The Office of the Supervising Scientist
Derek Drinkwater
Committee Office, Department Of The Senate
Under Section 4(b) of its terms of reference the Senate Select Committee
on Uranium Mining and Milling is required to inquire into and report upon
'the role of the Office of the Supervising Scientist in monitoring Australian
uranium mining and milling activities'. [1]
In Part I of this paper it is proposed to explore the role of the Office
of the Supervising Scientist (OSS) by examining its history and functions
as well as the problems associated with the discharge of its responsibilities
between its establishment in 1978 and 1994, when the organisation was
restructured and its functions broadened. In Part II of the paper the
effect and implications of the 1994 reforms will be examined, and in Part
III the future role of the OSS will be discussed.
PART I: OSS, 1978-1994
Following the discovery of significant deposits of uranium ore in the
Alligator Rivers Region (the Region) of the Northern Territory (NT) in
the early 1970s, the Commonwealth Government instituted an inquiry, presided
over by Mr Justice R W Fox, under the Environment Protection (Impact of
Proposals) Act 1974 into the proposal by the Australian Atomic Energy
Commission (AAEC) in association with Ranger Uranium Mines Pty Ltd (Ranger,
later Energy Resources of Australia Ltd (ERA)) to develop uranium deposits
in the NT, in particular those known as the Ranger deposits at Jabiru,
some 220 kilometres east of Darwin. Although the Ranger Uranium Environmental
Inquiry (RUEI) under Mr Justice Fox concentrated on the Ranger proposal,
it also considered briefly the potential environmental impacts of three
other proposed uranium mining developments in the Region: the Pancontinental
Mining Ltd deposit at Jabiluka, the deposit at Koongarra discovered by
Noranda Australia Ltd, and Queensland Mines Ltd's Nabarlek deposit in
the Arnhem Land Aboriginal Reserve (one third of the Region lies in Arnhem
Land).
The RUEI's second report, which appeared in May 1977, considered the
issues related to proposed uranium mining in the Region, and set out recommendations
aimed at ensuring environment protection for the area in the event of
mining going ahead. [2] The Commonwealth Government accepted the
RUEI recommendations and in August 1977, in pursuance of its goal of adopting
'strict environmental controls and standards in relation to uranium mining'
[3] in the Region, announced the appointment
of a Supervising Scientist (SS) - a specific RUEI recommendation - to
co-ordinate research and environment protection monitoring in relation
to the Ranger development. Also envisaged were a Research Institute to
serve as a centre where research and monitoring staff could share their
expertise and pursue environmental research, and a Co-ordinating Committee
which would include representatives of Commonwealth and Northern Territory
Government agencies involved in research and monitoring activities, the
mining industry and other interested bodies like the Northern Land Council.
Mr R M Fry, [4] who brought nearly
thirty years of practical and academic experience as a physicist to the
task, was seconded from the AAEC in September 1977 to oversee the establishment
of a statutory office of the SS (it did not become known as the OSS until
1985). He was appointed SS in June 1978 under Sections 4 and 8 of the
Environment Protection (Alligator Rivers Region) Act 1978 (the Act).
A succinct outline of the SS's responsibilities between 1978 and 1994
- which takes into account his expanded role after 1987 in relation to
the Kakadu Conservation Zone - is to be found in the SS's 1987-88 annual
report:
The EP(ARR) Act makes no provision for the Supervising Scientist to license
or regulate mining operations. The OSS is not therefore a regulatory body
and it was never intended that it should be. Its primary charter is to
assist in the development of environment protection measures and arrangements,
to oversee these arrangements, to provide independent advice to the Government
on their adequacy, and to carry out problem-oriented environmental research
necessary to ensure achievement of the Government's objective. Licensing
and regulation of uranium mining in the Region is carried out, for the
most part, under the NT Uranium Mining (Environment Control) Act 1979
which is administered by the NT Department of Mines and Energy. The Supervising
Scientist does not regulate or impose environmental conditions upon the
uranium mining operations and has no powers of enforcement. Nor does the
Office carry out scheduled compliance monitoring, which is the responsibility
of the mining companies; or verification monitoring which, it has been
agreed, is the responsibility of the NT supervising authorities. He must
ensure, however, that the licensing and regulatory regime being implemented
by the NT gives effect to the environment protection measures that the
Commonwealth requires be applied to the uranium mining operations.
