Jenny Boshier*
* Formerly, Assistant Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment, Office of the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment, Wellington. Present position: Director State of the Environment Reporting Section, Environment Australia, GPO Box 787, Canberra, ACT, Australia
Introduction
The promotion of public participation in environmental decision-making is a corner- stone of the Resource Management Act 1991 (RMA). It is seen as an essential principle of sustainability (Birdsong, 1998). The process of determining what constitutes a sus- tainable activity in a community will be assisted by identifying the community’s pref- erences and by bringing the community into decision-making processes.
There are a number of ways in which public participation under the RMA is encour- aged:
• open standing; • enforcement orders;
• tangata whenua requirements; and • matters in Part II.
The open standing requirements have expanded the opportunities for people to partici- pate at all levels of RMA processes, such as in the preparation of national policy state- ments and plans, in the determination of applications for notified resource consents, and in taking matters to the Environment Court. The RMA allows any person to apply to the Environment Court for an enforcement order in defined circumstances in order to promote sustainable management.
Consultation is an essential element of public participation. Both councils (through their staff) and applicants for resource consents may need to consult with stakeholders. It is generally accepted that better environmental decisions will result from a greater flow of information, including that from stakeholders and communities.
The purpose of consultation in the resource consent process is to ensure that the deci- sion-maker is fully informed on the application under consideration. Consultation is not, however, the only source of information for the decision-maker, but it can be a very useful way of obtaining relevant information held by members of a community.
Consultation with tangata whenua may arise in a number of ways. There is the require-
ment to consult in the preparation of regional and district plans. An interpretation of the provisions of Part II, RMA, is that some obligations imposed by sections 6 and 7 cannot be complied with unless there has been adequate consultation. The Treaty obli-
gation to consult arises under section 8 of the Act (PCE, 1998).
There are other matters in sections 6 and 7 (Part II) where public participation is re- quired to assess the significance of natural features and to discuss and agree on how such matters will be recognised and provided for.
The observations and findings in this chapter are based on a number of Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment (PCE) reviews conducted during 1995-1998 as part of the Commissioner’s Local Government Review Programme. In all of these reviews, aspects of consultation have been examined as part of each investigation. The reviews are:
• Assessment of Environmental Effects (AEE): Administration by Three Territorial Authorities (1995);
• Public Participation under the RMA — The Management of Conflict (1996); • Information Needs of the RMA: A Review of the Information used for Discharge
Permit Applications (1998); and
• Kaitiakitanga and Local Government: Tangata Whenua Participation in Environ- mental Management (1998).
Environmental Assessment
Under the RMA, the purpose of an Assessment of Environmental Effects (AEE) is both to inform potentially affected parties so they can effectively participate in the consents process, and to provide information concerning the effects of the activity in the envi- ronment to the consent authority so that the authority can ensure its consent decisions are consistent with sustainable resource management.
There is no mandatory requirement for applicants to consult with stakeholders as part of an AEE, but it is recognised as good practice both by the Courts and by the PCE. The Fourth Schedule to the RMA requires applicants to identify interested or affected per- sons in the AEE, to record consultation undertaken, and any response to the views of those affected. This implies that pre-application consultation should be part of an AEE process, and, in fact, is often a good way of identifying key issues for the applicant’s consideration, and for obtaining information that has not been available from other sources.
Who to Consult
Firstly, tangata whenua need to be consulted where any development proposals may
affect matters in Part II, that is, section 6(e) and section 7(a)1. Secondly, the commu-
nity should be consulted to identify community expectations and values. Thirdly, ap- plicants need to consult with interested and affected persons in order to find out if there may be any effects on people and the environment as a result of the proposed applica- tion.
1 Section 6(e): The relationship of Maori and their culture and traditions with their
It is possible to get sharp distinctions in communities where there are different value sets operating, for example, those who see the need for job creation may conflict with the views of those who favour protection of environmental quality.
