Q. Berger (Commission): Even if you do have a drilling background, Mr Marozzi, I suggest that how drilling activities are undertaken is often as important, if not more so, than what is going to be undertaken?
A. Marozzi (Northern Territory Department of Resources): Not really. To the operator, yes, but not really to the regulator. It doesn’t really matter how it is done, to the regulator, in a lot of cases.
To this outside observer, it was not a good day for the Northern Territory Department of Resources. While it is premature to speculate on the Commission’s conclusions and the followup actions by the Australian government, today’s testimony has not helped the NT cause. The witness’s attitude seems to be that if it’s good enough for the operator, it’s good enough for the regulator; and it’s not a good time to be giving that impression. While, operator responsibility should be a fundamental tenet of any regulatory regime, the regulator needs to verify the effectiveness of the management and operational systems. This can be accomplished through some combination of audits, inspections, program and plan reviews, performance measures, and other means. However, the regulator cannot be passive in any type of regime – performance-based, prescriptive, or hybrid.
Bud's Offshore Energy (BOE) 