Tom Fookes was an architect of New Zealand's Resource Management Act passed in 1991 (RMA). When interviewed about his life's work, Tom responded that he had sought to create a 'fair, integrated consideration of the decisions and policy to do with the social, economic and environmental conditions of our people'. I am told that he worked hard to provide a fair opportunity for all people to have a voice in decisions that affect them and places they care about. Processes were included in the RMA to allow this to occur, with particular provisions for a distinctive Maori voice. Because of these provisions, and the Act's lodestar of sustainable resource management, the RMA was promoted as one of the 'world's finest national environmental policies'.