COMMITTEE CONSIDERATION

The Committee's consideration of the role of the Supervising Scientist included attention to the continuing need for a Supervising Scientist and the applicable statutory functions. It would have been necessary to examine this question more directly were it not for the prospective expansion of mining in the Alligator Rivers region.

The Committee is not in any doubt that the Supervising Scientist has been essential to a framework which has materially contributed to minimising the effects of mining on an environmentally important part of Australia. Even without the prospect of new mines, the Committee would have been inclined to the view that it would be premature, at this stage, to recommend termination of this valuable scientific body. The desirability of continued monitoring of rehabilitation at Nabarlek and unresolved questions about tailings management at Ranger warrant its maintenance for the time being.

The prospect of one major new mine (Jabiluka) in the Alligator Rivers region, and the possibility of another (Koongarra), means that there is an active need for the expertise, experience and knowledge of the Supervising Scientist, and especially the ERISS.

In its examination of the various views about the Supervising Scientist the Committee has taken account of a number of features of the evidence put before it. The first is that the evidence is predominantly preoccupied with the exercise of power. In general it does not comment on the research programs of the Supervising Scientist/ERISS, nor their quality nor methodology. It may be valid to call for increased spending and staff, but such a call would have been more compelling were it accompanied by some view on research which should be carried out but is not for want of funds or appropriately qualified personnel. (This comment clearly does not apply to the submission from the Uranium Research Group.)

The Supervising Scientist provided the Committee with a range of comprehensive, systematic and objective information about uranium mining in the Alligator Rivers region which has been indispensable to its inquiry. Moreover, nearly, if not all, those who are involved in debate about the impact of mining on the Kakadu environment rely on the research of the Supervising Scientist and the information published in annual reports. The value of its research role is indisputable.

The view that the Supervising Scientist should have more power is similarly of interest but the question should be: if the Supervising Scientist had more powers available, what would be done? It would have been more helpful to the Committee to have been given a clearer view of how enhanced powers might have been employed beneficially.

On another level, those advocating added powers for the Supervising Scientist did not examine the wisdom of the basic principle of keeping powers of regulation separate from research responsibility. There is a strong case for the view that the business of regulation should be, as a matter of principle, in different hands from those conducting research. Research might well be hampered if it is conducted in a context of having to weigh the possibilities, implications and consequences of applying findings to a particular situation. The question of deciding whether findings arising from research should influence regulations should be in separate hands.

It needs to be stressed that these conclusions about power to impose research findings should not have any bearing upon the current powers vested in the Supervising Scientist for the purpose of conducting research. For this reason there is no recommendation that the powers of the Supervising Scientist be altered. It would be folly in this period, when there is a premium on public sector resources, to have the scarce resources of the Supervising Scientist diverted to jurisdictional battles about access to information or authority to collect data.

The Committee recommends that the views of the Northern Territory Government about links between the Supervising Scientist and local bodies, including the contracting of assignments to sufficiently qualified local bodies, should be the subject of direct discussion between the Supervising Scientist and the relevant Northern Territory Government authorities to establish the extent to which these aspirations of the Territory Government might be realised. However, it does need to be remembered that ERISS is an independent Commonwealth-funded research body with a national role. Contractual relationships with NT bodies must have a productive rationale.

The Committee has noted that ERA now acquiesces in the arrangements for their contribution to the costs of the Supervising Scientist insofar as these relate to operations in the Alligator Rivers region. The Committee supports the view that the mining companies, as immediate beneficiaries, should contribute significantly to the full costs of government agencies primarily established for the exclusive administration of uranium matters. Put simply, were it not for mining in the Alligator Rivers region, there would not be any need for the Supervising Scientist.

This view has similar application to contributions to the costs of the Australian Safeguards Office.

The matters raised in the submission from the Uranium Research Group are typical of scientific appraisals of research in Kakadu especially as it relates to the impact of Ranger. Dr Panter, in a research paper prepared for the Committee, canvassed several similar matters including funding, critical mass and retention of staff, and the implications of the Jabiru location. He notes that expansion of uranium mining would require more funding.

