A lot of Canterbury consent holders have heard some version of "ECan is being phased out" over the past few months. It's not quite that simple. There are two separate government reforms moving at once, one about who governs regionally, and one about the law your water consent actually sits under. Here's what's confirmed, what's still in progress, and what it means if you hold a consent.
Reform one: how regions are governed
In November 2025, the government released a Simplifying Local Government proposal that would have removed elected regional councillors entirely, replacing them with boards made up of local mayors. For Canterbury, that would have meant going from 16 regionally mandated representatives, including Ngāi Tahu, down to 10 mayors and possibly Crown-appointed commissioners, with nobody elected specifically to represent the region.
ECan opposed the most severe version of that proposal, and following a rapid government review, the final decision confirmed that regional council functions sitting outside the Resource Management Act, things like flood protection, biosecurity, and public transport, will stay with regional government rather than being centralised. ECan's own submission recommended that current councillors stay in their roles until the end of this council term or until a regional reorganisation plan is finalised, whichever comes first. In practice, that means no immediate change to who governs Canterbury's regional functions. The government has said the detailed reorganisation work will play out over roughly the next two years.
Reform two: the law your consent sits under
This is the one that actually matters most for water consent holders. The government introduced two bills in December 2025, the Natural Environment Bill and the Planning Bill, to fully repeal and replace the Resource Management Act. This is the law that currently governs how water takes are consented, measured, and enforced.
These bills are still working through Parliament. The Environment Select Committee's report was originally due 26 June 2026, but has now been pushed back to 20 July 2026. The government has signalled it wants both bills enacted before the 2026 general election, with detailed national direction instruments rolling out in two stages, the first by the end of 2026 and the second by mid-2027. One related change has already taken effect: as of 1 July 2026, the Ministry for the Environment became part of a new Ministry for Cities, Environment, Regions and Transport.
What this means for your consent, right now
Nothing changes today. The Canterbury Land and Water Regional Plan is still operative, ECan still administers and enforces existing consent conditions, and the 5 L/s telemetry deadline on 3 September 2026 still applies exactly as it currently stands. Any change to the underlying legislation will take effect through a transition process, not overnight, and existing consents don't simply lapse when a law changes.
Over the next year or two, expect the framework your consent sits under to shift from the RMA to the new Natural Environment Act and Planning Act, with detail added gradually as national direction instruments are released. What that means for measurement, verification, and reporting requirements specifically hasn't been settled. The select committee process is where a lot of that detail could still change.
Our take
Whatever the governance structure looks like in two years, and whatever the new resource management law ultimately requires, the underlying reality doesn't change: water takes will still need to be measured accurately, and someone will still need that data to satisfy a regulator. Consent holders who already have solid metering, telemetry, and clean historical data are in a far better position to adapt to a new system than those trying to sort it out under pressure once the rules are confirmed.
We're following both reform processes closely and will keep this page updated as the select committee report and any further decisions land. If you want to understand what any of this means for your specific consent, get in touch and we'll talk it through.