Friday 30 June
Session 7 - Practical Workshops
Workshop 4: Public Awareness, community expectations and social and ethical issues
Chair: Karen Cronin, ERMA New Zealand
The purpose of these workshops is to discuss the following questions:
- How well has the HSNO Act worked over the past two years?
- Are HSNO objectives for the environment and public health being achieved?
- What do we need to do in the future to achieve these desired outcomes?
This workshop has as its focus public awareness, community expectations for the environment, and social and ethical issues relating to the managed of new organisms and hazardous substances.
This workshop will begin with two short presentations after which the group will identify a series of key issues relating to these questions. The group will then split into either two or three smaller groups. Each of these smaller groups will be asked to take a subset of these issues and to explore answers to the three questions for each of these issues.
The presentations
Janet Gough will look at social and community input to HSNO decision making from the perspective of ERMA New Zealand, by reviewing the current practice in processing applications, and identifying some of the significant social and community issues that have been raised in submissions to date.
Barbara Nicholas will briefly look at the ethical issues raised by the situations covered by the HSNO act, and then move on explore the interface between science and ethics, and the possibilities for ethical issues to be considered by ERMA in its decision making.
Workshop - Session 7 (B)
Submissions - Anne Rose ERMA New Zealand
Introduction
- Role of Public Submissions.
- Statutory public notification of applications.
- Non-statutory notification of applications.
- Role of submissions in the decision-making process.
- Statistics & logistics.
How to be informed.
- Newspapers
- ERMA New Zealand database of interested parties.
- ERMA New Zealand website.
- The Bulletin: formal record of applications and decisions.
What's helpful & what's not in a submission
The rights and responsibilities of a submitter Information requirements Ways to set out information Supporting information
Hearings
- Hearing procedure.
- What to expect.
- Guidelines for submitters.
Practical session: Assessing mock submissions
A chance to assess a range of mock submissions
Q&A:Opportunity to discuss submissions with an Authority member