’t always implemented it well. It had massive potential to do good stuff for the environment and our communities… but we sold it, and ourselves short!

6. Hearings are inherently adversarial.  
   Scrapping it out in a hearing is not always conducive to the critical evaluation, testing assumptions, and cross-examination of experts needed for robust decision-making. However, it has been really, really effective at putting immense pressure on the people involved in slogging it out, with the biggest pressure falling on those with the least ability to fight (and the most to lose).

7. Hearings often don't go how you think they will.
   It’s good to get a range of different perspectives on the key elements of a case and where they’re heading before you start. Using a mock hearing before you begin, to get all parties thinking in different ways, we’ve found to be a great tool.

8. Writing good evidence is a skill worth paying for!  
   We’ve seen very smart people get lost in their own evidence, and people who are blagging it a bit deliver amazing evidence. Sadly, it's not always about who's the smartest brain or the best expert in the room, but more how the statements of skilled evidence-presenters land in front of a decision maker.

9. Mediation can end up being just ‘horse trading’ and an utterly demoralising process. 
   This happens when all your watertight evidence gets thrust aside and it descends into a ‘bunch of colossal egos ‘sword fighting’ their way through negotiations, with evidence brushed aside in the name of ‘pragmatism’.  At times like these, you’ve gotta hold onto your nerve tighter than a pāua to a rock.   

10. When is a hearing not a hearing?  When decision makers mistake confidence for competence!
    You end up with predetermined ideas and just-add-water decisions where the ‘forgone concluders’ don't properly look at the evidence in front of them, or hear what's being said. It's a hearing in name only— with those taringa kōhatu (deaf ears) for decoration only!

11. We have an ill-founded faith in the power of consent conditions to address effects.  
    A faith that is somewhat misplaced, given our woeful compliance monitoring and reporting performance, and the ongoing biodiversity, climate, and human well-being (and butter) crises. Still, you need to hang your pōtae on whatever hook you can and we maintain good conditions are crucial for good outcomes. Better they are there when the rest of the system improves, than not there at all! Again, pāua to the people – and hold your nerve team!

12. Planners and decision makers are still struggling with admitting mātauranga Māori as expert evidence.
    They understand the need for CIAs (cultural impact assessments), but many are not sure what to do with the information once they get it. Sometimes it gets overlooked because it just ends up in the ‘too hard’ kete, so it’s important to spell out what it means.

13. Improvements can come about via well-run, in good-faith, expert caucusing.
    This is a way to a) get better consent condition suites for the things that people care about, and b) ensure different perspectives are included. We’ve been involved in many a situation where things like mātauranga Māori and basic ecology have been missed out at first, but then thoughtfully brought into the process via this route.

14. The planning pathway seems at times to lack integrity!
    Expert technical or mātauranga witnesses have to write their evidence and present it in a defensible way with sources. But we see the planners coming into the process and hiding behind their Code of Conduct and their word just gets taken as gospel! What gives!? Why the special treatment? Sometimes what appears to be lazy thinking is not assisting decision-makers at all. 

15. A hearing is a bit like a well-refereed rugby game.
    It has clear rules and is bounded by goalposts and touchlines that support good decision making.  But in a Fast-track rugby game – we don’t yet know where the line markings and goalposts are or whose rules we are playing to. For sure it’s going to be a total ruckus, with lots of damage, no red cards, and some fatalities on the side of the environment. More bullrush than Union!

16. ‘David’ needs the opportunity to fight ‘Goliath’ in order to have the chance to defeat him.
    A good consenting process needs all community voices (aka the underdogs) to be heard and listened to by the decision makers. In Fast-tracking mode, we’re seeing restrictions on the involvement of tangata whenua and much more limited public participation.

17. What’s the key value of a hearing process?  The ability that participants have to use it to challenge assumptions!  
    We have seen how parties can get bad tunnel vision, believe their own hype, and succumb to biases.  Public participation gives the community the chance to: a) challenge the scope of effects that the applicant has put forward, b) explore what an appropriate effects management response might look like, and c) ask the crucial question, “Is this project necessary or appropriate?”  With the Fast-track process, are we losing the ability to challenge assumptions - a fundamental function of good natural resource management?

18. The Fast-Track process is just the RMA on a diet - right? Wrong!
    We’re getting the vibe that planners are viewing the Fast-track as some sort of slimmed-down resource management framework, but it's not. We recognise it as purely a political device that we've now got to work with.  We’re kidding ourselves that we need to try and stuff the work we're doing into this different shaped space, when there's literally no space to fit into!

19. Information light, timeframes tight – it seems like this is going to be the Fast-track way.
    Tangata whenua in particular are likely to be denied justice as a result. Other causalities of rushed decision-making predicated on growth agendas are our scarce natural resources and intergenerational equity. To us these feel like enormous (existential even!) trade-offs.

20. Pursuit of pragmatism in favour of principle under the Fast-track process.
    The new statute clearly acknowledges this, with economic outcomes it’s fundamental driver. The early signs are that this will give licence to those involved in the process to put the state of environment and ongoing loss of natural capital off to the side.  

21. Last stop for the logic train!
    The logic model that most of us were trained in, whether it's the scientific method or planning methodology, looks to be less welcome in the Fast-track process. A huge concern is that the gains made in recent years for Māori rights and interests will be stalled.  It will be a massive step backwards if mātauranga Māori, which was just starting to gain real traction in the hearings space, is to be completely marginalised again.

There you have it – 21 things we’ve learnt in the pursuit of environmental justice in that sometimes weird and always challenging space that is an environmental hearing (with a side order of our reflections on where this Fast-track juggernaut is taking us).

Change is scary and the struggle to support principled resource management and mokopuna decision-making can feel endless. Our environment deserves better, as do iwi and hapū, and our communities. Here at The Catalyst Group we’re optimistic that there IS a way to work with the new process. We understand and are adapting to the new ‘ecosystem attack track’ (just know that we do it quicker and smarter than most), and we’ll make it work again for those whose voices many would like to quash!

Our point of difference here at TCG is that we give a sh*t!  When we act for someone we’re all-in, we're invested, we are there for the outcomes and, we do it well.

The TCG HiveMind Lab Experiment:

Facing the prospect of a participating in a hearing yourself? Want to take action against something happening in your rohe? Need expert witnesses, hearing commissioners or backroom advice? Want to know more about the Fast-track application process and if we can make it work for you – whether you are an applicant or a party to the proceedings?

Let our Hive Mind help. The Catalyst Group specialises in working in these technical, hearing environments with heart and head - bringing people together around the table to tackle real-world environmental problems with a serious commitment to crafting solutions that protect what matters now.  

Get in touch and let’s chat about how together we can make a difference.