RRI Green Planning Archives: New Zealand
Environmental Policy Review
(current to 1995)

New Zealand: Policy Development
National Agencies and Intra-Governmental Coordination

The Ministry for the Environment, established in 1986, is the primary national agency responsible for the overview and monitoring of environmental policy. It was given a policy advisory role and a reporting function that allows it to review all government departmental proposals that would have significant environmental impacts. However, the Ministry has limited regulatory, planning, and advocacy powers.

The Department of Conservation, established in 1987, plays a strong environmental advocacy role in the development of conservation policy, particularly in regard to coastal management.

The Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment, established by the same legislation as the Ministry for the Environment, is an independent auditor of central and local governments' environmental policies. New Zealand' is one of the few industrialized nations lacking a national environmental regulatory agency dealing with pollution and hazardous substances (such as the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency), although legislation has long been proposed to establish such an entity.

Under the Resource Management Act of 1991, the national government has two complementary means for expressing and applying its resource management policies: national policy statements and national environmental standards, most of which are the responsibility of the Ministry for the Environment.

Policy statements express national goals and objectives for the environment and its sustainable management; they are descriptive, rather than prescriptive, and cover issues of resource protection, use, and development. The statements may deal with general issues, such as New Zealand's obligations in enhancing the global environment, or they may deal specifically with a particular issue or site. The only national policy statement the government is required to develop is the Coastal Policy Statement, dealing with national priorities for the management of the country's coastal environment. This is the responsibility of the Minister of Conservation.

Unlike policy statements, national environmental standards are prescriptive, and are promulgated as regulations. They apply to the entire nation; regional and local plans and policies cannot violate them. They set technical standards relating to the use, development and protection of natural and physical resources, including standards for contaminants; soil quality; air quality; and water quality, level, or flow. Typically these will be bottom-line standards, beyond which one cannot go and still practice sustainable management. In particular situations, however, standards will be set above the bottom line. National standards are still being developed.

Intra-governmental coordination is still in the developmental stage, due to the newness of the Resource Management Act. However, the RMA does create both a foundation and a framework for the coordination of policies within and among district, regional, and national authorities, as well as an overarching principle the sustainable management of resources-that all authorities are required to uphold.

On the national level, executives of all government departments whose activities affect the environment are now asked to consider environmental goals in their annual budget planning process. In addition, the Ministry for the Environment was assigned a reporting function that gives it the authority to review the policies of other departments if they have the potential for significant environmental impact. On the regional and district levels, the RMA's restructuring of government was in part designed to allow the integration of policy both politically and administratively within each district.

{Sources: Johnson, Environment 2010 Strategy, Buhrs and Bartlett}

The development of the Resource Management Act involved a thorough public review over a three-year period. Hundreds of meetings were held throughout the country, and public input was also solicited via a toll-free phone number and television and radio programs. The result of this review process was a broad-based consensus on the goals and mechanisms of the Resource Management Act. Public participation will also be solicited as both the national and local governments continue to develop and implement environmental policy as mandated under the RMA.

Several influential social groups in New Zealand played particularly crucial roles in the creation of the RMA, and are playing equally large roles in its implementation. One of these is the Maori, citizens of Polynesian heritage who were the country's first human inhabitants. The Maori have been granted rights as indigenous people that are different from the entitlements of other citizens, particularly in terms of resources. For this reason the management structure of the RMA has a component that deals directly with the Maori as a distinct political constituency. The Maori also have a well-organized tribal structure and their own representatives in the national Parliament, and it is the government's intention that tribal authorities be consulted regarding resource management issues. Business associations and environmental groups were also heavily involved in the development of the RMA.

The RMA has opened up a number of new avenues for general public input into environmental policy, including specific mechanisms for public participation in the development of district and regional policies and plans. Any citizen can also request that the planning tribunal, or environmental court, conduct a review of a permit or activity. In addition, the public elects representatives to the councils responsible for the development of environmental policies at the regional and district levels. Under the RMA, information gathered from monitoring is required to be made public.

{Sources: Johnson, Buhrs and Bartlett}

In 1986 the government established a Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment as an independent auditor to monitor the effectiveness of the country's resource laws and institutions. Since its inception in 1987, the commissioner's office has presented numerous reports to the House of Representatives, to parliamentary committees, and to public authorities. It has also published a summary of its findings for the years 1987 to 1991.

The government is currently developing environmental indicators to provide feedback on the effectiveness of its policies. State of the Environment reports will be prepared every four years, after which the Environment 2010 Strategy will be formally reviewed and updated. In addition, New Zealand will participate in such international environmental reporting systems as the OECD environmental performance reviews and reports to the U.N.'s Commission on Sustainable Development.

New Zealand also has a planning tribunal, or environmental court, which acts as a court of appeals regarding the planning and implementation of the RMA. The court can rule on whether or not a particular plan or policy is in compliance with the requirement to promote sustainable management, and has the power to decide what does or does not constitute sustainable management, independent of the judgment of a municipal or regional council. The tribunal operates at the permitting as well as the policy-making level.

{Sources: Johnson, Environment 2010 Strategy}

The Resource Management Act completely restructured regional and local government agencies and laws related to the environment. It divided local governmental units into regions, based on watersheds and their ecosystems, and districts, based on communities and their surrounding areas. Regional and district governments bear the most responsibility for implementing the RMA. Directly elected regional authorities are responsible for preparing regional policy statements and plans. All regional and district policies and plans must be consistent with and reflect national policy statements and standards, and all must uphold the principle of sustainable management.

Regional policy statements are mandatory and will articulate the key issues and priorities for each region, interpreting sustainable management and applying it to the region's biophysical and socioeconomic characteristics. They will identify key resources and their condition, determine the community's relationship to and dependency on those resources, and identify links among resources and ecosystem issues and problems. Based on those factors (and taking into consideration future needs and potential pressures), regional policy statements will develop strategies for sustainable resource management and identify priority issues and responses. The regulatory measures required to implement them will be generated separately.

Regional plans are optional, except for coastal plans. They will deal with specific resource issues requiring more detailed policies, and can provide the regulatory power to implement regional policies. The regional authorities can use plans to deal with such issues as regional land use effects, soil conservation, water conservation and quality, and pollution discharges.

District government units are based on communities and their surrounding areas, and each one is required to promulgate its own plan. District plans will have policies relating to the integrated management of the effects of land use, subdivision, the control of noise emissions, and the effects of activities on the surface of water in rivers and lakes.

{Source: Johnson}