Final Report on a Stakeholder Workshop on 2 December 2008 for the Future Development of the Australian and New Zealand Guidelines for Fresh and Marine Water Quality
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Background
In 2008, the Department of Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts (DEWHA) commissioned a review of implementation of the National Water Quality Management Strategy (NWQMS). In summary, the review was initially based on interviews with the NWQMS Contact Group (from State, Territory and New Zealand jurisdictions) and reviews of relevant literature. Following the release of the draft report on this review (Bennett, 2008a)1, DEWHA organised a two day workshop (19-20 August 2008) to discuss the draft report and its suggested actions.
The outcomes of the workshop included:
- Agreement to a process to finalise the report to incorporate further inputs from and final reviews by the NWQMS Contact Group (Bennett, 2008b)2 and
- A series of agreed actions for DEWHA and the Contact Group to progress based on the discussion paper and the decisions on priorities made at the workshop.
One key agreed action is to scope a revision of NWQMS Guideline No.4 – Australian and New Zealand Guidelines for Fresh and Marine Water Quality (ANZECC and ARMCANZ 2000) – herein called the "Guideline No.4". The workshop attendees appointed a sub-group of Rick van Dam (ERISS), Amanda Hunt (NZ) and David Duncan (SA) to lead the scoping process, with assistance from DEWHA officers.
The sub-group first developed a two page document to describe the process to scope the review of the Guideline No.4 (Appendix 1). The key deliverable from the process will be a detailed Terms of Reference (ToR) for the revision of the Guideline No.4, including (i) the scope of and priorities for the revision; and (ii) the arrangements under which the revision will take place (e.g. roles and responsibilities, processes for commissioning the revision, timeframes, etc.). It is intended that the ToR will be submitted for approval as part of papers to Ministerial Councils in April 2009.
Identification and prioritisation of the revision requirements for the Guideline No.4 is initially relying on a targeted consultation process. Consultation and feedback that has already occurred in Bennett (2008a and 2008b) is being included and a further targeted consultation round was initiated. The additional feedback on revision requirements was sought from key users of the Guideline No.4 through a letter (Appendix 2) that DEWHA sent to key stakeholder groups including:
- Peak industry bodies
- Scientific societies and research bodies
- Non government organisations, and
- Government bodies/groups.
New Zealand followed a similar process for contacting stakeholders. E-mails requesting comments on the scope of the proposed revisions were sent to regional councils, academics, research institutes, relevant government departments and some non-government organisations. Subsequent e-mails advising of this workshop were also sent to these contacts.
1 Bennett, J. 2008a. Evaluation of the Extent of Implementation of the National Water Quality Management Strategy (NWQMS) Report to the Department of Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts. 13 June 2008.
2 Bennett, J. 2008b. Final Discussion Paper on Implementation of the National Water Quality Management Strategy. Report prepared for the Department of Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts in consultation with the NWQMS Contact Group. November 2008.
