2016
Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (Parts 7, 9 & 10), Environment Protection (Sea Dumping) Act 1981, Fuel Quality Standards Act 2000,Ozone Protection and Synthetic Greenhouse Gas Management Act 1989
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About the document
The Department is responsible for a range of regulatory functions under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (EPBC Act), Environment Protection (Sea Dumping) Act 1981 (SD Act), Fuel Quality Standards Act (2000), Ozone Protection and Synthetic Greenhouse Gas Management Act 1989. The functions span the key operational regulatory activities that are common to most Australian Government regulators and include referrals and assessments, compliance monitoring and compliance and enforcement activity to prevent or address non-compliance.
A core regulatory function is Compliance Monitoring. Compliance Monitoring is making sure that approval holders take actions in line with approval conditions. By making sure that approval holders take actions in line with conditions, we ensure that regulated actions do not have unacceptable impacts on Australia’s protected environment, heritage, and marine areas.
Compliance Monitoring involves:
- educating people whose activities may cause environmental harm
- helping people to meet requirements under national environmental law
- investigating unlawful or environmentally damaging activities
- enforcing Australia’s national environmental law.
Compliance Monitoring begins when an approval holder becomes obliged to comply with the requirements of legislation (usually upon approval of a project, issuance of a permit, or authority granted under a license). It occurs as periodic desktop reviews, from receiving information about a potential non-compliance or as a result of receiving a document for approval or an annual compliance report or certificate. Compliance Monitoring also involves working closely with approval holders and conducting audits, site visits and inspections.
Our Compliance Monitoring work is designed to ensure that the majority of approval holders do the right thing.
Our Annual Compliance Program 2016-17 informs the regulated community, co-regulators and other stakeholders of our achievements in 2015–16, and objectives in 2016–17, for our Compliance Monitoring activities.