Where are we at with this slippery beast - the Environmental Protection Authority?
Parliament has just heard the second reading of the bill and Nick Smith has been having his say. And here's something of what he said.
"The building of the EPA is an iterative process ... other functions an expanded EPA should undertake ... this is not the end of the journey - the EPA we are establishing today has been designed to be as flexible as possible to receive extra functions and responsibilities."
These various utterances say to me that the EPA will be a vehicle for centralizing decision making power and vesting that power in the hands of a few Government representatives. Smith cements my belief with this:
"While it is the Government's intention for the EPA's design to be (sic) remain flexible enough to adopt new functions, it is not our intention that the new Authority should assume these by Ministerial fiat."
Oh, how I laughed merrily at that!
That Nick! What a josher!
9 comments:
EPA Protecting the farm environment since 2011?
Well done little America
Cynic.
Prophet.
I'd still love to follow you. Thanks for you kind comments. I am pretty sure I wrote a story about you a few years ago for Growing Today about spreading native seeds!
Ah! Now I can place you Rosie! Seed balls they were, little spheres of clay wrapped around native tree seeds a la Masanobu Fukuoka. That project lives on and on and has potentials I wasn't aware of then - especially in the permaculture world - grains, vegetable seeds and so on.
You write very well.
I've put a FOLLOW button on the front page and you are welcome to push it :-)
Done - thanks. I liked you when I wrote about you so it's nice to make contact and be in touch and yes, seed balls it was.
The use of the word "Protection" in the title is terribly misleading, because it implies the agency is there to protect the environment.
Having looked at the role of the agency I am forced to conclude its role is very much to manage, rather than protect.
It will end up trying to balance competing demands, to no one's satisfaction, which is to say it is being set up to fail, or at least to divert our attention.
Armchair Critic - I concur with your findings. The Authority appeals to authoritarians, naturally enough, and it'll not do the environment, or us environmentalists (speaking for myself) any good at all.
I remember reading about that native seedballing years ago :-) Any chance of a blogpost updating us on the project Robert?
I will do that wildcrafty.
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