Report of the Third Review of the National Environment Protection Council Acts (Commonwealth State and Territory) December 2012 National Environment Protection Council Response to the Report of the Third Review of the National Protection Council Acts
Tabled paper 599
Tabled Papers for 12th Assembly 2012 - 2016; Tabled Papers; ParliamentNT
2013-10-17
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https://www.legislation.gov.au/Details/C2019C01116
https://hdl.handle.net/10070/275013
https://hdl.handle.net/10070/424650
8 National Environment Protection Council NEPC Acts Third Review 2012 OPERATION AND EFFICIENCY OF THE NATIONAL ENVIRONMENT PROTECTION COUNCIL ACTS AND EFFICIENCY OF THE NATIONAL ENVIRONMENT PROTECTION MEASURES PROCESSPART 5 The National Environment Protection Council Act is a product of its time in terms of detailed prescriptionsthe Act as currently drafted is process focused and the governance frameworks do not reflect recent advances in this area. The processes laid out in the Act are administratively cumbersome and resource intensive. Application of the Act in the future in developing new National Environment Protection Measures will be limited unless there are significant changes to: the agreed scope for National Environment Protection Measures (as discussed above) streamline and improve processes, including reporting the nature and form of National Environment Protection Measures so as to support streamlined processes. Major findings and recommendations of the review are to change processes and procedures to improve efficiency by decreasing costs and focusing efforts to maximise benefits. NATURE AND FORM OF NATIONAL ENVIRONMENT PROTECTION MEASURES (5.1) Consistent techniques for standards and application of technical approaches to environmental monitoring and reporting are vital to develop a clear and consistent dataset of ambient environmental conditions. It is also important that such data is collected on a regular basisoften in a synchronised mannerand kept up to date. Some National Environment Protection Measures specify such monitoring and reporting approaches, techniques and standards. However, this specificity can have a perverse outcome. The nature and form of the National Environment Protection Measures, particularly the inclusion of detailed technical information, has contributed to the time taken to review and update the National Environment Protection Measures. This has also led to criticism about some technical information being out of date. The issue is how to best ensure rigour and direction without creating inflexible approaches that are difficult, costly and time consuming to keep up to date. Consideration could be given to simplifying National Environment Protection Measures to focus on goals, key performance indicators, standards and high-level protocols, and referencing detailed technical information in a manner that allows it to be more readily updated. A contemporary model for National Environment Protection Measures should be developed that focuses on outcomes and allows for flexibility to enable rapid updates as new information becomes available.