ERISS' research program has been much debated and the subject of frequent review. According to Dr Panter, "another general research review at this stage would be unhelpful and untimely."

Arrangements exist for continuing public scrutiny of the research program through the Alligator Rivers Region Technical Committee whose membership includes the Northern Land Council to ensure Aboriginal interests are addressed. Dr Panter himself includes a number of suggestions about research in his paper.

Several matters raised by the Uranium Research Group (URG) are certainly debatable within the scientific community. The URG, for example, advocated more work on frogs as an indicator of the impact of uranium mining on the environment.

Dr Arthur Johnston, Director, Environmental Research Institute of the Supervising Scientist, explained that while the then Supervising Scientist had commissioned ANSTO to undertake research on frogs in the late 1970s and early 1980s, no further work had been undertaken since that time "because we do not consider them suitable as monitors" (8 November 1996, 763).

Concerning the number and type of species monitored, Dr Johnston explained:

It is always going to be the case that, no matter how many tests one carries out or how many species one examines, someone can come along and say, 'Why didn't you measure that other one?' To address that issue, we put our program of proposed biological monitoring to a workshop, which was held in Canberra in 1993. We invited the best people we could find in Australia, and we made sure the timing coincided with an international symposium being held here so we also had international people present.

We described our program to that workshop and essentially asked this question: if that program were carried out by ourselves or the mining company, and if in that program no effects were found, would that community of scientists agree that the environment of Kakadu had been protected? The answer to that question was yes. In fact, they recommended to the other people present that the program that we have developed be used as a template for similar work elsewhere in Australia. This is a longwinded answer to your question, but the basic answer is that, no matter how many species one looks at, someone can always say, 'Why didn't you measure another one?' (8 November 1996, 760-1)

The Institution of Engineers put a proposal of interest to the Committee. It recommended separation of the Supervising Scientist and what would be a Commonwealth Environmental Mining Branch in the Commonwealth Department of the Environment.

In the Institution's proposal, the Supervising Scientist, with a staff of one or two, would review environmental aspects of mining and milling, focusing on uranium extraction. The Institution's expectation is that such an arrangement would "remove the Supervising Scientist from the political and legal issues associated with issuing licences to discharge, mine and undertake other mining activities" (S 97, 8).

The role of the proposed Commonwealth Environmental Mining Branch (CEMB) would be provision of information to the Supervising Scientist; setting performance standards for mines; and evaluation of the mine's environmental operations against these standards.

The Institution's proposal entails requiring Ranger to undertake work now performed by the Supervising Scientist. It also includes the idea that: "If the CEMB is not satisfied with the research organised by the mining companies, then it should have the capacity and resources to commission additional research" (S 97, 9).

The Committee decided not to pursue this proposal. In the first instance, the proposal did not put sufficient stress on the role of the Supervising Scientist in investigation of the effects of uranium mining in the Alligator Rivers region. It placed greater emphasis on the Supervising Scientist as a regulator of the mine.

While Ranger is responsible for research directly connected with the mine and has a body of staff for this purpose, the focus of the Supervising Scientist is the surrounding environment, and the effects of uranium mining on it. For the time being the Committee wishes to retain that basic distinction.

A second consideration was that the proposal left the Supervising Scientist hanging loosely within a regulatory framework in which most power and resources were under direct bureaucratic control. Such a framework, if appropriate, in fact calls into question the continuing need for a Supervising Scientist and upon that matter the Committee is firm. The Committee's view is that the Supervising Scientist has a more active contribution to make than as a voyeur in relations between Government and the mine on environmental research matters.

Indeed, it records its view that the recent reorganisation of the Department should not entail a down-grading of the office of Supervising Scientist. Notwithstanding that the appointment is now under the Public Service Act, this post should remain in the public, rather than public service, domain, and should be occupied by a scientist of clear distinction and reputation in relevant fields. Bureaucratisation of this office would not serve a number of important ends for which the post exists.

From 1994 to 1996 the Supervising Scientist was concurrently Director of the Environment Protection Agency. Under the recent reorganisation the person appointed to a new post of Chief Science Adviser, Department of the Environment, Sport and Territories, will also be the Supervising Scientist.