2020 Submission to: Resource Management System: A comprehensive review

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Submission to: Resource Management Review Panel

PSGR recommendations to the Resource Management Review Panel:
1. Ensure access to an investigatory court with the powers of the higher courts to address and investigate prima facie submitted cases of breaches of principles of administrative law by administrators of the RMA (or successor legislation).
2. Implement precaution at a meta-level in the RMA: The requirement that where there are threats of serious or irreversible damage and the science is uncertain, that decision-makers utilise the Precautionary Principle in the public interest.

In relation to stewardship of freshwater:
A. For fresh-water and sediments, the RMA should require regional councils to measure synthetic chemistry and metallic toxins in a form that will enable progress or declines to be identified so as to enable regulatory
changes and priorities to be set sensibly. It should be obligatory that such measurements should be published for public scrutiny.

‘The first step in a risk-based approach to water quality is to identify pollutants, their origin, timing and pathways, and their risks to water quality, including their likelihood and impact’. (OECD, 2017, p. 105)

B. For effective gathering of such data, regional councils should be required to disclose their reasoning for selection of monitoring points. (There have been occasions where monitoring is conducted in unpolluted regions while polluted parts of a region are left unmonitored.)

C. We propose that testing for diffuse mixtures of synthetic chemicals and trace metals in freshwater and sediment should be required by the RMA and that such data and its analyses should be co-ordinated by and be a responsibility of central government. Results and methodologies should be published for public scrutiny. It should be explicit in the RMA provisions that the scope of analyses should be required to include both endocrinology and chemical toxicological findings reinforced by co-factors that magnify risks and statistical analyses that identifies trends. The data should be collected in a form that enables effective data modelling; predictive analytics; and machine-learning.
D. We propose that both diffuse emissions expertise and endocrine disruption issues and related science disciplines should be funded by central government under a Public-Good Science Fund.

In relation to international linkages:

A. We propose that Aotearoa New Zealand should harmonise its regulatory provisions on hazardous substances with those of the European Union as ‘trusted regulator’ pending reinforcement of NZ developing other links with a group Global Independent Science Network in the longer term.

Submission including reasoning for the above recommendations (PDF).

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