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2. Summary of Strategy

Short-term actions: deliver on promises to establish some credibility

We recommend that compliance monitoring and enforcement is a high priority for the strategy. We propose that:

  1. ERMA takes a more directive role in compliance monitoring and enforcement, particularly to clarify for local authorities what they need to do for HSNO compliance monitoring. To do this the Ministry for Environment (MfE) should put funding proposals to the government by 31 July 2003 so ERMA can develop service-level agreements or contracts with enforcement agencies.

Transfer of substances into the HSNO regime has been promised for some time but not delivered on. Transfer is relatively easy to address, will improve the HSNO Act’s workability and consequently restore some credibility to it. To get transfer back on track, we recommend that:

  1. Explosives are transferred in July/August 2003. People are expecting other substances to be transferred on 1 July 2003 as well as explosives. However, we propose to transfer just explosives because the necessary work is nearly completed and the transfer could be an easy run on the board. We propose that the transfer process is simplified before other substances are transferred.
  2. Control regulations are completed this year. The control regulations contain the list of default controls that ERMA can draw on to assign to a substance when they approve a new application or transfer a substance to HSNO controls. ERMA has no control options for hazardous substances that are contained in bulk storage tanks for example. Substances like petrol and diesel cannot be transferred until these controls are complete. Again this is a relatively easy step for the government to take and considered overdue by stakeholders.
  3. The transfer process is simplified by changing HSNO in 2003 so ERMA can transfer about 500 substances on 1 April 2004 (amendment to s160).
  4. Enable ERMA to apply use controls where they are considered necessary to adequately manage the risks of a hazardous substance and to enable ERMA to substitute new controls for the default controls in the HSNO regulations, where the same outcome could be achieved via a more cost effective and practical means (amendments to s160, s154 and s77 may be necessary).

We propose that short-term easy gains can be made by two non-regulatory steps: one to make HSNO controls easier to understand and two to reduce compliance costs for applicants. We recommend that:

  1. User friendly guidance be developed to interpret the HSNO controls for businesses. This is a high priority because the risk that the hazardous substances pose to the environment and people increase significantly if people can’t understand and follow the HSNO controls. We propose that a group including ERMA, industry and MfE is formed to determine what the priority for New Zealand user-friendly guidance and codes of practice are, and how they should be funded.
  2. ERMA take steps to reduce the information provision costs for applicants. The costs of getting information together for an application are much higher than the fees ERMA charges for processing an application and a significant cost to industry. ERMA will clarify for potential applicants what overseas data they accept and in what circumstances reduced information is acceptable.

Longer-term actions: change HSNO to improve workability

We propose that ERMA be given new tools to remove redundancies from the HSNO system and better link HSNO to how everyday people use products with hazardous properties. We consider that with new tools, ERMA can take advantage of the opportunity that transferring 70,000 toxic substances provides to simplify the whole HSNO regime. We believe our proposals will have a significant impact on improving compliance with the HSNO regime and remove unnecessary compliance costs. We recommend that:

  1. MfE prepares papers for ministers by October/November 2003 on new tools for ERMA including:
    • the use of conditions on approvals and standard sets of controls;
    • a quick and largely automatic low risk pathway for substance transfer and approvals; and
    • ‘generic’ approvals for key groups of similar products that attract the same controls. This will reduce the number of new substance applications necessary.

We also propose that in October/November 2003, MfE report to ministers on proposals to:

  1. Change HSNO to clarify the role of ERMA, territorial authorities and regional councils with respect to compliance monitoring and enforcement.
  2. Address gaps and overlaps between HSNO and other legislation.
  3. We further recommend that MfE review the effectiveness of the strategy on the issues identified two years after strategy implementation and substance transfer is completed.
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