Zero Waste Aotearoa Opposes Plan to Abolish MfE

Zero Waste Aotearoa (ZWA) does not support disestablishing the Ministry for the Environment and bundling its environmental protection functions into the proposed MCERT Mega Ministry.

“This takes us back to an old 1970’s approach by embedding a fundamental conflict of interest into the new mega-Ministry. Environmental protection will be viewed as an internal obstacle to be managed, rather than a statutory goal to be upheld,” says Sue Coutts of Zero Waste Aotearoa.

“Clean and green is part of our national identity.  It underpins our trade and tourism industries. If we don’t have a strong champion to protect our environment we are putting our health, our economy and our future at risk.”

“Almost all of our major environmental indicators show we’re in serious trouble. Our lands, air and water are polluted, biodiversity is under extreme strain and climate goals have been abandoned.”

“Solving New Zealand’s waste, recycling, plastic and chemical pollution problems is already low on the government’s priority list, dismantling the Ministry for the Environment will cross these critical issues off the to-do list altogether.”

“Dismantling the Ministry for the Environment (MfE) is nothing less than vandalism of the public interest by a government that has shown it cares very little for the ecological systems that sustain us.”

“Climate, nature, environmental quality and health impacts need a dedicated, independent statutory voice. This helps to ensure any trade offs being made between development and production  and environmental quality and protection are rigorously analysed.”

“Decision making will be less open and transparent, because the new mega-Ministry Chief Executive will carry the responsibility for making trade offs between environmental and development objectives. This will happen at the management level, rather than these being debated and agreed in the public and political realm. There will be fewer opportunities for scrutiny of decision making with a public interest lens or by watchdogs like the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment.”

“MfE also plays an important role in managing the Crown’s relationship with iwi regarding natural resources. The current expertise and relationships could be buried or lost in the shift to the MCERT mega ministry.”

“As importantly, resource management law is undergoing a massive overhaul. There is a lot of work to be done setting up the national standards, environmental limits and policy direction that will shape decision making in the future.”

“It makes more sense to leave MfE as it is and properly resource it to do the background work outlined in the new Planning and Environment bills. Restructuring and merging MfE into MCERT will disrupt the team and waste time, energy and resources that could be put into this critical work.”

“As the submission period closes, ZWA encourages the public to understand the negative impacts on environmental protection this will have. ZWA recommends to the select committee that the Ministry for the Environment is not included in this amalgamation, and instead is empowered to actually do the work of caring for our environment.”