Once in a generation to input on Planning Regime deserves serious and critical response
I take Planning seriously. I take Democracy as serious as well! So, when the opportunity to submit on the incoming Planning Bill presents itself, I take the opportunity to submit with both hands. And some 172 pages later that submission went in. But as part of the New Zealand democracy, when you submit on a Bill you can have the option to request to be heard at the respective Select Committee. In this case it is the Environment Select Committee. Taking my Planning and Democracy seriously as civic duty and virtue I requested the option to speak at the Select Committee. And on Monday March 2, 2026 at 3pm I will be speaking to the Environment Select Committee via Zoom on my submission.
The submission can found at the bottom of this post for your reading. However, at 172 pages it could be daunting and you would be right. Subsequently I got the AI to produce this 2:30 rapid fire briefing video to highlight the key points of the submission and presentation:
The Presentation and Supplementary Material
In taking my Planning and Democracy seriously I prepared a presentation summarising key points of my submission. I only have 10 minutes and that includes any Q+A with the MPs of the Select Committee. I also prepared supplementary material particularly around the Standardised Zones just in case I get questioned on those extensively. The reason for the supplementary material on the Standardised Zones is because they were left out of the Planning Bill (they won’t be ready until end of 2026) yet the Zones are the main interaction point between Planner and everyone else dealing with Planning legislation most of the time. None-the-less the presentation and supplementary material can be shared on screen or used as speaking notes. The material will also be here in the blog for your reading as well.
From bottom left going anti-clockwise: Submission to the Planning Bill, Speech Outline including time factors for the presentation (this includes time allocations to each point), the presentation itself, detailed version of the Standardised Zones, the brief version of the Standardised Zones.
Again all this material will be in this blog post.
The explainer version of the presentation and the submission
Talking Southern Auckland 