About public consultation and DEC

Our commitment

The Department of Environment and Conservation (DEC) is the State agency with responsibility for ensuring Western Australia's environment is valued, protected and conserved for its intrinsic value, and for the appreciation and benefit of present and future generations.

DEC has a firm commitment to public participation and recognises the right of members of the public to have a meaningful role in protecting and conserving Western Australia's natural environment to ensure healthy ecosystems, social and economic well-being and conservation of biological diversity for present and future generations. DEC has prepared this policy as part of an integrated manual on public participation, in order to achieve its goal of improving public participation.

It is our policy to ensure that appropriate opportunities for participation are provided for individuals, interest groups and communities.

What is public participation?

Public participation is an ongoing process which can improve communication, interaction and joint decision making between different stakeholders. Through public participation, all parties become better informed about the range of views on proposals and issues. Most importantly, a good public participation process will result in better decisions that are more sensitive and responsive to public concerns and values.

It is widely acknowledged that public participation processes should vary according to the size, complexity and level of interest in any one issue, policy or plan. Accordingly, DEC recognises that there are different forms of public participation and that these are appropriate in different circumstances.

Forms of public participation

It is important that the right form of participation is chosen for each issue, policy or plan and that DEC constantly aims for best practice implementation in every situation. The Public Participation Strategy provides guidance for adopting best practice approaches.

Principles for public participation

To establish a sound basis for DEC's public participation practices, the policy promotes 10 central principles:

• Public participation processes will have a clearly stated purpose and clearly identified boundaries.
• Public participation will be based on a shared understanding (with stakeholders) of principles, objectives, responsibilities, behaviour, assessment criteria and expected outcomes.
• Participation will provide opportunities for input, representation and joint learning from all relevant stakeholders.
• The participatory process will be objective, open, fair and carried out in a responsible and accountable manner.
• Public participation processes will emphasise the sharing of information, joint learning and understanding.
• Data and information used in the decision making process will be available to stakeholders.
• Consensus will be emphasised with the provision for dissenting views to be documented.
• Appropriate staff, information and time will be allocated to ensure that the participatory process can be undertaken in a comprehensive manner.
• The outcomes of public participation will form part of the decision making process.
• Participants will be informed as to how their involvement affected the Department's or Government's decisions.

DEC has a responsibility to ensure that resources are used effectively in implementing these principles.