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Publications
Supervising Scientist, Darwin, 2005
ISBN 0 642 24395 6
ISSN 0 158-4030
In this section
The Supervising Scientist is a statutory position established under the Environment Protection (Alligator Rivers Region) Act 1978 . Section 8 of the Act requires that the Supervising Scientist be engaged under the Public Service Act 1999.
The position has been held by Dr Arthur Johnston PSM since June 1999. In April 2005 Dr Johnston advised the Secretary of the Department of the Environment and Heritage of his intention to retire from the Australian Public Service during October 2005.
The Supervising Scientist Division consists of two branches, the Office of the Supervising Scientist and the Environmental Research Institute of the Supervising Scientist.
The Office of the Supervising Scientist (oss ) is responsible for supervision, audit, policy, information management and corporate support activities. oss is headed by Mr Alan Hughes who commenced in January 2005. The Environmental Research Institute of the Supervising Scientist (eriss ) is headed by Dr David Jones and undertakes scientific research activities. Dr Jones commenced in June 2005 and replaced Dr Max Finlayson who resigned in March 2005. Staffing numbers as at 30 June 2004 and 30 June 2005 are given in Table 7.1.
| 2003–04 | 2004–05 | |
|---|---|---|
| Darwin | 36 | 38 |
| Jabiru | 6 | 6 |
| Total | 42 | 44 |
IiP is a framework leading to best practices for the effective development of employees within an organisation. In the past year, SSD has been actively promoting a number of ongoing IiP activities as well as developing new initiatives.
Mechanisms for information exchange include regular staff, program and division meetings and distribution of minutes. The IiP Action Group meets monthly to develop and progress the annual IiP action plan. Meetings are well attended by staff and management representatives from each section within SSD.
An Internal Seminar Series is used to communicate new and ongoing projects, preview conference presentations and provide an opportunity for staff to hone their presentation skills. Including external presenters again this year has furthered informal stakeholder interaction.
Cross-cultural training is provided to new staff and refresher training every three years to assist the ongoing development of cultural awareness and understanding.
In addition to the DEH allocation (average) of $1000 and five days per person to staff development activities in 2004–05, SSD continued to allocate an additional $500 per person in support of staff development activities.
Installation of video-conferencing equipment at the Jabiru Field Station has strengthened communication links between Jabiru and Darwin staff. The Darwin and Jabiru equipment is well used for extended, long-distance meetings where travel is impracticable.
The Supervising Scientist Division continued to maintain a strong commitment to occupational health and safety issues during 2004–05. The Occupational Health and Safety Committee is the primary mechanism in place for the discussion of issues. This staff-based Committee meets on a monthly basis to consider health and safety issues that arise from time to time. The Committee makes recommendations to the Division’s senior management team in relation to specific occupational health and safety issues.
Important initiatives during the year included refresher safety inductions for all staff and further work on the major overhaul of the occupational health and safety guidelines for SSD.
The Supervising Scientist Division is part of the Department of the Environment and Heritage and full financial statements for the department are contained in the department’s Annual Report. A summary of the costs of the Supervising Scientist’s contributions to the Human Settlements and Inland Waters outputs of the Department are provided in Table 7.2. The increase in the cost of Outputs from the previous year is due mainly to an increase in corporate overheads attributable to the Supervising Scientist Division’s Outputs from the Department of the Environment and Heritage in Canberra.
| PBS Output | 2003–2004 ($000) | 2004–2005 ($000) |
|---|---|---|
| 1.6 Industry /Human Settlements | $7.725 | $8.458 |
| 1.7 Inland waters | $0.672 | $1.364 |
| Total | $8.397 | $9.822 |
The majority of the Supervising Scientist Division’s staff are situated at the Department of the Environment and Heritage’s Darwin facility. This facility consists of office accommodation and laboratories. The office space is shared with Parks Australia North – also part of the Department of the Environment and Heritage.
A Field Station at Jabiru with six staff is maintained to support the activities of the Supervising Scientist Division. The staff consist of the monitoring team (three staff) that carry out the Supervising Scientist’s environmental monitoring programme; one employee who is responsible for delivering the Supervising Scientist’s Aboriginal Communications programme in Jabiru; one employee who undertakes administrative and financial duties; and the Field Station Manager, who has overall responsibility for managing the Field Station as well as supervisory and inspection responsibilities.