In addition to these uranium related functions the Supervising Scientist
now [since the amendment of the EP(ARR) Act in 1987] has a role in the
supervision and control of environmental aspects of general mining and
exploration within the Kakadu Conservation Zone and for the conduct of
research to support this role. The Supervising Scientist is required to
provide advice to the Government on environmental aspects of the exploration
and resource assessment program to be carried out in the Zone, which includes
the gold mining prospect at Coronation Hill; the adequacy of environment
protection in the conduct of exploration within the Zone; and the environmental
implications of mining at Coronation Hill or in any other areas that might
be excised from the Zone for the purpose of mining operations. [5]
Although Section 5(f) of the Act allowed monitoring and supervisory functions
to be conferred on the SS by or under a 'prescribed instrument', such
as the Environmental Requirements to be met by Ranger, the Act did not
provide the SS with any powers of regulation or enforcement. Infringements
of environmental standards by mining companies or questionable monitoring
performance by supervising authorities were to be considered by the Co-ordinating
Committee of the Alligator Rivers Region, two members of which - the Director
of the Australian National Parks and Wildlife Service (ANPWS) (renamed
the Australian Nature Conservation Agency (ANCA) in 1993) and the representative
of the Northern Land Council - were empowered, under the Environment Protection
(Northern Territory Supreme Court) Act 1978, to seek orders for the enforcement
of Environmental Requirements from the NT Supreme Court. Nevertheless,
even the Co-ordinating Committee, the principal institutional mechanism
for regulatory supervision, possessed no statutory powers, although it
could make recommendations to the SS in relation to research and monitoring
programs, standards, environment protection measures and the implementation
of environmental requirements. [6]
From the outset the SS was required to discharge his responsibilities
within a complex interlocking network of Commonwealth and NT legislation
and instruments (for example, permits, licences and agreements), a reflection
of the conflicts of interests aroused by mining developments in the Region
and of the need to reconcile Commonwealth control of uranium mining with
the self-governing NT's own regulatory requirements. [7]
Disagreements arose sooner rather than later over several aspects of the
SS's role, most notably between Ranger and the SS and the latter and the
NT Department of Mines and Energy (NTDME). Between its inception in 1978
and its reorganisation in 1994, a number of inquiries and reports examined,
in detail or in passing, the role of the OSS and all reached conclusions
or made recommendations regarding its structure and administration and
its research and monitoring roles. Their prescriptions for improving OSS
operations will be examined later when the difficulties encountered by
the OSS are discussed. For the purposes of clarity and easy identification,
a list (by no means definitive) of these inquiries and reports is provided
below:
March 1982 ASTEC, Office of the Supervising Scientist: A Report
to the Prime Minister by the Australian Science and Technology Council
(ASTEC), AGPS, Canberra, 1982.
June 1984 Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies, Aborigines
and Uranium: Consolidated Report to the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs
on the Social Impact of Uranium Mining on the Aborigines of the Northern
Territory, AGPS, Canberra, 1984.
November 1988 Senate Standing Committee on Environment, Recreation
and the Arts, The Potential of the Kakadu National Park Region,
AGPS, Canberra, 1988.
September 1989 Auditor-General, Office of the Supervising Scientist
for the Alligator Rivers Region - Research Project Administration,
Audit Report No. 10, 1989-90, AGPS, Canberra, 1989.
November 1989 DASETT, Review of the Office of the Supervising
Scientist, (Reviewer: Professor G H Taylor), AGPS, Canberra, 1989.
December 1989 House of Representatives Standing Committee on Environment,
Recreation and the Arts, Review of the Auditor-General's Report on
Research Project Administration in the Office of the Supervising Scientist,
AGPS, Canberra, 1989.
February 1991 Industry Commission, Mining and Minerals Processing
in Australia: Vol 3, Report No. 7, AGPS, Canberra, 1991.
June 1992 Joint Committee of Public Accounts, Public Sector
Research and Development: Vol 1, AGPS, Canberra, 1992.
August 1993 ASTEC, Research and Technology in Tropical Australia
and their Application to the Development of the Region, AGPS, Canberra,
1993.
With only one exception, all of these inquiries saw a continuing role
for the OSS, and even the Industry Commission, which effectively advocated
the abolition of the OSS and the transfer of its functions to the ANPWS,
the NT Government, the CSIRO and the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology
Organisation, recognised that the work performed by the SS was necessary.
