Section 22 of the Fast-track Approvals Act 2024 contains the single most important test in the regime: a project must deliver significant regional or national benefits. If it does not, the Minister for Infrastructure cannot lawfully refer it. This is not a judgement call — it is a hard gate.
The Act lists nine benefit limbs. A project needs to engage at least one, genuinely. Most successful approvals engage two or three. Here is what each limb actually means in practice.
The nine limbs
1. Regionally or nationally significant infrastructure. Roads of National Significance, port expansions, three-waters, transmission, rail, airports. The Takitimu North Link Stage 2 and the Bledisloe / Fergusson wharf extension both cleared on this limb.
2. Housing supply and urban environment. Master-planned developments at scale — Milldale's ~1,100 lots, Sunfield's 3,854 homes, Ashbourne's 518 homes. The threshold is not absolute but practical: under 50 dwellings rarely clears.
3. Significant economic benefits. Jobs, GDP contribution, exports. Waihi North landed this with $5.2b in exports, 800 jobs and $422m in Crown revenue. Ayrburn Screen Hub cleared on $280m benefit and 640 regional jobs.
4. Primary industries including aquaculture. Marine farming, irrigation, horticulture infrastructure. Less often the lead limb, but useful as a supporting argument.
5. Natural resources (minerals, petroleum, water). Waihi North (gold/silver), Bendigo-Ophir (gold), Macraes Phase Four — all cleared on this limb. Crown Minerals Act interaction is usually engaged in parallel.
6. Climate change mitigation. Renewable generation, battery storage, electrified industry. Tekapo, Southland Wind Farm, Waitaha Hydro, Kaimai Hydro — every renewable approval to date has leaned on this limb.
7. Climate change adaptation or natural hazard resilience. Coastal defences, stormwater upgrades, post-cyclone reinstatement. Quieter limb but growing as Cyclone Gabrielle recovery moves into structural work.
8. Significant environmental issue. Remediation projects, contaminated-land cleanups. Tokomaru Bay legacy landfill remediation is on Schedule 2 under this limb.
9. Grocery retail competition. Added by the 2025 Amendment Bill. Specifically targets the duopoly. New player applications now have a statutory hook.
The threshold
"Significant" is the operative word. The Minister assesses across six layered sub-criteria:
- Scale — dollars, jobs, dwellings, MW, tonnes, hectares
- Geographic reach — single region or multiple, local benefit or strategic
- Strategic alignment — Government Policy Statement, National Energy Strategy, NPS-UD, Critical Minerals List
- Iwi/hapū engagement quality — depth, mana whenua support, Treaty alignment
- Counterfactual — would the project realistically proceed under standard RMA in a comparable timeframe?
- Adverse-effects balance — even where benefits are significant, panel will weigh whether they outweigh effects
What clears, what fails
Cleared so far:
- Generation at scale (Southland Wind 380 MW, Tekapo hydro re-consent)
- Housing at scale (Sunfield 3,854 homes, Milldale ~1,100 lots)
- Mining with export contribution (Waihi North, Macraes Phase Four)
- Infrastructure of national significance (Takitimu North Link, Ports of Auckland)
- Resource projects with critical-minerals angle
Failed or partially failed:
- Components on highly productive soils (Ashbourne — retirement village and some residential lots declined by the panel)
- Projects with no credible iwi engagement (declined at referral)
- Sub-scale local developments (under 50 dwellings, single-supermarket projects)
- Projects ineligible by statute under s.17 (national parks, marine reserves, Māori customary land, projects contrary to specified Treaty settlements)
A useful rule of thumb
If the project could not credibly headline a Beehive press release with a Cabinet minister quoted next to a dollar figure or megawatt figure, it probably will not clear the test.
Two or three limbs, evidenced, with iwi engagement done properly, is the strong-fit profile. One limb alone is referable but more vulnerable. Zero limbs is the wrong pathway.
What we do with this
In every engagement, the first deliverable of our pre-engagement is a written assessment of which limbs apply, the evidence base for each, and the strategic case to the Minister. This is the document that gets your project into the regime — get it wrong and nothing else matters.