What you need to know
- The Victorian Government has introduced the first of two Bills to modernise the Victorian Environment Protection Authority (EPA).
- Importantly, the "stage one" Bill introduces a new statutory objective for the EPA to protect human health and the environment by reducing the harmful effects of pollution and waste.
- The EPA's status would also be changed to an independent public entity with a governing board of five to nine members with responsibility for appointing a CEO.
- The Bill also proposes to reduce the works approval applications requiring referral to the Department of Health and Human Services, to reflect that the EPA now has the benefit of its own internal public health staff.
What you need to do
- Be aware that the modernisation of the Victorian EPA has commenced, and that works approval applications will now not always be referred to the Department of Health and Human Services.
- Watch for our detailed analysis of the stage two reform Bill, expected later this year.
Background to this reform
The Victorian Minister for Environment, Climate Change and Water first commenced a public inquiry into the world's oldest EPA in May 2015 by appointing a Ministerial Advisory Committee (MAC) to undertake a 10 month review. The terms of reference for the MAC's review are discussed in our Environment Alert, Public Inquiry into Victorian EPA (20 May 2015).
The MAC ultimately made 48 recommendations for the Government to consider, which we summarised in our Environment Alert, Recommendations of Public Inquiry into the Victorian EPA (17 May 2016).
In January 2017, the Andrews Labor Government responded to the MAC report and supported almost all of the MAC's recommendations in full. For more information on which recommendations were supported and what to expect in the stage two Bill, please see our Environment Alert, Victorian Government releases its response to the independent inquiry into Victoria's EPA (20 January 2017).
What does this Bill do?
The Environment Protection Bill 2017 (Vic) implements some of the amendments required for modernising the EPA:
New objective
The Bill introduces a single statutory objective for the EPA to "protect human health and the environment by reducing the harmful effects of pollution and waste". The objective makes people the EPA's primary focus for the first time. In the second reading speech for the Bill, Minister D'Ambrosio (Minister for Energy, Environment and Climate Change) explained that the objective defines the EPA's area of responsibility, and clarifies that the EPA is not responsible for managing natural resources, biodiversity, ecosystems and other aspects of the environment.
A statutory objective will provide much needed clarity in the division of responsibility between the EPA and other arms of Government. However, as the EPA is not proposed to be the regulator of "all of the environment" leadership from the Department and established mechanisms for coordination and collaboration between other Government agencies will clearly be required.
The EPA as an independent public authority with a governing board
The Bill changes the EPA's status under the Public Administration Act 2004 (Vic) from an administrative office (i.e. an arm of the Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning) to a public entity. This emphasises the reformed EPA's independence from Government.
Rather than a single chairman, the EPA is proposed to have a governing board of five to nine members (with at least one member qualified in science or engineering and at least one member nominated by the Minister for Health and qualified or experienced in health issues). The Board, which will be vested with the powers and functions of the EPA, will be responsible for appointing the CEO who will be responsible for the day to day administration of the EPA.
Victoria's Chief Environmental Scientist
The Bill creates a new statutory position of Chief Environmental Scientist, who will be Victoria's authority on environmental science issues and may be called on by the Government to provide high level technical advice on environment protection matters. Dr Andrea Hinwood, formerly associate professor at Edith Cowan University, was appointed to this position in May 2017.
Changes to Works Approvals
Under the current Environment Protection Act 1970 (Vic), all applications for works approval must be referred to the Department of Health and Human Services for an assessment of the public health risk. The Bill amends this requirement so that only works that are likely to have "significant implications for public health" are to be referred (determined having regard to criteria which are to be published by the Minister in the Government Gazette). The public health aspects of all other applications for works approval will be assessed internally by the EPA, who now has the benefit of its own internal public health staff.
What happens next?
The next stage of reform is expected early in 2018, and will make wholesale changes to environmental regulation in Victoria, particularly through the introduction of a new general duty to minimise environmental harm. We understand from community consultation meetings that the Andrews Labor Government will not be releasing an exposure draft of that legislation, so we will have to await the introduction of the stage two Bill to Parliament to see how the reforms are to be implemented.
Authors: Jane Hall, Senior Associate; Tim Rankin, Lawyer
