Advisory role emphasised

Press, Issue 33842, 14 May 1975, Page 18

Advisory role emphasised

The role of the Commission for the Environment, set up two years ago, was to advise and educate, not to make decisions, the Minister for the Environment (Mrs Tirikatene-Sullivan) said in address to law students yesterday.

The Minister did not attend the conference of the Australian and New Zealand Association of Law Students in person as she had to be at the Labour Party conference lin Wellington. Her address [was read by the Commisjsioner for the Environment !(Mr I. L. Baumgart).

So far one of the main tasks of the commission had been the auditing of environmental impact ieports prepared by those responsible for important Government projects, said Mrs TirikateneSullivan. More than 30 such reports had been examined to date. But there were still some misconceptions about the

commission’s auditing role. News reports often gave the impression that the commission’s audit determined whether a project would go ahead. This was not so. “The commission has no management function or power of decision,” said Mrs Tirikatene-Sullivan. “Its primary job is to ensure that information is available on the environmental effects of development proposals at a time when the Government is asked to decide what should be done.

( “These procedures are 'educative and advisory, not regulatory, and their application to any project leads toj ! recommendations from the; commission, not decisions.” I