Legislative Pathways for Dam Safety Management

I have received requests for the pathways diagram I used in my presentation last week to the NZSOLD/ANCOLD Conference in Christchurch - so here it is.

Corsair Consulting - Legislative pathways.pdf

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My paper was titled "The Drivers of Dam Safety Legislation in New Zealand - Connecting the Past to the Future". It covered both dams and stopbanks (levees) - see below regarding stopbanks.

I conceived and developed the diagram whilst preparing my presentation, after I had submitted the paper, hence its omission from the paper. It's inspired by Dynamic Adaptive Pathways Planning (DAPP) and is a convenient way of depicting the three legislative pathways considered by government during development of dam safety legislation over the past 40 years.

Initially a standalone statute (proposed Dam Safety Act) was considered (the top bar in the diagram), with preparation of the framework to be legislated starting in 1986. As explained in my paper, Cabinet approved the drafting of legislation in 1988 and instructions were issued to the Parliamentary Counsel Office in 1989. With a change of government in 1990 the PCO was instructed to stop.

Consideration was then given to using the recently enacted Building Act 1991 and Resource Management Act 1991, although officials had not ruled out a standalone Act. In 1998 the government decided that dam safety would be managed through an amendment to the Building Act 1991. The Building Act was subsequently replaced by the Building Act 2004, providing the opportunity to incorporate a legislated dam safety framework as Subpart 7 of the Act.

My paper also outlines the subsequent development, revocation and further development of regulations to support the Act. For a while, the RMA was reconsidered as the statute for legislating the dam safety framework through a proposed National Environmental Standard for Dam Safety (see the diagram). This was short-lived with the Building Act and supporting regulations (ultimately the Building (Dam Safety) Regulations 2022) becoming the means of regulating dam safety in New Zealand.

Stopbanks (levees) are not regulated under the dam safety legislation. In my paper I examine when and how that decision was made and offer some thoughts on why stopbanks could continue to be regulated differently to dams and canals.