The Environment Protection Authority (EPA) in Victoria Australia is about to commence a major Statutory and Policy Review. Several major policies on air, water, ground water and waste management are all being reviewed at the same time.
There should be benefits with less pollution coming onto you properties, catchments and communities but there will probably be costs and other restrictions that may change.

One of these policies underpins where town sewer is required and the standards for unsewered subdivision and new development approvals in unsewered areas.

In general these policies have been good but there are still a few problems caused that need carefully fixing up and changes made to reflect new or improved technology.

Ideally there will be just improvements but we know that corporations are increasingly having influences that may be counter productive and people will need to be wary of being taken for a ride or ripped off.

http://www.epa.vic.gov.au/about_us/l...ory-policy.asp


There are meetings in Melbourne next week for various stake holders and the following questions have been posed which I have converted into discussion threads to help with the preparation of Local Council and professional association submissions.

Read or refer to the 27 page discussion paper and then post your comments under the appropriate threads when they have been created for answering these questions.

HOW STATUTORY POLICY WORKS
Question 1: In your experience, what has worked well with statutory policy? What has not worked well?
Question 2: How well do you think the features and obligations in statutory policy are understood? Are some parts better understood than others?
(We would welcome some examples).
Question 3: Are there critical issues, risks or relevant processes (e.g. upcoming reviews, strategic planning processes) that should be considered in prioritising individual policy reviews?

CRITICAL CHALLENGES FOR STATUTORY POLICY
Question 4: What do you think are the main challenges for statutory policy? Are there other challenges not presented in the discussion paper?

Question 5: In your work, which instruments or documents under the Environment Protection Act do you (or your organisation) use most often? The Environment Protection Act, Regulations, statutory policies or guidance?

APPROACHES TO STANDARD SETTING
Question 6: What types of measures or provisions in the ‘attainment programs’ of statutory policy do you find most useful?
Do you think these need to stay in statutory policy or may be better placed in other regulatory instruments or guidance?
(There are a total of 16 Questions and the others will be listed further down this thread with links to threads created for each set of questions under the one topic)