[8] Nevertheless, each inquiry
did comment on a number of problems besetting the OSS. The chief difficulties
encountered by the organisation and the major criticisms made of its operations
by interested parties like Ranger between 1978 and 1994 are outlined below:
- inadequate numbers of suitably qualified research staff;
- insufficient funding to sustain long-term research programs, and criticisms
of the nature of the research undertaken;
- problems arising from the geographical distance between its main research
operations (in the NT) and its administrative headquarters (until 1992
in Sydney);
- tensions between the OSS and the NT regulatory authorities;
- the quality of OSS laboratory facilities;
- Ranger criticisms of OSS operations and performance;
- the OSS's lack of regulatory power;
- Aboriginal concerns; and
- disquiet over the Act's secrecy provisions in relation to OSS operations.
Staffing
A continuing refrain in the annual reports of the SS between 1978 and
1993 was the deleterious effects on OSS performance of inadequate numbers
of qualified scientific research staff, which arose from funding constraints
and the difficulties experienced in attracting staff to settle and work
in the NT. [9] The SS told a Senate Estimates Committee
in October 1989 that the biggest obstacle to his organisation in successfully
discharging its functions, apart from funding problems, was that of staff
shortages. [10] As early as 1982, ASTEC, in its review
of the OSS, recommended the appointment of more scientific research staff.
[11]
Research
During the 1980s expenditure on research accounted for three quarters
of OSS financial resources. [12] The
amounts invested in research by the OSS, the nature of the research and
the outcomes from it have always been contentious issues. The ASTEC inquiry
in 1982 considered that the OSS research program was too wide and not
sufficiently refined and focussed, [13] while the Senate Standing Committee on
Environment, Recreation and the Arts concluded in 1988 that the OSS lacked
key monitoring and evaluation expertise in the field of mining engineering.
[14] The Australian Mining Industry
Council criticised the OSS in the late 1980s as a poor research manager
and an organisation lacking scientific credibility; [15] ERA/Ranger's continuing complaint during
this period was that OSS research was inappropriate and irrelevant to
the Company's needs.
After investigating OSS research project administration in 1989, the
Commonwealth Auditor-General recommended that the OSS:
- formalise the development and approval processes for internal research
projects and issue guidelines for the use of staff;
- formulate a means by which the progress of research projects could
be monitored; and
- ensure more prompt publication of reports on the results of research
which would enhance the credibility of OSS research in addition to taking
action to reduce delays in the publication process. [16]
In its review of the Auditor-General's report, the House of Representatives
Standing Committee on Environment, Recreation and the Arts expressed its
agreement with the subjects examined and the conclusions reached by the
Auditor-General (the development and approval of OSS research projects;
the OSS's engagement of consultants; OSS monitoring of the progress of
reports; and OSS reporting of research results). [17]
A 1993 ASTEC report on research and technology in tropical Australia recommended,
inter alia, that the OSS's principal research body, the Alligator
Rivers Region Research Institute, be restructured and its funding base
expanded in order to provide it with a broader research role. ASTEC also
argued that the Institute should be encouraged to form joint ventures
and develop research programs with other organisations and industry. [18]
Geographical Distance Between Research and Administration
As early as 1982 there were at the very least perceptions that
the separation of the OSS's research operations (located in the NT since
1978) and its administrative headquarters (in Sydney, 1978-92 and henceforth
in Canberra) were causing difficulties and adversely affecting OSS research
performance. [19] The Senate Standing Committee on Environment,
Recreation and the Arts recommended in 1988 that the only way of solving
problems like the duplication of functions associated with this state
of affairs was to locate all OSS functions - research and administrative
- in the NT. [20]
Tensions Between the OSS and the NT Regulatory Authorities
It was apparent to the Senate Committee in 1988 that a major difficulty
in environment protection monitoring in the Region was the periodic breakdown
in effective communication between the parties involved in regulating
and supervising uranium mining activities in the Kakadu area. [21]
The principal protagonists were, of course, the OSS, Ranger (whose relationships
with the OSS will be examined later) and the NT Government, particularly
its Department of Mines and Energy. The SS himself pointed out in his
1988-89 annual report that the NTDME, whose prime responsibility was to
promote the development of mining in the NT, found the Commonwealth Government's
environmental constraints 'inflexible and sometimes inappropriate, and
the presence of the OSS intrusive'. [22]
The OSS and the NTDME disagreed over matters as diverse as water release
standards and when to prosecute Ranger for its environmental transgressions.
