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Working Towards a Comprehensive Policy Framework for Managing Contaminated Land in New Zealand: Report on Submissions

Executive summary

1 Introduction

2 Overview of submissions

3 Key elements and work priorities

4 National environmental standards

5 Roles and responsibilities

6 Guidance

7 Liability

8 Accreditation

9 Capability

10 National information

11 Additional research areas

12 Additional opportunities

13 Workshop overview

Appendix A: Index of submitters

Abbreviations

References

10 National information

The majority of respondents agreed that national information on contaminated land in New Zealand should be collected and reported. However, a number raised concerns or conditions as to how this should be done.

Although submitters generally accepted the importance of gathering national information to inform policy development, some were concerned that the priority should be on gathering and/or maintaining local information first. Others suggested there should be conditions on the collection of national information.

The most common suggestion for supporting the implementation of CLMG No. 4 (Classification and Information Management Protocols) was to develop a standardised model/register. A significant number of respondents also suggested that the Ministry should provide tools and/or resources to collect/report data and assist implementation of CLMG No. 4.

Collection and reporting

Thirty-three (53%) submitters responded to this discussion point. Most agreed (16), conditionally agreed (10) or partially agreed (5) that national information on contaminated land in New Zealand should be collected and reported. Two disagreed. Figure 10 provides a breakdown of the responses.

Those who agreed (16) considered that national information is important to monitor progress and enable informed policy decisions.

The most common conditions for those who conditionally agreed (10) were that the information collected must be unambiguous, transparent, accurate, reliable and without bias or it may penalise property owners unnecessarily.

Whether submitters agreed, conditionally agreed or partially agreed there was a strong consensus that for national information to be accurate and useful, local information collection and management needs to be improved.

Two submitters did not agree, due to the variability of information from regional councils and the associated data limitations.

Table 22: Responses to whether national information on contaminated land should be collected and reported, by submitter ID

Support for CLMG No. 4

Twenty-four (39%) submitters suggested initiatives to support the implementation of CLMG No. 4. Table 23 shows a summary of the suggestions.

The most common suggestion (8) was for the provision of a model register/database that could be adopted by all councils for the collection and reporting of contaminated land. Some suggested that this could be based on the best of the existing regional council databases.

Six submitters considered that some councils should be supported by central government to set up adequate databases/registers, and to collect information on land. Other common suggestions included: providing training (4), including requirements to manage information within a standard or guidance document (2), and better promote existing guidance (2).

Table 23: Suggestions for implementing CLMG No. 4, by submitter ID

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