Review of the Crown Minerals Act 1991

This is to ensure the Act’s settings contribute to mining that responsibly balances environmental, social, and economic considerations and meets the evolving needs of New Zealand’s society.

The review is one of the actions the Government is undertaking to realise the vision in the 10-year Resource Strategy of a world-leading environmentally and socially responsible minerals and petroleum sector that delivers affordable and secure resources, for the benefit of current and future New Zealanders.

Minerals and petroleum resource strategy

Increasing flexibility and strengthening engagement with iwi and hapū

Changes have been made to the Crown Minerals Act 1991 (CMA) to provide flexibility in how the Government manages Crown-owned minerals and to strengthen engagement with iwi and hapū.

The Crown Minerals Amendment Act, passed in August 2023, aligns the CMA with wider Government policy, while maintaining the CMA’s fundamental role, which is to allocate mining rights for Crown-owned minerals within New Zealand, for the benefit of New Zealanders.

The changes include:

• replacing the word “promote” with “manage”in the purpose statement of the CMA. This change supports greater flexibility in the management of Crown-owned resources as the CMA will now neither require nor inhibit their development.
• making amendments to improve the quality of permit holder engagement with iwi and hapū.
• minor decommissioning related clarifications.

More information

We welcome feedback at any time about our work on the Crown Minerals Act Tranche Two Review.

If you would like to contact us, please email ResourcesGasFuel@mbie.govt.nz.