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Jeffrey
McNeill Public Policy Analyst www.publicpolicy.co.nz Good policy
formulation and advice for central and local government based on experience,
expertise, knowledge and flair. Contact: Jeff McNeill 021 386 701 jeff.mcneill@publicpolicy.co.nz 93 Victoria Ave Palmerston North, New Zealand |
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Consultancy
Jeff McNeill MA(Hons) (Cant.) MPP (VUW), PhD (Massey), ANZPI
Jeff has over twenty years
experience in central and local government as a policy analyst and
manager. Originally a geographer (his
Masters thesis was on the distribution of weeds in a Canterbury braided
riverbed), he consolidated his work experience in the Ministry for the
Environment with a Master of Public Policy (awarded with Distinction). His PhD, awarded by Massey University in
2008, consolidates and reflects on his experience in regional council
management of the environment.
He joined Waikato Regional
Council in 1990 and from 1993-2003 worked at Manawatu-Wanganui Regional
Council, most recently as its Policy and Science Manager. Jeff has had close encounters with political
reality, as Private Secretary to the Minister for the Environment, advising
regional councillors, and in 2004 working in the office of a German Member of
the European Parliament in Brussels.
Jeff has been consulting and
contracting policy advice and university lecturing, while also being associated
with University research into local government since 2003.
Jeff joined Massey
University’s resource and environmental planning programme as a senior lecturer
in environmental planning in 2008. Click
here
for Jeff’s Massey webpage. There he
undertakes teaching and research, with a particular interest in the
environment-agriculture policy nexus. He
remains available for consultancy and contract work.
Recent
events and news
·
Marilyn Bramley
and Jeff in their paper, Up the creek
and down the river: In-stream ecological values and property rights under the
RMA at the 2009 New Zealand Environmental Law conference threw a curved
ball on protecting minimum river flows under the RMA. They suggest in a
forthcoming NCEL monograph the only guaranteed way to protect minimum flows is
by making takes ‘prohibited activities’.
No regional council has gone anywhere near this level of protection.
·
Acts and Deeds
in the Massey University News, commenting on the need for national
environmental policy guidance (2009) seems to have been quite widely read.
Click here
for it.
·
The MAF Study, Meat: the future,
released on 24 June 2009 by the Minister of Agriculture, concludes Jeff’s
contract assignment with MAF Policy.
Jeff was responsible for promoting and developing the Delphi-based
scenario approach, research design and undertaking much of the Delphi study and
developing scenarios that explore the future of New Zealand’s sheep meat and
beef sector. Click here
for the online version of the report.
Leading
agricultural commentator, Allan Barber noted:
“Many
aspects of the report impressed me, among them the primary research methodology
and questions asked, the quality of the background research and most of all the
development of the scenarios and extrapolation of the issues presented in each”
(NZ Farmers Weekly, 29 June 2009).
·
Jeff’s doctoral dissertation, The Public Value of Regional Government: how New Zealand’s regional
councils manage the environment, (2008) continues to attract attention,
gaining wider recognition when it was used as a core reference for the Minister
for the Environment’s Technical Advisory Group report on the Resource
Management Act.
·
He was invited to
present a plenary paper at the 2009 EDS Conference, ‘Reform in Paradise’ on his
doctoral research findings [Click here
for Powerpoint].
Jeff has soft-bound copies of his dissertation available on request at $45.00
+GST including postage. (It has proven a steady seller, though not quite in the
same league as Harry Potter!)
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Public policy analysis Based
in Palmerston North, most, but not all, of Jeff’s work is for Wellington. Clients
have included: Ministry of Agriculture
and Forestry Department of Internal
Affairs Ministry of Economic
Development Ministry for the
Environment Parliamentary
Commissioner for the Environment Auckland Regional Council Environment Waikato Palmerston North City
Council Horizons Regional Council |
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Senior Lecturer in
Environmental Planning, Massey University,
Palmerston
North School of People, Planning and Environment |
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Senior Researcher, Local
Futures, School of Government, Victoria University of Wellington,
Wellington Local Futures is a five-year research project
funded by the Foundation for Research, Science and Technology. It aims to enhance strategy policy and
planning performance and capability in the local government sector. |
Local
Futures website
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More…
Click here for full Curriculum
Vitae
Professional interests
Jeff’s professional interests focus on:
Environmental policy:
policy formulation including biodiversity and waste and hazardous substances
management; and policy monitoring and evaluation
Bridging science
and policy
Local government:
strategic planning; relationships between different levels of government
European Union
environmental policy
Research
Jeff is particularly interested in:
·
The
environment-agriculture policy nexus
·
Governance in the
shadow of hierarchy: achieving coordinating and aligning policy within
multi-level government systems
Selected written material (click here)
Diversions
Inside
the Caprice des Dieux
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In
2004, Jeff was exposed to international government, spending three months in
the European Parliament where, among other things, he was Coordinateur for the
‘Austrian Marmelade Directive’. This Directive amended Directive 2001/113/EC relating to fruit
jams, jellies and marmalades and sweetened chestnut purée intended for human
consumption (COM(2004) 151 – C5-0128/2004 – 2004/0052(CNS)) to allow
Austrians to call their jam ‘Marmelade’ instead of ‘Konfitur’. It was translated into 11 languages, but
several translators phoned to say it did not make much sense to translate
‘jam means jam’. Jeff could not
possibly comment. [click
here to read it here if you have nothing better to do] Read
the trip report: Inside the Caprice des Dieux: NCRE European
Parliament Spring 2004 (February - April 2004) Full
text (pdf, 106 KB) [external link]
New
Zealand Centre for Research on Europe, University of Canterbury, Christchurch,
New Zealand |
Interests
Public policy is fun, but there are other things in life, too…
Bassoons [more]
New Zealanders at the Battle of Messines, 1917 [more – includes brochure]