Last week MBS attended a briefing by DMP on its proposal to make publicly available a number of documents relevant to the environmental regulation of petroleum and pipeline projects. These documents may include Environmental Plans, Oil Spill Plans, Annual Environmental Reports, monitoring reports, incident reports, and regulatory audits.
The proposal is made as part of DMP’s commitment to improved transparency as part of its Reforming Environmental Regulation (RER) program. Executive Director (Environment) Phil Gorey, presenting, also noted that these documents can already generally be obtained under Freedom of Information (FoI) requests that can consume departmental resources.
Several attendees commented that making such documents readily available to the public might cause operators to be less forthcoming about hazards, risks and incidents; others commented that operators would have to deal with an undue amount of public enquiry. Phil Gorey noted that DMP had received few requests for such documents under FoI and expected that such changes, if properly managed, would not greatly alter outcomes for operators.
DMP will be formally inviting feedback on the proposal from operators and leading industry bodies such as APPEA and APGA. Operators that would like more information in the meantime can contact DMP at petroleum.environment@dmp.wa.gov.au. MBS will continue to follow RER developments and provide further updates via this blog.
