Mr DEAN - I am interested to know what work has been done by the department in relation to the likely impact on marine life in Bass Strait should the pulp mill be built and the effluent that is going to be released from that pipeline. Has there been any research done by DPIW in relation to that and, if there has been, what has been the result of that study?

Mr LLEWELLYN - No. You are aware of the process that is there at the moment, which includes some three years of developing guidelines for air pollution and outcomes of water pollution issues that might occur as a result of the pulp mill. There was input into the development of those guidelines. The process that is being undertaken at the moment is an independent assessment of whether or not a proposal for a pulp mill development is going to meet those particular guidelines. This is not an area of my responsibility; it is in the planning area. If they meet the guidelines then the department would be very happy with it.

Mr DEAN - With great respect to you, that is not answering my question.

Mr LLEWELLYN - The answer to the question is no.

Mr DEAN - The Department of DPIW, responsible for wild fisheries and marine life, are not doing and have not done any work at all in relation to the effluent that is likely to be released from the pipeline into Bass Strait?

Mr LLEWELLYN - I have answered that part of the question by saying that we are involved in a three-year process of establishing the guidelines in the first instance. If the guidelines are to be met then there is no concern from the point of view of outflows on the fishing industry. That is what is being assessed at the moment. People should have a cold shower on this issue and come back to the fundamentals. I am not talking about you, I am talking about the wider community.

We passed through this Parliament a process of assessment that would check the proposal against guidelines. If it meets that assessment then we have no issues because we have already agreed that the guidelines that have been established are going to be adequate so as not to affect the marine environment or indeed the air sheds and air environment and so on if the pulp mill is to get up. That is what we are making an assessment on. We are not doing a parallel process. In fact there is a parallel process that is operating as far as the sea is concerned and the environmental issue, because the process is now not being done by the Resource Planning and Development Commission, which the Federal Government under the Environmental Protection Biodiversity Conservation Act used as their instrument to authenticate it under the EPBC act. As external independent experts are making that assessment the Commonwealth now is doing its own independent assessment of those two factors as well. So two bodies are actually making the same sort of assessments against the guidelines. There is a whole lot of spurious stuff centred on the process that is going on at the moment.

Mr DEAN - There certainly is and this is why I thought I might be able to clear that up by asking that question. Quite obviously I have not been able to. I will ask another question. It has been suggested that there is a scallop bed right at the area where this effluent is to be released. Are you able to tell me whether or not there is a scallop bed near this development?

Mr LLEWELLYN - I do not know whether we have done surveys in this area, but to the best of my knowledge there may have been scallop beds in the area in the past. The actual settling of scallops is quite an imprecise science in a sense. We cannot predict generally where a scallop bed will form because conditions of the sea including the temperature, the currents and the eco-system on which they settle all have to be right for this event to occur. And then there is an issue of predation. It obviously needs to be free of predators for the scallops to advance and the like. I do not believe that there are scallops in that particular area right at the moment, but I am not sure if there has been any full assessment.

[12.45 p.m.]

Mr DEAN - I do not want to get into a debate but the fishing industry are saying that on their studies there is a scallop bed there and it is developing very well. Are you saying that DPIW support that, do not support that or have not done any study on it?

Mr EVANS - The simple answer is we do not know. We do not do scallop surveys.

Mr LLEWELLYN - We ask other people to do it for us and we make the assessments.

Mr FORD - The scallop surveys that we have done in conjunction with the industry over the last couple of years have focused on the areas of Banks Strait and up and down the east coast. I am not aware that we have done any surveying in the area around the Bass Strait. That does not mean to say industry has not done that themselves.

Mr DEAN - Will you do a study in relation to that?

Mr LLEWELLYN - We could include a couple of passes in and around that particular area in our current assessment of scallop production for the next season.

Mr DEAN - My next question would be: when could that be done?

Mr LLEWELLYN - Almost immediately.

Mr DEAN - If it is done almost immediately, can that information be passed back to the members of the upper House?

Mr LLEWELLYN - Yes.