Recently appointed King’s Counsel Janette Campbell KC has spent three decades working in environmental and resource management law, building a career that has taken her from private practice and specialist environmental law teams to some of the most significant resource management reform work in Aotearoa New Zealand. We speak with Janette about the experiences that led her into the profession, her time studying at the University of California, Berkeley, the challenges of her role as Chair of the Expert Advisory Group, the significance of the new Planning and Natural Environment legislation, and what’s next for her.
You have built your career around environmental and resource management law. What attracted you to this area of practice?
I never wanted to be a lawyer. My dad was a planner with a PhD in geography. He worked at the Auckland Regional Authority as its principal planner and then became the first regional conservator of the Auckland region when DOC was created. His job looked interesting, and I loved geography at school, so thought I might be a planner. At the time, in 1989, Dad was involved with the work to create the Resource Management Act.
He told me that I should do a law degree, in part to prove that I could think in the way that a BA used to demonstrate cut-above competence for his generation. But he also said that you may not want to be a lawyer, but you need to understand what the bastards are saying!
You completed an LLM at the University of California, Berkeley, as a Fulbright Scholar in 1999. What took you to Berkeley?
Its proximity to ski fields! I was interested in NYU, and other East Coast universities, but really keen on the natural environment offerings of the West Coast; Yosemite, Lake Tahoe, all of the amazing Utah National Parks.
I did a spring break trip through Monument Valley, Arches, Bryce Canyon, Canyonlands, Zion, and Kodachrome National Monument (you’ll see why that’s the only one not named after its natural formations).
The landscapes were amazing. The people were friendly and helpful. The youth hostels were a bit scary! I got stopped for speeding by a lovely young Mormon cop. Blonde, blue eyes, looked to be about 12. For some reason, I had packed my driver's license in my suitcase, which was in the boot, underneath a week's worth of underwear. I have never seen an officer of the law blush so deeply. I did get a ticket, but it was almost worth it. After graduation I did a road trip through Mono Lake, Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest, Death Valley, Vegas and Joshua Tree with my folks and Methodist grandad. Couldn’t prise him away from the nickel poker machines! Berkeley did have a really great environmental law offering. That did factor in there somewhere…
How did studying at Berkeley influence your career?
I went over to the States at a time when the RMA was already subject to a lot of criticism, and I naively thought that I would be able to learn from their situation and bring back solutions to our problems.
When I got there, obviously everything was completely different. They had constitutional supremacy rather than parliamentary supremacy. They had a federal system with state law and federal law, and the substance of the laws was different. Everyone from the dog catcher to the judge was elected. Structurally, everything was completely different, but the problems were all the same. What that really taught me was that the substance of the law is substantially less material than the problems of dealing with conflicting ideas about resource use and inefficient structures. Many of our issues stem from the challenges of being human and administering ourselves through bureaucracies.
You have worked in private practice, starting one of New Zealand’s first boutique law firms as a Partner of Cowper Campbell. You have also led Meredith Connell’s specialist environment law team for eight years and served as a director of the Environmental Defence Society. How have these different roles shaped your perspective on environmental law in New Zealand?
I've been super lucky to have a really varied practice. I've acted for councils, applicants, green groups, disgruntled neighbours, and all sorts in between. I’ve chaired consenting panels and acted as a commissioner. It's certainly given me a range of perspectives on any problem. You can have the exact same problem, but with different people, and the human element necessitates different outcomes and resolutions.
I like to think that the 360° perspective that I've had on environmental issues is helpful. I can always put myself in the other party's shoes. Hopefully that helps me craft enduring solutions for all involved.
In September 2024, you were appointed Chair of the Expert Advisory Group on Resource Management Reform. What were some of the key challenges of this role?
Managing to sleep! Honestly, the hours were insane, and combining it with trying to scrape through with my practice was really quite a juggle. But the role was exciting; the sort of opportunity that only comes along once in a generation (well, my dad did it, so that's really true).
We were really given free rein and we got to deep dive into all sorts of fascinating stuff: from Justinian through to Norwegian policy imperatives for environmental law, Scottish approaches to policy, Australian approaches to spatial plans, and of course all of the work that the Randerson review had done for the previous government.
We got to do blue skies thinking and come up with our own suggested solutions. The challenges were trying to meet the timelines, trying to structure up a sensible way to eat the elephant before us, and trying to pull seven diverse people with genuinely different perspectives together into one agreed course of action. It had its challenges and frustrations (I also got Covid and lost my mind for a week out of the 12 weeks), but the feeling of satisfaction at the end was immensely rewarding. Like nailing a uni exam. We were massively assisted by an official who had helped with the Randerson review, and we just couldn't have done it without him. Shout out to Simon King.
The Planning Bill and Natural Environment Bill passed their third reading in September 2026. Having been closely involved in the reform process, what do you see as the most important changes, and what will their implications be for the practice of environmental and resource management law?
The biggest change is the move to a goals-based system. The Resource Management Act had sustainable management as its purpose and defined that as enabling people and communities to provide for themselves while sustaining the potential of natural and physical resources for future generations, safeguarding the life-supporting capacity of natural resources and avoiding, remedying or mitigating any adverse effects of activities on the environment. There was no specification about what councils had to achieve.
It was sort of a choose-your-own-adventure path for councils. One council could decide to be very green and tough on development, but its neighbour could decide to open itself up for any sort of development, notwithstanding its environmental impacts. Both were acceptable outcomes. These choices are very, very hard, and sustaining the potential of resources and safeguarding their life support and capacity was difficult for councils to grapple with. Effectively, the last part of sustainable management – avoiding, remedying, or mitigating effects, became the key driver. That became an end unto itself, and so over time we've moved to managing effects down to almost nothing. If you have no effects, why do you even need to engage with the regulator and seek an approval?
The new acts focus on achieving goals and are very driven by the national identification of those priorities. The acts are a framework so that goals might change over time to reflect new needs. For example, we don't currently need a whole lot of provisions to do with space launch facilities, but maybe in the future we will. There's room to slot those priorities into the goals that the acts seek to achieve.
The goals are really constitutional, in that they set up the framework that circumscribes the Acts. We tried to reduce the ambit of planning to addressing issues of market failure where individual choices might not deliver great societal outcomes. For example, all excellent Pukekohe soils might be consumed by housing developments, or natural waterways might be polluted in pursuit of farming ends. Avoiding these outcomes is fundamental to the goals that we suggest and that were largely adopted in the legislation.
You’ll be called to the Inner Bar next month. What’s next for you?
Hopefully more of the same: lots of interesting work that reflects New Zealand's unique skills on a global scale and looks after the best bits of our natural environment. I love being able to dip in and out of various organisations and businesses, learn about the neat stuff they are doing, understand their needs, and deliver long-term solutions. It’s a real joy to work in a part of the law where the outcomes are so concrete. You can drive through the countryside and think “that development is or isn't there in part because of my involvement.” That's very immediate and rewarding.
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