EXPLANATORY STATEMENT
Statutory Rules 2002 No. 83
Issued by the Authority of the Parliamentary Secretary for the Minister for the Environment and Heritage
Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999
Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Amendment Regulations 2002 (No. 1)
Subsection 520(1) of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (the Act) provides that the Governor-General may make regulations prescribing all matters: (a) required or permitted by the Act to be prescribed; or (b) necessary or convenient to be prescribed for carrying out or giving effect to the Act.
Clause 33(3)(a) provides that the Minister may accredit a management plan only if satisfied that, amongst other things, the management plan and the law under which it is in force (or is to be in force) meet the criteria prescribed by the regulations.
The purpose of the proposed Regulation is to prescribe the criteria (under clause 33(3)(a) of the Act) that must be met before a fisheries management plan can be accredited by the Minister.
The proposed regulations prescribe three criteria for the accreditation of fisheries management plans, namely, they must be:
• plans that are in force, or in force in the future, under either the Fisheries Management Act 1991 or the Torres Strait Fisheries Act 1984;
• plans that have been endorsed by the Environment Minister under an Agreement made under section 146, which provides for agreements to be made relating to strategic assessments of the impacts of actions under a policy, plan or program on a matter protected by a provision of Part 3 of the Act; and
• in the form in which the plan was endorsed.
The criteria would, for the first time, provide the basis for the Environment Minister to make a decision on whether to accredit a management plan for a fishery under section 33 of the Act.
The amending Regulations commence on gazettal.