Tracy Mackey

At the EPA we are all committed to providing a better service to our customers, and an essential component to delivering this is listening. A key part of our journey to becoming a world class regulator requires genuine and dynamic engagement with our stakeholders, being responsive and being able to adapt and change.

We’ve been reviewing how we engage with different stakeholders over the past six months. Following feedback from many of you through our biggest ever stakeholder and community survey last year, I hope you have started to notice a significant change in our approach.

We have recently developed a clear Charter of Engagement outlining our principles and commitment for how we will engage with you. You can read our Charter here.

In February and March, we travelled around NSW with our Roadshow, meeting with 500 council and licensee staff at a series of forums. The EPA Executive and I heard what you expect of us. You told us how we can help you and we talked about how we can work together better on local environmental issues and the issues that matter most to you.

In March we also met with more than 40 community stakeholders in the state’s north and south who are interested in our work on the regulation and compliance of forestry operations. We now have a better idea of the information you would like to receive from us and we are looking at new channels for collaboration.

As part of our journey to being a world class regulator we are working to be more transparent and to provide more data. We want to make sure that our stakeholders understand how we regulate, what’s involved in an investigation and the type of information that can assist us. Stakeholders can provide us with extra eyes and ears on the ground.

You can read more about the Roadshow and other points of engagement and regulation in this edition of EPA Connect, and I invite you to watch our short video about the valuable findings from our Roadshow journey.

We are always happy to hear how we can do better and we welcome your feedback so that we can continue on our journey to being a world class regulator.

I am excited to announce the imminent release of the EPA's new Regulatory Strategy. The strategy was guided  by your valuable feedback and you can read more on how it will drive our regulatory work ahead, in this edition.

Tracy Mackey

Chief Executive Officer