New Zealand

Background

New Zealand is a unitary state that is very centralised. Most functions (social welfare, police) are centralised with decentralised regional administration. The 11 regional councils are democratically elected and regionally funded from land taxes and user charges, but their functions, determined by statute, make them essentially environmental management agencies charged with natural resource management (McNeill, 2016). Public health administration is devolved to district health boards, which have joint elected and government appointed members and funded by the national government.

Outside the EU NZ has no supra-national political body directing legislation; all international treaties have to be transposed into direct legislation to become effective. For the main part these are United Nations sourced, but there is also a very deep relationship with Australia - the Common Economic Relations (CER) that go well beyond pure economic agreement and are argued to be homologous to EU in some aspects (Leslie & Elijah, 2011).

Implementation

International treaties and agreements (eg free trade agreements) require transposition into domestic law to be effective. Typically the responsible Minister proposes legislation to Parliament, that after first reading is usually referred to a select committee (of MPs) for consideration. The select committee is most likely to call for public submissions, as well as technical submissions from government departments and ministries, before presenting its recommendations to Parliament. The legislation may be further debated and amended by Parliament.

Once passed into law, the new legislation will be implemented. The implementing agency will be determined by legislation. In most cases a government department will be responsible for any actions and enforcement. Implementation review is often only likely to be done as part of wider departmental overview by the relevant select committee - or parliamentary question, and in annual reports by departments to Parliament.

References

Leslie, J., & Elijah, A. (2011). A Comparator for the EU? Regional Integration, Sequencing and the Invisible Institutions of Closer Economic Relations between Australia and New Zealand. Paper presented at the APSA 2011 Annual Meeting Paper. http://ssrn.com/abstract=1900020

McNeill, J. (2016). Regional Councils: local government as environmental managers. In J. Drage & C. Cheyne (Eds.), Local Government in New Zealand: challenges and choices (pp. 259-271). Auckland: Dunmore.