Extra payments to landowners and a ‘streamlined’ objections process are designed to get diggers in the ground more quickly, writes Catherine McGregor in today’s extract from The Bulletin.
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Extra cash for those who sell up quickly
Landowners who act fast to sell their properties in order to make way for public works will get a bonus payment of up to $150,000 under new rules announced on Sunday. The planned changes to the Public Works Act (PWA) will see owners offered 15% of their land value, capped at $150,000, if they sell before a notice of intention is issued. They’ll also get an extra 5%, capped at $92,000, in recognition of participating in an accelerated process. Landowners who object to the process will petition land information minister Chris Penk directly – or the local authority where relevant – rather than going through the Environment Court. Owners of protected Māori land will get the payments while retaining the right to object to the Environment Court.
Penk denies conflict-of-interest risk
The new objections process will accelerate the acquisition of land needed to build 17 roads of national significance as well as other projects in the Fast Track Approvals Act that qualify as public works. As the Herald’s Jamie Ensor notes, “The fast-track proposal initially gave significant power to three ministers to decide what projects got the green light. That was eventually walked back after an uproar, but conflict- of-interest questions still remained.”
On Sunday Penk said he didn’t believe his involvement in the objections process would raise similar questions, but he’d “obviously” recuse himself if he had a conflict of interest regarding a particular case. “He emphasised there was still the ability for landowners to seek a judicial review of decision-making or challenge the land value to be compensated,” Ensor writes.
More Public Works Act changes coming
The changes, set to be implemented this year, are a precursor to wider reform of the PWA in early 2026. A review of the act completed in October found “unnecessary duplication”, “outdated negotiation processes” and “disjointed government agency practices”, according to Penk. The last major overhaul of the act was in 1988. Among the changes Penk envisions are allowing government agencies like the NZTA to enter into acquisition agreements with landowners and bringing more projects under the remit of the PWA. At present only infrastructure projects that are deemed of national or regional significance can use the act.
The PWA and Māori: a grim history
Speaking in October, Penk said it was unlikely the overhaul of the PWA would affect Māori land since the government saw its acquisition for public works as “very much a last resort proposition”, in part because of the “unfortunate and unfair history” of Māori and the PWA. What is that history? From the moment it became law in 1864, the PWA was used to confiscate Māori land for roads, railways and other government projects. “The Crown often favoured Māori land over general land for these purposes since it could pay the owners less compensation, or none at all,” explains Te Ara. “Land not needed for the purposes for which it was taken had to be offered back to the original owners. The Crown often failed to apply this section.”
As historian Vincent O’Malley remarked to the Herald’s Julia Gabel last year: “One of my standing jokes is that one of the reasons New Zealand roads are so windy is they go from one piece of Māori land to the next, avoiding all the European lands nearby.”
