The Environmental Law Roundtable of Australia and New Zealand (ELRANZ) is a joint initiative of the National Environmental Law Association of Australia (NELA) and the Resource Management Law Association of New Zealand Inc (RMLA).

NELA and RMLA are the joint publishers of:

•  The ELRANZ Report on Penalty Infringement Notices (PINS) for Environmental Offences: A step towards Consensus on the Law across Australia and New Zealand (January 2008).
•  The ELRANZ Discussion Paper on Penalty Infringement Notices (PIN) for Environmental Offences (August 2006).

The report contains 17 recommendations as to how the penalty infringement notice laws can be improved and harmonised across Australia and New Zealand. The report follows on from the discussion paper. PDF copies of the report and the discussion paper are available through the links below.

The idea of investigating penalty infringement notices to see where harmonisation of the law across Australia and New Zealand might occur arose out of the paper given by Rosemary Martin, Principal, Martin & McLean Lawyers, Melbourne, Trends in Environmental Prosecution (published in the National Environmental Law Review 2005:2 at page 38). The paper was presented to the National Environmental Law Association Conference in Canberra in July 2005. The paper was subsequently published in Resource Management Theory & Practice [2006] 172.

NELA is interested in the harmonisation of environmental law and policy across Australia and the RMLA has joined with NELA to add New Zealand to the harmonisation process.

There are joint Ministerial Councils between Australia and New Zealand and this joint multidisciplinary project allows for shared experiences to eventually lead towards harmonisation.

The harmonisation process may occur in stages as we use consensus building techniques as part of the implementation phase.

Click here for the ELRANZ Report on Penalty Infringement Notices (PINS) for Environmental Offences: A step towards Consensus on the Law across Australia and New Zealand

If you need to access the information in the discussion paper it is available by clicking here for the ELRANZ Discussion Paper on Penalty Infringement Notices (PIN) for Environmental Offences.

The next part of the ELRANZ PIN Project is the implementation of the recommendations in the report. If you want to be involved in the implementation dialogue or want to monitor progress or if you have any comments or suggestions please email the ELRANZ Convenor (John Haydon) at johnhaydon@ecodirections.com.