EPA Victoria is to trial a new program to liberate businesses with good environmental records from intrusive compliance obligations, and will rely more heavily on auditors to decide whether site clean-ups are satisfacto
NSW is failing to properly enforce laws on underground fuel tanks and the Queensland State Government has abandoned its former role in managing them, says the Australian Institute of Petroleum.
New EPA Victoria guidance on polluted groundwater will speed the development of brownfield sites, while more changes to site contamination policy are likely, according to lawyer Mark Beaufoy.
In a year of huge regulatory change for environmental managers, the Federal Government has started the process of handing core environmental responsibilities to states and abolishing carbon charges for large emitters, while all governments began targeting 'green tape'.
A high-level meeting between senior state environmental bureaucrats and representatives of Australia's largest companies has discussed a range of issues that could be regulated more consistently across the nation.