Rob Dragten

Rob is a Principal Advisor at New Zealand’s Ministry of Cities, Environment, Regions and Transport (MCERT).

He brings 25 years of experience in compliance, enforcement and regulatory practice across local and central government, as well as the private sector.

Throughout his career, Rob has led regional and national initiatives to solve regulatory problems, improve regulatory delivery, strengthen interagency networks and design innovative policy frameworks that address environmental challenges.

Since 2020, Rob has focused on the connection between legislative design and the effective operational delivery of environmental regulation. He is currently leading the policy work to redesign the compliance and enforcement system for the New Zealand Government’s replacement for the Resource Management Act.

Rob serves on the National Council of the Australasian Environmental Law Enforcement and Regulators Network (AELERT) and was one of its first New Zealand members. A strong advocate for practitioner networks, he is passionate about the value that good regulation brings to communities and about ensuring regulatory systems are well designed and delivered efficiently and effectively.

Rob holds a Master of Science from the University of Waikato, with a focus on soil science, hydrology and geochemistry.