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
46 National Environment Protection Council NEPC Acts Third Review 2012 5 OPERATION AND EFFICIENCY OF THE NATIONAL ENVIRONMENT PROTECTION COUNCIL ACTS AND EFFICIENCY OF THE NATIONAL ENVIRONMENT PROTECTION MEASURES PROCESS The National Environment Protection Council Acts were developed in the early 1990s and contain significant detail about the processes and establishment of National Environment Protection Measures. Best practice approaches would now suggest that legislation focus more on outcomes and key performance indicators and that process prescription be kept to a minimum. The National Environment Protection Council Acts have been reviewed in this context, with the aim of removing detailed process prescriptions that are not necessary or have been overtaken by contemporary government practice. As no National Environment Protection Measures have been made since the Ramsay Review, this review has focused on the efficiency of the National Environment Protection Measure variation process. Since 2007 there have been six National Environment Protection Measure variations undertaken or initiated, three of these being minor variations. 5.1 NATURE AND FORM OF NATIONAL ENVIRONMENT PROTECTION MEASURES The National Environment Protection Measure reviews have generally been focused on technical issues (such as investigating the right testing protocol or monitoring method) and responding to specific issues raised by stakeholders rather than also addressing policy issues (determining if the National Environment Protection Measure is effective in achieving its goals). This has been reflected in the subsequent variations, which have predominantly addressed technical details. This review of the National Environment Protection Council Act has found that: there is a significant delay between initiation of a review of a National Environment Protection Measure and any resultant change to the measure National Environment Protection Measures in themselves should not be lengthy documents much of the volume of some National Environment Protection Measures relates to detailed technical processes or measures/standards that inevitably and continually need updating as knowledge evolves National Environment Protection Measures are often overly prescriptive. Concern has been expressed as to the length and complexity of particular measures, which can be many hundreds of pages long. In addition the protocols in the two air National Environment Protection Measures, while not long, contain significant