Backing Rural New Zealand

Our Values

ACT backs rural New Zealand because we understand that farmers, growers, and rural communities are the backbone of our economy. We believe in property rights, practical environmentalism, and an economy where innovation and hard work are rewarded. New Zealanders who produce food, fibre, and exports deserve a Government that respects their contribution, listens to their concerns, and gets out of their way. Our goal is a country where rural people are free to farm, confident to invest, and proud to build strong, productive communities.

Our Achievements

ACT has driven many of the Government’s actions to let farmers farm. These include:

• Stopping unworkable freshwater rules and SNA expansion: ACT halted the previous Government’s direction to councils to identify and map Significant Natural Areas (SNAs), and we are rewriting freshwater rules to reflect local science and conditions instead of ideology.

• Simplifying farm plans and regulatory compliance: ACT is leading reforms to create slimmed-down, practical farm plans focused on reducing contaminant loss, while replacing complex and costly consenting requirements.

• Keeping agriculture out of the ETS and defending split-gas: ACT secured key wins to protect agricultural production by ensuring it remains outside the Emissions Trading Scheme and maintaining a science-based split-gas approach to methane.

• Pushing back against spiritual concepts in environmental law: ACT is challenging vague and ideological rules like ‘Te Mana o te Wai’ and national bottom lines that stifle local decision-making.

• Cutting red tape on agricultural inputs and food production: ACT is reviewing barriers in the food safety system and pushing to liberalise approvals for agri-chemicals and new food products, so innovation isn’t strangled by bureaucracy.

Our Next Goals

The coalition Government has not gone as far as ACT would like, but it’s gone further than it would have without ACT. We always have more ideas ready, and here are some we continue to advocate.

Scrap Te Mana o te Wai and national bottom lines

These spiritual and centralised concepts are embedded in the freshwater system and override local control. ACT will keep fighting to return freshwater management to regional councils using science-based, democratic approaches that respect equal citizenship.

Restore certainty to land use and property rights

ACT will replace the Resource Management Act with a system based on property rights, so farmers are not second-guessed by bureaucrats or forced to navigate costly layers of cultural vetoes and planning hurdles. This includes removing barriers to investment, infrastructure, and farm innovation.

Defend the rural way of life from creeping Wellington ideology

ACT is working to ensure health and safety laws, animal welfare regulations, and education policy reflect the reality of life in rural New Zealand – not assumptions made in Wellington offices. We’ll keep pushing for codes of practice that are written with farmers, not against them.