Despite NTDME objections to its operations, however, the OSS continued
to regard its presence as essential, pointing out in its 1987-88 annual
report that:
The Northern Territory, though carrying out the day-to-day licensing
of the mining operations, has not established the scientific resources
necessary to ensure comprehensive protection of the environment of the
Region to the standard required by the Commonwealth ... Nor has it established
an environmental protection agency independent of the regulating Department
of Mines and Energy ... [23]
At the heart of NT Government-OSS disagreements, however, were two very
different conceptions of what environmental monitoring in the Region should
involve: while the OSS was convinced that 'the only practical protection
target ... is that the mining operations produce no observable biological
impact', [24] the NT regulatory authorities appear to
have believed that they should aim at no more than the prevention of serious
environmental damage.
Quality of Laboratory Facilities
Deficiencies in laboratory facilities emerged as an early impediment
to OSS operations. [25] In 1982 ASTEC
recommended the construction of a permanent field laboratory at Jabiru;
[26] seven years later a new environmental
radioactivity laboratory was completed at the Alligator Rivers Region
Research Institute. [27]
ERA/Ranger Criticisms of OSS Operations and Performance
The most strident critic of the OSS over the years has been ERA/Ranger.
In addition to its concerns relating to OSS research and the OSS's jurisdiction
as an environmental watchdog, it has questioned the cost of and outcomes
from OSS research. In 1988 the SS lamented the fact that the long-term
absence of effective liaison between the OSS and ERA/Ranger had been a
serious problem for them both. [28] ERA/Ranger's most trenchant objection
to the OSS, however, derived from its resentment of the levy imposed upon
its uranium production, the proceeds of which were used partly to finance
OSS operations. This resentment was particularly pronounced in the late
1980s when the Commonwealth increased the levy at a time when the international
market for uranium was collapsing.
OSS Lack of Regulatory Power
Although the OSS has had 'supervisory, co-ordination and research roles'
[29] in environment protection throughout
the Region since it was established, its overall effectiveness has been
hampered by its lack of any regulatory powers which would have enabled
it to enforce its environmental monitoring decisions. This has always
been a serious problem for the organisation. Emeritus Professor G H Taylor,
in a review of OSS operations commissioned by the responsible Minister
in 1989, attempted to redress this deficiency by recommending that the
SS's powers be expanded to oblige the NT regulatory authorities to adhere
to and implement OSS advice concerning the 'statutory instrument', Environmental
Requirements. [30] The recommendation was never acted upon.
Aboriginal Concerns
As will be seen in Part II of this paper, when the 1994 OSS reforms and
their implications are examined, Aboriginal concerns about uranium mining
in the Region and the role of the OSS in environmental monitoring have
centred largely on the perceived exclusion from or inadequate inclusion
of Aboriginal representative groups in initial planning and continuing
negotiations over the effects of uranium extraction in the area. The Australian
Institute of Aboriginal Studies (AIAS) (later AIATSIS to give formal recognition
to the role of Torres Strait Islanders in indigenous affairs) in its report,
Aborigines and Uranium in 1984, questioned the role of the OSS,
but did not seriously criticise its performance, seeing it as one of several
players in a complex regulatory environment based on a series of 'structured
conflicts':
Structured conflicts can serve as a regulatory mechanism - as clearly
seen by [Mr Justice] Fox [in the Ranger Reports] when he set the mining
companies, the Northern Land Council and the Australian National Parks
and Wildlife Service in a delicate balance with each other. It could be
argued that the Office of the Supervising Scientist and its associated
Alligator Rivers Region Research Institute were intended to be neutral
parties in this equation: the voice of reason, the bearers of the scientific
tradition, and the arbiters of true knowledge. While this was done in
the name of the environment, they were not neutral, or, more to the point,
they themselves were subject to supervision, (formally through the Coordinating
Committee for the Alligator Rivers Region) and required to be responsible
to pressures, not only from the mining companies, ANPWS and the Land Council,
but also from the Commonwealth and Northern Territory governments and
various of their departments. [31]
OSS/EP(ARR) Act Secrecy Provisions
The secrecy provisions of the Environment Protection (Alligator Rivers
Region) Act 1978 have been the subject of concern since the EP(ARR) Bill
was first debated in the Commonwealth Parliament in May 1978. Under Section
