By Vanessa Chircop
THE report for EPA Victoria’s Compliance and Enforcement Review was released last week.
The EPA commissioned Stan Krpan, the former director of Legal Services and Investigations at WorkSafe Victoria (Victoria’s Health and Safety regulator) to conduct the independent review – the most extensive consultation program in EPA’s history – following external reviews in 2009 and 2010 that found EPA’s regulatory approach inadequate.
The review involved a comprehensive assessment of how EPA educates and supports duty-holders to comply with the law and how it enforces against those that don’t.
The review also involved consolidation with 300 members of the community including Hobsons Bay’s Geoffrey Mitchelmore.
“My role was to make sure that the people conducting the review actually got the message of what the people wanted from the review and that what the community said was reported in the findings,” he said.
The 450-page report suggests 119 recommendations to the EPA including a recommendation to significantly increase the level of prosecutions in order to ensure fair and appropriate consequences for serious offences under the Environment Protection Act.
Mr Mitchelmore said he hoped when the recommendations were implemented, some faith in the EPA would be reinstalled in Hobsons Bay.
He said increasing the level of prosecutions “would be terrific for the likes of the Brooklyn people”.
“We’re already seeing an elevated level of prosecutions in Hobsons Bay… and there are lots more coming up.”
The report also recommends the EPA publish on its website factual accounts of all prosecutions undertaken and include identifying information regarding the court and court proceedings.
