Environmental regulation and reform in New Zealand
thesis
posted on 2023-09-01, 14:15authored byTrevor Daya-Winterbottom
The published works focus on environmental regulation and reform in
New Zealand.
The underlying thesis of the works is the need for the development of
a coherent legal framework for environmental law. They conclude that
there is currently no coherent framework because the Resource
Management Act 1991 (RMA), the principal statute governing the New
Zealand environment, is a framework statute that depends on
subsidiary planning instruments being prepared or promulgated by the
Minister for the Environment or by local authorities to complete the
statutory architecture and provide guidance for the resource consent
decision-making process. However, progress has been slow and only
four national policy statements (NPS) and only five national
environmental standards (NES) have been made operative to date;
while at local government level, preparing regional plans remains
optional outside the coastal marine area. This has left a policy vacuum
that has resulted in considerable criticism regarding the operation of
the statute.
Additionally, New Zealand has a legal tradition that places greater
emphasis on the public policy role of legislation than other comparable
jurisdictions (e.g. Australia, United Kingdom, and USA), and its
unicameral legislature has the agility to respond quickly to issues and
enact amending legislation. As a result, the RMA has been the subject
of continuous review and reform that has (arguably) revisited the same
issues on multiple occassions due to poor issue analysis, 17 statutory
amendments have been enacted since 1993, and further reforms are
proposed.
The works reflect this theme and have contributed to the knowlegde of
the subject by focusing on areas of scholarship and research regarding the RMA reforms not covered by other academics, or by highlighting
new perspectives on topics already covered by other academics (e.g.
the effect of the property rights debate on conserving biodiversity, and
merits review by the Environment Court).