Ms Laura Brien:

As I said in the opening statement, MARA was established just over two years ago and by the end of June we had recruited a staff of, I think, 57. We have a group of new staff coming on board, so by the time we get to the end of July it will be somewhere in the mid-60s. Our current approved headcount is 68. We have recruited a broad mix of people with expertise in legal, regulatory, engineering, marine science and ecology as well as all the support services in the corporate spine such as HR, finance and IT.

Now that we have been established for two years, we have a much better sense of the level of demand for our services which we did not have when the original workforce plan was put together. We are in the process of doing a holistic review of demand for our services and timelines. We will be developing a revised workforce plan which we hope to share with the Department of Climate, Energy and the Environment over the next month or so. We will engage with the Department on where we believe certain targeted recruitment would be of benefit.

There are new functions that we, as a regulator, have been given under the Planning and Development Act, particularly regarding establishing a planning register. We will also be responsible for the maritime authorisation database. Again, that will require new skills and expertise that we will have to recruit for.

It is probably an ongoing process. I am neither saying "Yes" nor "No" at this point. I am saying we are looking at it. We are doing a very detailed piece of work to identify what new functions we have coming to us, what we need and how long it takes to make individual decisions. We are very conscious that we do not want to be an agency that is blocking or delaying any of the necessary development.