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Natural Resource Management Amendment Bill 2009
CLAUSE NOTES
Clause 1 Short Title
This Act may be cited as the Natural Resource Management Amendment Act
2009.
Clause 2 Date of commencement
This Act commences on the day on which the Bill receives Royal Assent.
Clause 3 Principal Act
The Act being amended, ie. the Natural Resource Management Act 2002.
Clause 4 Section 9 amended (Regional committees)
This amendment proposes to simplify the membership provisions in section 9(3) of the
Principal Act and make them less prescriptive. These provisions have two characteristics
that were criticised in the review of the NRM Framework. First, the Act currently specifies
only "skills and knowledge in natural resource management" as the qualification for
membership. Paragraph 9(3)(a) states that a committee:
"consists of not more than 15 persons with experience, skills and
knowledge in natural resource management; and [then moves to
representational criteria]"
The proposed new paragraph extends the criteria and would provide as follows:
(a) consists of not more than 15 persons who together have
experience, skills and knowledge in the following:
(i) best practice governance;
(ii) business administration;
(iii) legal and contractual issues;
(iv) the achievement of natural resource management and
conservation outcomes; and
It is considered that the new provisions better reflect the range of skill-sets required to
successfully manage regional bodies into the future.
The second change to this section of the Principal Act relates to 9(3)(b) and the
specification of certain interests being required among the membership. The review of
the NRM Framework determined that more freedom, in terms of membership of the
committees, would be preferable.
The review concluded that there are adequate safeguards for the representativeness of
the Regional Committees. Under section 9(2) the Minister declares each body to be a
regional committee "subject to any terms and conditions the Minister determines". These
`Terms and Conditions' are a more flexible instrument, but will ensure the
representativeness of the committees is maintained. Failure to abide by the Terms and
Conditions is grounds for the Minister to revoke his declaration (as he may under section
9(4)).
It will remain a requirement that the committees have balance in their membership and
include Aboriginal community representation. The Terms and Conditions will also specify
that DPIW will retain an active role in the appointment process, through membership of
the three separate appointment panels. More important, DPIW will continue to provide
whole of government representation on the regional committees themselves. Finally, the
Terms and Conditions will specify the Minister's ongoing oversight role in relation to
membership changes. Consequently paragraph 9(3)(b) may be omitted.
Clause 5 Section 20 amended (Review of Act)
Section 20 is to be amended to provide more flexibility in the timing of future reviews.
Currently a review is required every five years.
There is a risk that the inflexible scheduling of future reviews may turn out to clash with
other NRM developments. For instance, the timing of the first review coincided with
major changes to the national NRM programs, and the same risk exists with the next:
five years from the first review would mean completion in early 2013, which will coincide
with the completion (and an earlier review) in June 2013 of the first five year investment
period for the Australian Government's Caring for our Country program.
That could be either a very good or a very poor time for a review of this sort, but
currently there is no flexibility to choose the best time. It is therefore proposed that the
Minister have some discretion to time reviews in accordance with other relevant factors.
This amendment proposes that the Act should be reviewed between four and seven
years after completion of each previous review.
Clause 6 Schedule 2 amended (Membership and meetings of Council)
There are two elements amended in Schedule 2. Firstly, the terms in Schedule 2 Part 2
are to be amended to allow Council members to remain on Council for longer periods if
appropriate. There are two benefits to this amendment; (i) it will allow the current Council
membership to carry through the implementation of the NRM Framework review
recommendations, and (ii) it will provide greater flexibility in terms of retaining suitable
and effective candidates on the Council beyond the current limit of two three-year terms.
(This can mean little more than three years, in practice. Several members were
appointed to fill casual vacancies and may thus serve only one term after the expiry of
the term of the member they replace, which has in some cases been a matter of only
months from their initial appointment.) The final amendment relates to Schedule
2(13)(b). Currently, the Principal Act requires that minutes from NRM Council meetings
are provided to the Minister within 14 days. This amendment removes the specific
reference to 14 days so that Schedule 2(13)(b) states:
"submit to the Minister a copy of the minutes of each meeting."
This reflects the reality that undertaking the required consultation and approvals
process to complete meeting minutes at an executive level often requires longer
than 14 days, and the specification is considered unnecessarily prescriptive.