Consultation wrap-up

Good afternoon

Many of you have been involved in our recent consultation on a variety of important issues to New Zealanders - protecting our productive land, growing our cities to benefit people and the environment, better dealing with harmful waste and chemicals, and taking action for healthy waterways. Thank you for taking the time to talk to us about them.

We held over 60 meetings, visiting every region of the country and meeting with approximately 7,500 people from all walks of life. While the freshwater proposals were the main topic of discussion at most meetings, we wanted to take the opportunity to inform people about all five policy areas (read about them) because they are all important to a more sustainable future for New Zealand.

This joined-up consultation approach meant you didn’t have to come and speak to us on five different topics at five different times. We’d like to know what you thought of this approach – please see survey details at the end.

Submissions

We will continue receiving submissions on Action on healthy waterways and until 31 October. Submissions on other areas have closed. 

Thousands of people and organisations are making the effort to express their views, and every submission will be read in detail.

We have received the following numbers of submissions:

• Freshwater –  over 5,000 to date
• Product stewardship – over 4,000
• Highly productive land – over 240 to date
• Urban development – over 240
• Hazardous substances and new organisms – approximately 45

Thank you to everyone who has provided a submission. Know that your voice matters – together we are creating the kind of future we want to see for our country.

A summary of submissions will be published for each policy area, once submissions have been read and analysed.

Documents in demand

Alongside the meetings, many more New Zealanders have visited our website to find out more about the policy proposals and submit their views.

In the past few weeks, the action for healthy waterways web page was visited by over 22,000 people, reducing harm from waste was visited by over 11,000 and over 5,000 visited the page on planning for successful cities. protecting our valuable land and hazardous substances together had over 3,000 visitors.

The vast majority of visitors to each consultation page took the time to read either the discussion document, or the shorter summary document. In the case of action for healthy waterways, more than 15,000 people downloaded the discussion document and summary.

You might also be interested to know that we have just released Our marine environment 2019 report. You can read it online or download it.

Let us know your feedback on our consultation approach

We’re always aiming to improve how we engage with New Zealanders, so we’d like to hear what you thought of our recent series of consultation meetings and communications across a range of our work. This short survey should take less than 2 mins. Thank you for your time.

If you have questions about any of our work, email us at info@mfe.govt.nz. If you have more specific questions about our freshwater proposals, please email us at freshwater@mfe.govt.nz.

Thank you.