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9.3 - Monitoring, compliance, enforcement and assurance activities are significantly under-resourced

The available resources for monitoring, compliance, enforcement and assurance constrain the ability of the Department to deliver credible functions.

These functions of the EPBC Act are not supported by cost recovery arrangements. Compliance and enforcement staff also undertake compliance and enforcement of other Commonwealth environment laws, constraining the pool of resources dedicated to delivering EPBC Act compliance and enforcement. The resources available for monitoring, compliance, enforcement and assurance are insufficient and the caseload continues to increase, as more projects are approved.

A move toward risk-based regulation is far from complete and the full investment needed to deliver efficiency by the use of modern risk-based systems and analytics has not yet been made.