Plans to reorganise Govt departments

Press, 27 May 1985, Page 9

Plans to reorganise Govt departments

PA Wellington The Lands and Survey Department would be dropped under a proposed reorganisation of Government resource management organisations. Its function would be absorbed into a whole new series of Government structures being considered by the Government. The suggested change comes in the report of a working party on the environmental administration of New Zealand. It recommends to the Minister of the Environment that the Government should: 0 Set up a Ministry of the Environment with a staff of up to 150 people and a budget of up to $6 million, with the responsibility of advising the Government on environmental policies. © Set up a Government department, possibly called Heritage New Zealand, with the task of managing areas of the land and marine environment set aside to be preserved. Heritage New

Zealand would have a budget of almost $llO million and 1800 staff, having absorbed people from the defunct Lands and Survey Department, the Wildlife Service, the Forest Service, and the Ministry of Transport. @ Set up a Land Development and Management Corporation, which would develop land for commercial purposes, such as commercial forests. The corporation would have a budget of $BO million and a total staff of about 750. Most of the corporation’s people and resources would come from the land development and management sections of the Lands and Survey Department. ® Scrap the Environment Council and set up a Council of Environment that would bring together environmental interest groups.

© Set up a Parliamentary Commissioner of the Environment, who with a staff of 16 would be an independent environmental investigator for Parliament. © Set up resource guard-

ians called Rangatira Kaitaiki as local people with special stewardship duties. The paper says that it would cost about $6 million to make the change and from then on the extra cost would be about $3 to $4.5 million a year. The paper also says the principles behind the suggested changes included: @ The ethical shift from the historic emphasis on development to the integration of conservation and development and protection for the country’s heritage. @ Public perceptions of conflicts and inconsistencies in the roles of existing Government agencies. © There being no single strong advocate for care of the environment and balance in the way New Zealand uses the totality of its resources.

The suggested changes have been described by supporters and critics as a substantial swing in favour of conservation, the message being to split responsibilities.