The Minister for Abundance

Joel McManus at The Spinoff writes:

Bishop sided with former Wellington mayor Tory Whanau’s call to allow more housing in the capital, even though every conservative councillor was opposed. He made Christchurch zone for high-density housing, which centre-right mayor Phil Mauger called a “kick in the guts”. In Auckland he could barely disguise his glee in forcing the left-leaning areas of Eden-Albert to allow 15-storey buildings around City Rail Link stations. 

He championed the Fast-track Approvals Act, which allowed major infrastructure projects to skip the usual consenting process. It was strongly opposed by environmental groups, but already, 30 renewable energy projects have applied to the scheme. 

If there’s a single idea that summarises Bishop’s actions this term, it’s the abundance agenda. That term was coined by writer Derek Thompson in 2022, then made famous by the book Abundance, which he co-wrote with Ezra Klein in 2025. Thanks to New Zealand’s notoriously fast legislative system, you could fairly make the argument that Bishop has done more over the past two years to advance the abundance agenda than any other politician in the world.

This is probably correct. What Bishop has done in housing and development is absolutely transformational. Both the breadth and pace of change has been huge.

Bishop will get to claim this law as his legacy. And while opposition MPs will raise issues with certain aspects, many on the left will be secretly pleased with the outcome, and glad they weren’t the ones who had to push it through. 

It is interesting (and good) that neither Labour nor the Greens have put out releases opposing the RMA replacement laws. I am sure they will critique aspects of them. However I think they realise the status quo was terrible.

The post The Minister for Abundance first appeared on Kiwiblog.