31 of the Act, the SS, present and past, and his employees , present and
past, are forbidden to divulge any information about their OSS work to
anyone, other than the responsible Minister or the Permanent Head of the
relevant Department of State. However, the Act made it possible to obtain
from the Minister a declaration that 'it is in the public interest that
the information be communicated or the document produced [to another party
or other parties].' Despite this safeguard the ALP opposition argued in
1978 that 'the supervising scientist is not independent of the Minister
and the provisions for his reports and recommendations to come before
the Parliament are inadequate. The Parliament and the public will not
have access to the findings of the supervising scientist. Findings detrimental
to the Government's credibility could be concealed'. [32]
Part II: OSS, 1994-1996
In December 1993, the Commonwealth Government set out to address the
problems outlined in Part I of this paper. The passage of the Environment
Protection (Alligator Rivers Region) Amendment Act 1993, which came into
effect in February 1994, resulted in significant amendment of the existing
legislation governing the functions and powers of the SS, and far reaching
changes to the size and scope of the organisation, its method of operation,
its relationships with key clients and the focus of environmental research
undertaken by the OSS in the Region. [33]
In summary, the 1994 reforms:
- incorporated the OSS into the Commonwealth's Environment Protection
Agency (EPA) to reduce administrative duplication between these major
environmental monitoring agencies and to make it possible to better
achieve economies of scale;
- refined the mechanisms for consulting key stakeholders like ERA, the
NT Government, and other scientific and technical experts;
- enabled the responsible Minister to seek advice from the SS on environmental
matters outside the Region - a change advocated by the Commonwealth
Parliament's Joint Committee of Public Accounts in 1992; [34]
- allowed the Alligator Rivers Region Research Institute (renamed the
Environmental Research Institute of the Supervising Scientist (ERISS))
to pursue research on matters outside the Region on a commercial basis
(a reform also proposed by the Joint Committee of Public Accounts) (this
fee-for-service contract research would, it was envisaged, permit the
Institute to earn up to thirty percent of the Commonwealth's contribution
to its research program); and
- set in train an independent review of the OSS research required to
satisfy the Commonwealth's environment protection objectives in the
Region. [35]
The following changes also occurred as a result of the amendment of the
Act:
- the replacement of the Co-ordinating Committee for the Alligator Rivers
Region by two new committees - the Alligator Rivers Region Advisory
Committee (intended as a forum for information exchange between the
mining companies; the NT Government authorities and the Commonwealth;
and environmental, Aboriginal and community groups), and the Alligator
Rivers Region Technical Committee (whose role is to examine the Region's
research needs; to recommend research programs; and to devise methods
for the efficient co-ordination and integration of research);
- a reduction in the OSS budget by some twenty-five per cent over the
period 1994-96 (the OSS's financial allocation has declined from $7.5m
in 1992-93 to $6.6m in 1993-94 to $6.5m in 1994-95), at a time when
its responsibilities have expanded considerably;
- the replacement of the Uranium Export Levy by a new arrangement whereby
OSS operations are partially funded by ERA;
- the re-location of the OSS headquarters to Canberra, in line with
the SS's additional role as Executive Director of the EPA; and
- a one third reduction in OSS staff between 1994 and 1996 (staff numbers
have fallen from 65 in June 1993 to 55 in mid-1994 to 48 in June 1995),
at a time when the OSS is being required to enlarge its role.
In essence, the 1994 reforms were aimed at enabling the OSS to contribute
more widely to the national environmental research effort by strengthening
its capacity for research and allowing it to disseminate its scientific
and monitoring expertise more widely.
By mid-1995, under its new chief executive, Mr Barry Carbon, [36] the OSS had introduced the 1994 changes
and was beginning to consolidate the reforms. The recommendations of the
review of research conducted on the ERISS were implemented. This entailed
the development of a new research program structure and the refocusing
of research into two main streams - the impact of mining and wetlands
management, as well as general environmental research. Revision continued
of Commonwealth/Northern Territory Government Working Relationships and
of the Commonwealth's Environmental Requirements for the Ranger Mine.
The OSS and the Tasmanian Government embarked on a joint study of the
environmental damage caused by copper and gold mining at Mount Lyell on
Tasmania's west coast in June 1995.
