Summary
The Regulations are needed to give full effect to the Radiation Safety Act 2016. The Radiation Safety Act comes fully into force on 7 March 2017 and will repeal and replace the current Radiation Protection Act 1965 and its Regulations. More information about the new legislation is available at Changes to Radiation Safety Legislation. Both the current and the new legislation will be administered by the Ministry of Health’s Office of Radiation Safety. More information about the current work of the Office of Radiation Safety is available at Radiation safety.
The Regulations will be made under sections 91–93 of the Radiation Safety Act and deal with matters that are applicable to many owners, managers, controllers and users of ionising radiation sources. The topics covered in the consultation document are:
- authorisations (source licences, use licences and consents)
- fees
- exemptions, restrictions and prohibitions
- incidents and emergencies
- labelling, signage and other controls
- registration of controlled radiation sources
- nuclear material
- inspection, compliance and enforcement
- radiation Safety Advisory Council
- other matters to give full effect to the Act or its administration.
The Radiation Safety Act also enables Codes of Practice to be made under sections 86–90. Codes of Practice will deal with technical, detailed matters that will be applicable to each individual area of radiation practice. Consultation with current owners, managers, controllers and users of radiation sources on Codes of Practice is planned for later in 2016.
To ensure that the overall legislative framework is as straightforward and workable as possible, matters that are addressed in Codes of Practice will not be dealt with in Regulations.
How to have your say
Consultation is open until 5pm, Wednesday 22 June 2016.
The consultation document (Word, 185 KB) outlines the options available for the proposed Regulations and identifies the Ministry of Health’s preferred options. The preferred options are presented simply to promote discussion: no decisions have been made yet.
Full instructions for making a submission can be found in the submission form (Word, 49 KB). The submission form also lists the consultation questions found throughout the discussion document to help submitters complete the submission process.
Submitters do not have to use the submission form. However, submissions need to be on the topic of Regulations to be made under the Act in order to be considered within the scope of this consultation. All submissions that are in scope and received before the submission deadline will be considered.
Submissions can be emailed to the Ministry of Health at [email protected]
or by post to:
Radiation Safety Consultation
Ministry of Health
PO Box 5013
Wellington 6140.