The Commission for the Environment

The solution was for New Zealand to have a Commission for the Environment, designed to direct public concern at the government departments rather than at the Executive. The establishment of this Commission is perhaps a prime example of the Executive type of operating.

The Commission was set up with no statutory provisions or powers. Its role was simply to report upon the proposals of various authorities intending to use various resources, and perhaps on activities already undertaken. It was also to provide a further block between the Executive and the people, in that it would probably take the sting out of protests and petitions to ministers concerned, through greater time delays in processing, and the writing of reports on other people's reports of other department's reports.

The situation would have been ludicrous. In the informative years it was. The Commission's lack of statutory powers and wallop had been intended to prevent it from interfering in the processes of government that had been going on undaunted for years. However it was this lack of legislative fettering that was to enable the Commission to start taking an independent, and more importantly a researched, commentator role.

page 7

The overall effect of the Commission's evolution meant that rather than playing down any genuine environmental concern being expressed by the people, it tended to pick up such interests and amplify them, giving them further research and backing, and then releasing its findings to the public in general. The Executive were finding that "their" desired "development" was coming under fire and investigation by an organisation it was paying for and nominally controlling.