In August 1994 the Commonwealth Government and ERA signed a deed of agreement
which replaced the Uranium Export Levy with an annual ERA contribution
(1994-95 base figure: $1.5m) towards the cost of Commonwealth research
related to the Ranger mining operation. The bulk of this amount has been
and will continue to be used to finance OSS environmental research and
monitoring.
PART III: THE FUTURE OF THE OSS
ERA continues to operate the Ranger Mine which is located eight kilometres
east of the township of Jabiru. The Mine lies within the seventy-eight
square kilometre Ranger Project Area, and is near Magela Creek, a tributary
of the East Alligator River. The Ranger Project Area is within, but does
not form part of, Kakadu National Park. [37]
The mining and commercial production of uranium concentrate has been underway
since 1981. The extractable resource at Ranger consists of two orebodies.
Mining of the first of these (Orebody #1) was completed in December 1994.
Development of Orebody #3 is scheduled to begin in 1996.
Queensland Mines Pty Ltd (QMPL) operated the Nabarlek mine and mill situated
thirty kilometres east of Oenpelli in Arnhem Land, near Cooper Creek,
a tributary of the East Alligator River. All of this small, high-grade
orebody was mined and stockpiled during the 1979 dry season, and ore processing
was completed in June 1989. Exploration in the Region has continued since
the 1980s, but failure to discover further economic deposits led to the
beginning of the decommissioning and rehabilitation of the site in 1995.
Two significant uranium deposits discovered in the Region in the early
1970s remain undeveloped. The Jabiluka (North Ranger) deposit, twenty
kilometres north of Ranger, lies in the East Alligator River catchment
and within the project area excised from the Kakadu National Park. Jabiluka
is owned by ERA. The Koongarra deposit is situated about twenty-five kilometres
south-west of Ranger within the South Alligator River catchment. An Act
providing for the excision of the Koongarra Project was passed in 1981,
but has not yet been proclaimed. Denison Mines Ltd began transferring
seventy per cent of its ownership of Koongarra to Cogema in April 1992,
a process expected to be completed in 1996. During the dry season of 1994-95,
uranium exploration was undertaken in the Region by QMPL and PNC Exploration
(Australia) Pty Ltd.
The 1994 changes were a serious and ambitious attempt to deal with the
difficulties examined in Part II of this paper. Greater OSS-NT Government-uranium
industry interaction and cooperation and a more visible national environmental
role for the OSS have resulted from the 1993 amendment of the 1978 Act.
However, a number of problems still exist; some of these were in evidence
prior to 1993-94, and others have resulted from the 1994 reforms.
As of mid-1996, uranium mining companies in the Region must continue
to comply with NT regulatory safeguards, and with the Commonwealth Government's
Environmental Requirements. The NT Government remains responsible for
establishing, under NT legislation, through leases, authorisations, approvals
and other legal instruments, the conditions under which uranium mining
and mineral processing is undertaken. NT agencies are also responsible
for ensuring compliance with these conditions. The OSS continues to collect
and assess information on the effect of uranium mining in the Region;
to develop practices and measures aimed at the protection and restoration
of the environment; and to ensure that the environmental requirements
contained in legislation ('prescribed instruments') as well as relevant
regulations and codes of practice are observed and implemented. [38]
Although no serious environmental damage to the Region has occurred as
a result of uranium mining, and no major infringements of environmental
requirements have occurred in fifteen years of mining - which led Senator
G Tambling (CLP) (NT) to describe the Ranger Project as 'one of the most
tightly regulated and heavily scrutinised mines in the world' [39]
- the continuing lack of any OSS powers of regulation and enforcement
remains a cause for concern, especially at a time when a number of mining
companies may be about to embark on uranium extraction in different areas
of the Region.
The risk of major environmental damage surely could be said to increase
when more than one company is involved in mining in separate parts of
any region, which suggests the need for greater OSS regulatory powers.
The fact that an environmental disaster has never occurred in a certain
environment is not in itself a strong ground for adhering to the status
quo; the entry of more stakeholders into the mining equation may well
be an argument for providing the OSS with regulatory and enforcement powers,
considering the complex and sensitive regulatory situation in which mining
is taking place and the serious consequences which may result from delays
in Commonwealth -NT agreement about what steps to take should a serious
environmental problem occur. The OSS has the greatest amount of expertise
in the environmental sphere of all the parties involved; endowing it with
regulatory powers of enforcement to deal expeditiously with serious environmental
infringements seems a course of action worth considering.