From the Kaitiakitanga and Local Government review (PCE 1998a), there were some
firm messages from tangata whenua about consultation. Tangata whenua in some
areas were concerned that consultation was seen as little more than a “politically cor- rect” gesture and that the application would go ahead regardless of the outcome of any
consultation. Tangata whenua were also very concerned about the assumption that
culturally sensitive information would be made available to people who did not recog- nise its worth and importance. The review found that the establishment of good rela-
tionships with iwi and hapü was the key to effective consultation. There are practical
frameworks for consultation that are being established in some areas, such as iwi re-
source management units, to facilitate more effective communication and participation of tangata whenua.
There is no explicit requirement for an applicant for a resource consent to consult, and council officers are not required to consult in the applicant’s place. However, an appli- cant risks receiving a request for further information (section 92), which may, in effect, require consultation to take place to identify specific information. Although applicants may perceive that consultation can be frustrating and time consuming, there is a risk that if consultation is not carried out early in the resource consent application process, they may be required to consult later in the process thus contributing to delays in process- ing their consent applications. Council officers may consult to gather relevant infor- mation for decision-makers if insufficient information is presented with an application and that can also prolong the resource consent process.
Method of Consultation
The Wellington International Airport Ltd case in the High Court2 clarified the nature of
consultation. For the purposes of this chapter, there are two principles of consultation that need emphasising:
• the party consulted should be adequately informed so as to be able to respond intelli- gently; and
• what is appropriate in the way of consultation will vary with the context.
The courts have also established that consultation does not mean that the views of any persons consulted will be paramount; neither does it mean that a right of veto exists in any person consulted.
Information from Stakeholders Tangata whenua information
There is a variety of information concerning natural and cultural values that applicants
2 The Court of Appeal endorsed McGechan J’s statement on consultation
or councils may need to seek from tangata whenua. The iwi, hapü or whänau of each
area have ongoing responsibilities for the taonga of that place. Only tangata whenua
can provide some kinds of information, or assess the potential impacts of proposed
activity on taonga. Therefore, consultation will be necessary.
The unique mauri and integrity of a place or resource may need to be recognised; for
example, waterways have particular sensitivity to tangata whenua in the impacts of
discharges or of mixing of waters from different catchments. Mauri is legally recog-
nised by the courts(NZLR, 1987); it is not a physically measurable quality, but can be
affected, or even destroyed, by physical impacts.
Places and resources of significance for identity and history, including wähi tapu, may
be affected by a proposal. Tangata whenua may be reluctant to identify exact sites,
preferring to indicate the general area in which such special places are located. There
may or may not be any visible signs of wähi tapu, pa sites or other historical sites in the
landscape. Protocols should be developed before a project starts to set out what to do if any urupä are uncovered during construction activities, what to do with the köiwi, and who is to be involved in managing this. Information may also be required on natural resources on which culture depends, for example weaving materials, medicinal plants,
or habitats of fish and eels, and other important taonga species of wildlife.
Further information may need to be found on iwi, hapü and whänau structures, rela-
tionships of particular people or families with particular places or resources, and rel- evant contact persons in order to know with whom an applicant should consult. His- torical information about a place and/or resource, what it used to be like, methods of traditional management, etc., may be sought, although this kind of information will often be very sensitive and non-Maori should not expect that this information would be made available in every circumstance. Consultation may provide useful information on possible alternatives and options for project design, which would ensure appropriate
protection for Maori values and accommodate tangata whenua concerns.
Examples of consultation: a source of information
The following three examples, two where consultation with stakeholders added infor- mation to the resource consent application and a third where consultation would have assisted the process by providing information, have been taken from the PCE’s report “Information Needs and the RMA” (PCE 1998).
Large coal mine
This coal mine is the largest in its region and the applicant consulted interested parties prior to lodging the resource consent application. The applicant was, therefore, able to address many submitters’ concerns in the AEE, and comments made to the regional council were that the interested parties were very satisfied with the AEE information received from the applicant. However, council staff identified another requirement for biological assessment and chemical monitoring of the stream that was receiving the minewater discharge. That issue had not been raised in the pre-application consulta- tion, but was identified by council staff during the evaluation of the consent application and the AEE. Once this information was provided, the resource consent proceeded smoothly through the process and was granted.
