First of all, I'm a very strong believer in multi-stakeholder advisory panels or committees. It's a very important and credible source of information to government decision-makers. In fact, when I was on the environmental bill of rights task force, that in and of itself was an advisory committee that provided advice to the government of the day on whether we should have an EBR and what should be in it.
My concern about sloughing off some of these important duties to an unelected advisory panel, committee, council, or however you care to frame it, is that it will lack the profile, the legal powers and the functions that I would assign to an independent officer of Parliament.
There is room for advisory panels and councils, and so on, but we really need a stand-alone, high-profile, fully effective, independent officer of Parliament who's minding the environmental store.