Speaking in the debate in May 1996 on the proposal to appoint a Senate
Select Committee on Uranium Mining and Milling, Senator Meg Lees (AD)
(SA) referred to a problem which the Australian Institute of Aboriginal
Studies had identified in 1984: the inadequate opportunities open to local
Aboriginal people to participate in information exchange and decision
making about uranium mining in the Region. In 1984 the AIAS had described
how:
... Aboriginal people are not centrally involved in the legal and administrative
machinery which has been imposed on the Region, and have not become effective
members of the special committees established to deal with social and
other problems as they arise. [40]
Improvements have certainly occurred; in April 1995 QMPL negotiated six
exploration leases around and south of the Nabarlek area, after extensive
negotiations with the Northern Land Council. [41]
However, some areas of consultation remain neglected; Senator Lees pointed
out that OSS contact with Aboriginal groups is restricted to occasional
meetings and periodic briefings. [42] In the era of native title and increased
government and community awareness of Aboriginal concerns, this is an
issue which needs to be addressed as soon as possible. The OSS's lack
of regulatory powers and matters related to Aboriginal involvement have
been longstanding matters of concern; particular questions concerning
OSS funding and research responsibilities and commitments resulting from
the 1994 reforms have arisen as largely new difficulties for the organisation.
The first matter - how is the OSS to expand its functions beyond the
realm of its NT commitments to encompass a wider national advisory role?
- which was raised by Senator Dee Margetts (GWA) when the OSS changes
were being debated in December 1993, remains relevant today, given the
significant decline in its funding (twenty-five percent between 1994 and
1996) and a decrease of one third in its staff numbers. [43] It is too early to reach any definitive
conclusions about the new OSS research approach being pursued through
the ERISS; perhaps the Select Committee on Uranium Mining and Milling
should seek evidence on this subject, given that the perceived poor quality
of its research was one of the main sources of criticism of the OSS between
1978 and 1994. A note of caution should also be sounded about the new
arrangements which allow, indeed encourage, the OSS to undertake commercial
research and advisory work on environmental issues around the country.
As such, this is a valuable initiative in that it increases OSS interaction
with industry and helps to defray the high cost of its research operations
at a time when research costs in most fields are burgeoning. A close watch
should be kept, however, on the human and financial resources of the OSS
which are devoted to this type of activity, lest it make serious incursions
into the OSS's primary NT role, especially at a time when mining operations
in the Alligator Rivers Region and nationally, look set to expand considerably.
This could also be a subject for investigation by the Select Committee.
The AIAS concluded in 1984 that 'the implementation of controls and regulations
through a system of conflicting structures [in the Region, for example,
ERA, the NT Government, the ANCA and the OSS] as conceived by the Fox
Commission, has been quite successful'. [44]
This paper sees no reason to dissent from this view.
It should be emphasised, however, that the matters of OSS funding and
staffing; OSS powers of regulation and enforcement; and the commercialisation
of the organisation, albeit a partial one, should be the subject of careful
scrutiny in the future by inquiries like that being undertaken by the
Select Committee. That having been said, the OSS is now performing and,
perhaps more to the point, has the potential to perform more efficiently
than was possible before the 1994 reforms.
footnotes
[1] Senate, Journals, 2 May 1996, 83.
[2] Ranger Uranium Environmental Inquiry:
Second Report, (Presiding Commissioner: Mr Justice R W Fox), AGPS,
Canberra, 1977, 293-305, 331-333.
[3] CPD, Senate, 8 May 1978, 1454.
[4] Fry's career as a physicist had been spent
in the fields of radiological and environment protection. He had worked
for two years with the CSIRO as a meteorological physicist; for five years
at the University of Adelaide on research into medical radiation physics;
and for twenty years with the AAEC where his responsibilities included
radiation protection practice and research and the regulation of the environmental
and public health aspects of nuclear energy.
[5] OSS: Annual Report, 1987-88, (Parl.
Paper No. 215, 1988), 2.
[6] OSS: Annual Report, 1978-79, (Parl.
Paper No. 347, 1979), 6.
[7] ibid., 15.
[8] Industry Commission, Mining and Minerals
Processing in Australia: Vol 3, Report No. 7, (Parl. Paper No. 105,
1991), AGPS, Canberra, 1991, 598.
[9] OSS: Annual Report, 1982-83, (Parl.
