Companies are up to 20 times more likely to be prosecuted for an OHS offence than an environmental one, and in some states workplace safety agencies issue thousands more compliance notices than their environmental counterparts, raising serious questions about the willingness of environmental regulators to enforce the law.
EPA Victoria will prosecute many more companies, revamp the way it uses pollution abatement notices and pilot a fast-track review procedure for businesses wanting to challenge its decisions, in the wake of today's independent report urging a shake-up of its approach to compliance and enforcement.
LMS Generation has failed in its bid to have the Victorian Supreme Court strike out parts of a claim made against it by a council and residents whose homes were exposed to dangerous levels of methane.
Queanbeyan City Council has failed in a bid to convince the NSW Land and Environment Court that it should not be prosecuted over a sewage spill that temporarily closed Canberra's Lake Burley Griffin to recreational activities.
The NSW Court of Criminal Appeal has rejected an appeal over costs made by three landowners who successfully defended charges that they had harmed endangered swamp sclerophyll forest.