About Us

The Environment Protection Authority (EPA) was established as an independent body with a leadership role to promote ecologically sustainable development in the Northern Territory.

Establishment

In October 2007, the Northern Territory Parliament passed the Environment Protection Authority Act to establish the new organisation as a statutory body.

When the EPA was created, there was a strong intent that it would not replicate existing regulatory and enforcement roles of government on a project by project basis.

Instead, the new EPA was to be more of a legal, policy, and institutional sustainability ombudsman.

The EPA has a broad mandate to proactively review and reform environmental legislation, regulations and procedures in the Northern Territory.

Independence

The Act provides for the independence of the Authority and establishes its power to "do all things necessary or convenient to enable it to perform its functions" (Part 2, section 6). The EPA is not subject to the Minister's direction, particularly in relation to the content of its advice (Section 8).

The EPA has the power to investigate any issues that it considers to be of a priority for the environmental protection of the Northern Territory. It can accept referrals from the Minister, from the public or can decide to undertake and investigation itself.

The EPA board consists of between four and seven independent members who are appointed by the Administrator.

Changes to the EPA

The Northern Territory Government tabled amendments to the Environment Protection Authority Act on 26 November 2009 and with the gazetting of the revised Environment Protection Authority Act in April 2010, the EPA is now responsible for a number of new functions.

The undertaking of audits and investigations is the first area of new responsibilities and is included under Section 5A (1a and b) of the Act. This includes the ability to audit and review the effectiveness of environmental input through the Environmental Assessment Act into the existing approval processes.

The EPA will be reviewing and assessing whether development decisions reflect recommendations arising from the environmental assessment process and is also required to review and assess the effectiveness of the environmental conditions of an environmental authority for a proposed action.

The second responsibility under this new role is that of reviewing Agency responses in dealing with, and coordinating, environmental incidents. Such a role will include a consideration of on-ground technical response performance, processes in place to support Agency coordination and resourcing, regulator frameworks including follow up investigations, prosecutions and/or penalties and availability of emergency response best-practice guidelines and training. Currently the EPA is developing detailed methodologies for meeting the requirements of the roles.

A second major area included in the EPA Amendment Act 2009 under Sections 5A (1c, d) is that of monitoring and reporting functions. These functions are due to commence in 12 months time. This delay provides an opportunity for the EPA to focus on policy development and to design an appropriate methodology to undertake future monitoring requirements. These new functions are composed of two main areas. The first is the requirement to monitor and assess the cumulative impacts of development. The second is to publicly report on environmental quality in the Northern Territory. It is intended that through this function the EPA will make publicly accessible the information that is gathered through monitoring of cumulative impacts.

Additionally, the EPA now has the ability to require information from industry and government agencies, with new offences created for non-compliance.