EPA believes that it has a role to provide advice, education and guidance to enable compliance. What should EPA be considering in balancing this role with enforcement?

The work of the EPA over the past few years in going beyond traditional compliance models, and using novel approaches to gain compliance have been great. Not every situation warrants a "big stick" approach - their efforts up around Heidelberg industrial/commercial area seemed to get positive results through the use of a friendly approach, gentle education efforts, the example of neighbours and continued follow-up/encouragement.

The big stick approach may have worked in the past, but it now needs to be supplemented with these new approaches which gain not only compliance, but embedded, sustained behaviour change by businesses and the community. Positive, sustained examples can lead to practice change, whereas the "big stick" approach may often lead to grudging submission (at best) or even efforts to hide continued 'bad' actions.

It is a shame that some of the SEPPs are not more user friendly - particularly the Water SEPPs. It would be a useful exercise to get a handful of EPA officers from different divisions to provide discharge limits for a mock site for a range of pollutants both included and not included in the SEPP. I believe that you would get some variation in their responses. If the limits are not easily established it makes it difficult for business to comply and also difficult for the EPA to enforce. Any advice provided to industry should be confirmed in writing so that there can be no misunderstandings.

Simple education campaigns such as the NSW EPAs "The drain is just for rain" would also be useful.

In recent years costs of dealing with contaminated fill has risen sharply as a result of EPA fees for removal to landfill. As a comercial builder we are aware of the EPA guidelines, but in the majority of cases we still encounter ignorance from our clients concerning their legal obligations. I know of our obligations but still find the EPA website confusing and unclear, and therefore know it is difficult for our clients to understand. The EPA needs to promote their message a lot better than it currently does, and initiate discussion with specific target groups in the development sector so that industry has a greater understanding of their obligations ie. The Property Council