Question: identify and discuss your Act’s overarching policy, policy instruments employed, the object (its objects clause or other statement of its objectives), its scheme and legal instruments. Include in your discussion comment on how the object, scheme and legal instruments work together to implement the policy.

Include in your discussion of the policy instruments consideration of the material contained in Gunningham, Sinclair and Grabosky (1998), and also make use of Fisher’s (2014) doctrines of powers, liabilities, rights and duties, and also environmental responsibilities.

my chosen act is Contaminated Sites Act 2003 (WA)

referencing style: Australian law

This is an important piece of work and is intended to provide an opportunity for you to research a specialized area of environmental policy and law, while also learning about more general aspects of the subject. The project will therefore contribute to your learning how to read and understand an Act of Parliament, and to determine its overarching policy and which policy instruments it employs; i.e., the overall policy that the Act is intended to implement (e.g., conservation of ecosystems through a representative system of reserves, sustainable fisheries management), and how it seeks to achieve the policy’s objectives respectively.

This year, you are required to work on the legislation as it was originally passed.

You should then track down the second reading speech from the Parliamentary debates on the associated bill to gain an understanding of the overarching policy for your Act. What you need to understand is why the Act was introduced in the first place; i.e., what problem was it designed to address.

Now track down secondary sources, starting with the Internet site for the government agency that is responsible for the administration of your Act. Documents (e.g., annual reports) that can be accessed in this way may be very useful for you in helping you understand your Act in practical terms.

The project should be 2,500 words in length.

Try to include not only a theoretical discussion, but also make reference to illustrative examples. To be able to cover all of the above you will need to be careful and avoid discussing your material in too much detail.

In the first module you will learn about environmental policy and about the different policy instruments that can be used to give effect to and support environmental policy. Throughout the unit you will also meet and learn to use the terms objects clause, scheme and legal instruments as a useful framework with which to understand an Act. These terms have been drawn from Rohde (1995) and can be defined as:

Rohde’s (1995) Framework

Objects clause

A concise statement of the scope, purpose and subject matter of the Act

Scheme

The means by which the objects (clause) is to be achieved

Legal instruments

The legal documents that emerge from the administration of the scheme (e.g., a licence)

The full reference to Rohde (1995) is:

Rohde, J. (1995). The Objects Clause in Environmental Legislation: The Nature Conservation Act 1992 (Qld) Exemplified. Environmental and Planning Law Journal, 12: 80-96.

What then is the project question? Here it is:

Identify and discuss your Act’s overarching policy, policy instruments employed, the object (its objects clause or other statement of its objectives), its scheme and legal instruments. Include in your discussion comment on how the object, scheme and legal instruments work together to implement the policy.

Include in your discussion of the policy instruments consideration of the material contained in Gunningham, Sinclair and Grabosky (1998), and also make use of Fisher’s (2014) doctrines of powers, liabilities, rights and duties, and also environmental responsibilities.

The reference to “other statement of its objectives” allows for the absence of a single and explicit objects clause (i.e., a single section) in older Acts – mainly those Acts passed before the mid-90s. In these cases you will need to infer the object of your Act from its long title, from those sections that throw some light on the Act’s object, from reading the Act as a whole, and from external sources; e.g., the second reading speech. Even where there is an objects clause further insights can be gained in the same way.

The concept of a legal instrument has previously caused some confusion. A legal instrument is a separate document from its parent Act – when you buy an Act you won’t obtain any legal instruments although the Act will talk about them (e.g., regulations, a licence, a management plan). Thus provision for the appointment of inspectors isn’t a legal instrument, rather it is part of the scheme.

Feel free to include a diagram to summarize the relationship between the overarching policy, policy instruments, objects (clause), scheme and legal instruments. Remember that there may be more than one object. Also each part of the scheme may implement more than one of the objects. A diagram should help you to sort these matters out.