Small farm quarry
The applicant applied to the regional council for a resource consent to work a farm quarry for a small number of days per year. Although the regional council regarded this activity as permitted in their plan, the applicant wanted the certainty of having a re- source consent. The regional council provided a customised form for small quarry activities and the applicant worked through the application filling it out accurately. The
council decided that informal consultation with iwi would be useful and iwi advised
that there were no wähi tapu at or near the site. With that information in mind, the
regional council dealt with the application as a non-notified consent and granted it with straightforward conditions.
Tourism development
An applicant wished to construct a tourist lodge on the side of a very sensitive water body in the region. When the AEE and the resource consent application were submit- ted to the regional council, the council was not convinced that the proposed sewage system would perform as claimed in the application. On notifying the application, submitters were also sceptical of the performance information. The council therefore commissioned a technical audit of the performance of the sewage treatment system at the applicant’s expense. During the resource consent hearing, a submitter provided information on the significance of the receiving water for fish spawning, information that the applicant had not provided. In this case the decision-maker granted all but one of the consents with strict conditions to ensure the sewage treatment plant would oper- ate effectively, thus minimising effects on the sensitive water body. One consent was declined because of insufficient information.
Non-notified Consents
In the “Information Needs and the RMA” review (PCE 1998), the councils in two of the three case studies above sought information from potentially affected parties. Be- cause of the establishment of good relationships, informal consultation by council staff, e.g. with the Department of Conservation and Fish and Game Council, had elicited information on the significance of any potential environmental effects. The councils view this informal checking of information in an AEE as an important quality assur- ance measure.
However, there may be instances where informal consultation for non-notified consent applications is not undertaken. In the PCE’s “Kaitiakitanga and Local Government
Review” (PCE 1998), tangata whenua consulted were keenly aware of some consent
applications being processed as non-notified applications where there were significant values at stake. A number of the citizens’ concerns received by the PCE relate to the non-notification of resource consents where people in the community have been unable to contribute information to the council’s processing of an application.
Conclusions
The following conclusions are drawn from the four PCE reviews referred to in this chapter.
• consultation is a good source of information for applicants and decision-makers; • information obtained from consultation is often used as quality assurance for the
decision-makers; and
• to obtain relevant information one needs to establish good relationships, for example,
between councils and communities, tangata whenua and applicants.
In conclusion, in a video on the RMA and the opportunities for tangata whenua in-
volvement (Maori Legal Services, 1999), there is a quote from Turei Reedy (Ngati Porou) which sums up what consultation under the RMA is all about:
the RMA is about relationships — the environment, communities, and decision-makers
Acknowledgments
The assistance of Ms G James and Ms Ronda Cooper of the Parliamentary Commis- sioner for the Environment’s office in the preparation of this chapter is acknowledged.
Glossary
hapü family or district groups, communities
iwi tribal groups
kaitiaki iwi, hapü or whänau group with the responsibilities of
kaitiakitanga
kaitiakitanga the responsibilities and kaupapa, passed down from the ances-
tors, for tangata whenua to take care of the places, natural re-
sources and other taonga in their rohe, and the mauri of those
places, resources and taonga
köiwi human remains, bones
mauri essential life force, the spiritual power and distinctiveness that enables each thing to exist as itself
pä occupation site, often in a strategic location such as a hilltop
tangata whenua people of the land, Mäori people
taonga valued resources, assets, prized possessions both material and non- material
urupä burial place
wähi tapu special and sacred places
References/Notes
Birdsong, B 1998. Adjudicating Sustainability. New Zealand’s Environment Court
and the Resource Management Act. Ian Axford (New Zealand) Fellowship in Public Policy.
PCE, 1995. Assessment of Environmental Effects (AEE): Administration by Three
Territorial Authorities, Office of the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment, Wellington.
PCE, 1996. Public Participation under the RMA — The Management of Conflict,
Office of the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment, Wellington.
PCE, 1998. Information Needs of the RMA: A Review of the Information used for
Discharge Permit Applications, Office of the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment, Wellington.
PCE, 1998a. Kaitiakitanga and Local Government: Tangata Whenua Participation
in Environmental Management, Office of the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment, Wellington.
NZLR, 1987. Huakina Development Trust v Waikato Valley Authority, NZLR 188.
Maori Legal Services Inc: Nga Kaiwhakamarama I Nga Ture, 1999. Ki Te U o Te