New South Wales Consolidated Acts

FORESTRY AND NATIONAL PARK ESTATE ACT 1998 - SECT 20

20 Review of agreements and related integrated forestry operations approvals

(1) The Ministers who are parties to a forest agreement are required to jointly review the agreement and any integrated forestry operations approval for the region.

(2) A review is to be undertaken for the purposes only of assessing:

(a) the implementation of the provisions of the agreement, and

(b) whether integrated forestry operations approvals are effective in achieving the purpose of those approvals.

(3) A review is to be undertaken by those Ministers every 5 years after the agreement is made.

(4) Those Ministers are to ensure that the public is given an opportunity to participate in the review. The public participation is to include:

(a) giving at least 6 months’ notice of the review (including the proposed terms of reference of the review) in a newspaper circulating throughout the State and also in a newspaper circulating in the region concerned, and

(b) inviting representations in connection with the proposed terms of reference within the time specified in the notice, and the consideration of any such representations before the terms of reference are settled, and

(c) giving notice of whether any changes are proposed to the forest agreement or to the integrated forestry operations approval (including notice of the place at which and times during which any proposed changes will be available for public inspection) in a newspaper circulating throughout the State and also in a newspaper circulating in the region concerned, and

(d) making any proposed changes available for public inspection, at the place and during the times specified in the notice, for at least 28 days after the notice is given in both of those newspapers, and

(e) inviting representations in connection with any proposed changes within the time specified in the notice, and

(f) consideration of any such representation before a decision is made on the outcome of the review and any changes are made.

(5) The Ministers are to cause a report on the outcome of each review to be tabled in each House of Parliament within 12 months after the end of the relevant 5-year period.

(6) Despite section 18, a forest agreement may not be amended as a result of a review under this section until the report on the outcome of the review has been tabled under subsection (5).

(7) A provision of any other Act for the review by a government agency or other body of a licence to which Division 3 of Part 4 applies has no effect with respect to the terms of a relevant licence set out in an integrated forestry operations approval.

(8) This section does not apply in respect of any integrated forestry operations approval prepared for the Community Conservation Area as defined by the Brigalow and Nandewar Community Conservation Area Act 2005 .