Paper No. 291, 1983), 6-8;
OSS: Annual Report, 1983-84, (Parl. Paper No. 13, 1985), 6;
OSS: Annual Report, 1985-86, (Parl. Paper No. 359, 1986), 6.
[10]Senate Estimates Committee D, Hansard,
5 October 1989, D141.
[11] ASTEC, Office of the Supervising Scientist:
A Report to the Prime Minister by the Australian Science and Technology
Council (ASTEC), (Parl. Paper No. 145, 1982), AGPS, Canberra, 1982,
2.
[12] OSS: Annual Report, 1986-87, (Parl.
Paper No. 370, 1987), 1;
OSS: Annual Report, 1987-88, op. cit., 5.
[13] ASTEC, Office of the Supervising Scientist,
op. cit., 12-13.
[14] Senate Standing Committee on Environment,
Recreation and the Arts, The Potential of the Kakadu National Park
Region, (Parl. Paper No. 389, 1988), AGPS, Canberra, 1988, 222.
[15] OSS: Annual Report, 1989-90, (Parl.
Paper No. 263, 1990), 4.
[16] Auditor-General, Office of the Supervising
Scientist for the Alligator Rivers Region - Research Project Administration,
Audit Report No. 10, 1989-90, (Parl. Paper No. 183, 1989), AGPS, Canberra,
1989 ('Key Findings').
[17] House of Representatives Standing Committee
on Environment, Recreation and the Arts, Review of the Auditor-General's
Report on Research Project Administration in the Office of the Supervising
Scientist, (Parl. Paper No. 483, 1989), AGPS, Canberra, 1989, 2.
[18] ASTEC, Research and Technology in Tropical
Australia and their Application to the Development of the Region,
(Parl. Paper No. 207, 1993), AGPS, Canberra, 1993, 23.
[19] ASTEC, Office of the Supervising Scientist,
op.cit., 12.
[20] Senate Standing Committee on Environment,
Recreation and the Arts, The Potential of the Kakadu National Park
Region, op. cit., 225-226, 228.
[21] ibid., 226-227.
[22] OSS: Annual Report, 1988-89, (Parl.
Paper No. 360, 1989), 9.
[23] OSS: Annual Report, 1987-88, op.cit.,
4.
[24] ibid., 18.
[25] OSS: Annual Report, 1983-84, op.cit.,
6.
[26] ASTEC, Office of the Supervising Scientist,
op.cit., 2.
[27] OSS: Annual Report: 1988-89, op.cit.,
7.
[28] Senate Standing Committee on Environment,
Recreation and the Arts, The Potential of the Kakadu National Park
Region, op.cit., 225.
[29] ibid., p.223. See also 222.
[30]DASETT, Review of the Office of the
Supervising Scientist, (Reviewer: Professor G H Taylor), AGPS, Canberra,
1989, 55-56.
[31] Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies,
Aborigines and Uranium: Consolidated Report to the Minister for Aboriginal
Affairs on the Social Impact of Uranium Mining on the Aborigines of the
Northern Territory, (Parl. Paper No. 310, 1984), AGPS, Canberra, 1984,
126.
[32] CPD, Senate, 24 May 1978, 1793-1794.
[33] OSS: Annual Report, 1993-94, (Parl.
Paper No. 333, 1994), xi.
[34] Joint Committee of Public Accounts, Public
Sector Research and Development: Vol 1, (Parl. Paper No. 170, 1992),
AGPS, Canberra, 1992, 285.
[35] CPD, Senate, 28 October 1993, 2689,
2691-2693;
OSS: Annual Report, 1993-94, op.cit., xi.
[36] R M Fry retired as SS in April 1993. Dr
Glen Riley acted as SS until the appointment of Mr Barry Carbon as Executive
Director of the EPA and SS in February 1994. Mr Carbon's experience has
included research scientist and planning positions with the CSIRO; the
management of Alcoa Australia's Environmental Department; and the post
of Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of WA's Environmental Protection
Authority, 1985-93.
[37] A map of the Region is included in Appendix
B.
[38] ibid., 9.
[39] CPD, Senate, 16 December 1993,
4817.
[40]Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies,
Aborigines and Uranium, op.cit., 130.
[41] OSS: Annual Report, 1994-95, op.cit.,
xii.
[42] CD, Senate, 2 May 1996, 209.
[43] CPD, Senate, 16 December 1993,
4818.
[44] Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies,
Aborigines and Uranium, op. cit., 131.