GBRMPA has acknowledged weaknesses in its permit assessment and

ANAO Report No.3 2015–16 Regulation of Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Permits and Approvals 18 GBRMPA should revise and finalise its application processing guidance materials—much of which is currently in draft form or overdue for a review.

23. The arrangements established by GBRMPA to process permit

applications are generally sound, but the extent to which the requirements have been implemented has been variable. Permit processing activities such as the receipt and acknowledgement of permit applications and issuing native title notifications were generally undertaken satisfactorily 17 , but other required permit processing activities including responses to native title notifications, and referrals within GBRMPA andor to QPWS for comment were not. 18

24. GBRMPA officers are to complete checksheets for each permit

application assessment as a means of monitoring the satisfactory conduct of processing activities. However, over half of the assessment checksheets 56 per cent examined by the ANAO were incomplete. Notwithstanding the incomplete status of most checksheets, permit processing activities had been certified as complete by the EAP Section. The certification of incomplete checksheets reduces the assurance that they are intended to provide. Permit Application Assessment Chapter 3

25. The GBRMP Regulations specify a number of mandatory and

discretionary considerations as part of the permit application assessment process. GBRMPA has developed, and relies heavily upon, templates to assess routine permit applications 19 against relevant regulatory requirements. While the template-based assessments took into account many requirements, they were, in general, not sufficiently tailored to address all applicable requirements—particularly discretionary considerations. Similarly, the 17 For example, of the 76 permit applications examined by the ANAO, GBRMPA: acknowledged the receipt of permit applications within two weeks for 93.7 per cent of applications; and issued native title notifications as required for 96.2 per cent of applications. 18 For example, of the 76 permit applications examined by the ANAO, GBRMPA did not retain documentation to evidence: eight of the 25 responses 32 per cent received from native title notifications; the referral of applications within GBRMPA for 26 of the 40 applications 65 per cent that met referral thresholds; and the referral of applications to QPWS for 12 of the 70 applications 17.1 per cent that met referral thresholds. 19 Routine permit applications cover the most common permission types including vessel and aircraft-based tourism, research and moorings that GBRMPA has assessed as generally posing a lower risk to the Marine Park environment relative to other non-routine applications—most commonly major facilitiesworksstructures—that pose a greater risk. Routine permit applications comprise in excess of 90 per cent of all permit applications.