The Supervising Scientist Division’s library continues to support the work of the Division, through the provision of information to SSD staff located in Darwin and Jabiru. The services provided include on-line searches, library inductions and document delivery services.
During 2004–05 the collection continued to grow, with 1230 items being added.
As a result of a departmental audit11 of the Supervising Scientist Division conducted during 2003–04, new business planning and management processes have been put in place to enable the Supervising Scientist to better meet his statutory responsibilities in relation to the uranium mining program.
As part of the new process, SSD is committed to reviewing performance against the Business Plan on a regular basis to ensure that Plan remains relevant and performance measures are being achieved. Progress in implementing the Business Plan is reviewed in accordance with the following framework.
| Date | Task | By whom |
|---|---|---|
| June | Finalise development of following year Business Plan and budgets | SS reviews and approves |
| Monthly | Track actual financial results against approved budgets | oss prepares and analyses data SSD Executive reviews |
| Review Performance measure for key actions | oss and eriss | |
| Quarterly | Review progress in delivering strategic priorities and actions | oss and eriss report and SS reviews |
| Report budget performance year to date | ||
| Mid-year | Review progress in delivering strategic priorities and actions | oss and eriss report |
| Revise and update strategic priorities as appropriate | SS reviews and approves | |
| Formally revise budget forecasts for the current year where necessary | ||
| June | Review performance against budget and achievement of strategic priorities and actions. | oss and eriss report |
Section 19.2 of the Environmental Requirements of the Commonwealth of Australia for the Operation of the Ranger Uranium Mine provides for the publication of explanatory material agreed to by the major stakeholders to assist in the interpretation of provisions of the Environmental Requirements.
Explanatory material addressing Ranger Environmental Requirement 3.3 which relates to background values for key variables in water quality is published in this report as Appendix 2. This replaces the Explanatory Material relating to section 3.3 previously published in Klessa 2001 and Supervising Scientist 2002.12There were no Ministerial Directions issued to the Supervising Scientist under Section 7 of the Environment Protection (Alligator Rivers Region) Act 1978 during 2004–05.
The period 2004–05 is the first time the Supervising Scientist Division has participated in the Department of the Environment and Heritage’s Triple Bottom Line (TBL) reporting program. TBL reporting provides a transparent and accountable reporting system in line with international Global Reporting Initiatives (GRI) on the Department’s impact on the community and the environment, including details of performance against social, economic and environmental indicators.
During this first year of participation, SSD has introduced some monitoring systems to enable reporting against indicators such as waste management, fuel, water and electricity consumption, and the environmental impact of our greenhouse emissions. SSD has reported on many indicators but it has not been possible for us to provide data for every TBL indicator.
For 2005–06, SSD has set goals to both reduce our impact on the environment and to introduce additional monitoring systems to gather information on relevant indicators.
The SSD TBL report is presented in this annual report at Appendix 5.eriss seeks the approval of the Charles Darwin University’s Animal Experimentation Ethics Committee for approval to undertake scientific experiments involving animals.
Table 7.3 provides information on new applications, renewals of approvals and approval expiries for projects during 2004–05.
| Project Title | Ref No | Initial Submission | Approval/Latest Renewal | Expiry |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Larval fish toxicity testing at eriss | 97016 | 26 May 1997 | 29 Oct 2003 | 29 Oct 2005 |
| Natural fish kills in the Alligator Rivers Region | A00027 | 25 Sep 2000 | 27 Feb 2003 | 27 Feb 2005 |
| Monitoring mining impact using the structure of fish communities in shallow billabongs |
A00028 | 25 Sep 2000 | 4 Feb 2005 | 4 Feb 2007 |
| Survival of larval fishes in creekside monitoring tests, Magela Creek |
A00034 | 1 Nov 2000 | 10 Dec 2004 | 10 Dec 2006 |
| Metal and radionuclide concentrations of fish and mussels associated with the Ranger mine |
A02026 | 31 Oct 2002 | 28 July 2005 | 28 July 2007 |
Footnotes
11Undertaken by consultants on behalf of the DEH Audit Committee.
12 Klessa D 2001. Water quality in Magela Creek upstream and downstream of Ranger: A summary of performance for 2000–2001 and derived triggers and limits for 2001–2002. Internal Report 380, Supervising Scientist, Darwin. Unpublished paper.
Supervising Scientist 2002. Annual Report 2001–2001. Supervising Scientist Darwin