Environment Bill ‘first step in overhaul’

Press, 16 July 1986, Page 8

Environment Bill ‘first step in overhaul’

By

MARTIN FREETH

in Wellington

Legislation to establish a Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment and a Ministry for the Environment was introduced in Parliament yesterday.

The commissioner will oversee the use and preservation by the Government of natural resources, and, on his or her own initiative or at the direction of Parliament, investigate any actual or likely damage to the environment.

The Environment Bill establishes the new Ministry to advise the Government on all aspects of environmental administration, in particular on how to recognise the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi and on ways of ensuring public participation in environmental decisionmaking. The Minister for the Environment, Mr Goff, described the bill as the first step in an overhaul of environmental administration, to be followed by legislation next year setting down new environmental assessment proce* diires.

The Ministry would be

set up now to work on those procedures and ensure they had broad acceptance from developers, local authorities and environmental groups, Mr Goff said. "That task will not be easy. It is equally important that a Ministry which prescribes full consultation and participation observes those same principles itself in drawing up the environmental assessment procedures,” he told Parliament.

The Opposition criticised the implementation of the legislation now without inclusion of assessment procedures, but lost an amendment to have the Environment Bill delayed six months until those other elements were ready to be added. National spokesman on the environment Mr Simon Upton, accused the Government of being “fascinated with bureaucracy” in setting up the Ministry before it spelt out how this would affect the public.

The bill was worthless without statutory provisions as to how procedures would Change for environmental groups and developers, Mr Upton

said. The Government just wanted to put something on the Statute Books. It was anoibe. piece of ad hoc legislation akin to that repealing the National Development Act, he said.

Mr Goff said the new procedures would be developed within 12 months.

Under the legislation the Ministry will give advice on the workings of existing environmental acts and will disseminate information to promote the Government’s environmental policies.

Mr Goff said the Ministry would advise the Government on private and public sector developments and ensure genuine public consultation. “This is an explicit rejection of the suspension of local rights and the steam rollerlng over the public right to be heard which epitomised the National Government’s National Development Act and the ‘think big’ philosophies,” Mr Goff said.

Mr Upton said the Ministry could not protect the environment because the bill implied it would also be a planning agency.

“That is like setting up a Department of Health which is equally concerned with fast foods,” he said.

Mr Upton welcomed the statutory independence to be given the Commissioner for the Environment, but said there was lack of scope for the public to approach the office direct with complaints of environmental damage. The bill provides that the commissioner will review Government agencies and processes in the use and preservation of natural resources, and investigate matters referred to him or her by Parliament or its select committees. The commissioner will have judicial powers to call for evidence from interested parties during an investigation. Mr Goff said the commissioner would have a watchdog role and be an “environmental auditor.”

In investigations, the commissioner would be concerned with maintaining wildlife habitats and rare species and areas of scenic, recreational, scientific, historical, cultural or archaeological significance, Mr Goff said.