The Independent Visitor Service sends community volunteers into prisons and detention centres to hear from people in custody. In 2024 the office required them to visit in pairs for safety, and to write one joint report. Reports fell to 91 against a target of 150. The annual report describes this...
The Independent Visitor Service sends community volunteers into prisons and detention centres to hear from people in custody. In 2024 the office required them to visit in pairs for safety, and to write one joint report. Reports fell to 91 against a target of 150. The annual report describes this...
Annual reports rarely contain self-criticism. In September 2024, after the deaths of two young people in WA youth detention, Inspector Eamon Ryan wrote that his office's reports had for over ten years highlighted problems in youth detention, and that "Publication of these issues ultimately did...
The OICS website says: "We visit most prisons at least four times each year, and the higher risk prisons and Banksia Hill Detention Centre at least six times a year." The 2024-25 annual report says: "We visit most facilities at least three times per year, and higher risk locations at least five...
The 2024-25 annual report of the Gene Technology Regulator says: "During 2024-25 the OGTR conducted 243 monitoring visits, comprising" six inspections of field release licences, nine of laboratory licences, 128 of certified facilities and two practice reviews. Those four numbers add up to 145....
Grasslanz Technology Australia holds a licence (DIR 176) for a GM plant field trial. In 2024-25 the Regulator found it had failed to meet the licence's inspection timeframes on 12 occasions and its reporting timeframes on nine, and had cleaned and replanted a trial site without notifying the...
Monsanto Australia's GM canola licence, DIR-164, appears in the non-compliance section of three annual reports in a row. In 2023-24 the Regulator said Monsanto "will also be subject to enhanced responsive monitoring by the OGTR". In 2024-25 eight flowering volunteer canola plants were found at a...
From the start, the Act required the Regulator to give the Minister a report every quarter, to be tabled in Parliament, covering licences issued, "any breaches of conditions of a GMO licence that have come to the Regulator's attention" and its auditing and monitoring. The Gene Technology...
In 2017 the Regulator found GM petunias that had been imported into Australia without approval. Its fact sheet, first issued in May 2017 and last updated in November 2021, says "at least twenty varieties of GM petunia have been imported into Australia". The Regulator assessed them as posing no...
The Australian National Audit Office has audited the Gene Technology Regulator once, in 2005. It found that "OGTR has processed applications within the required timeframes and has exceeded targets for annual monitoring of DIR field trial sites", and that "there is room for better use of this...
In a funding paper headed Budget 2026/27, the office says the government has agreed to "increase OGTR funding by $6.8 million over 4 years from July 2026", then $1.7 million a year from 2030-31. The office describes it as "the first increase in base funding since 2002". The extra money comes...
On 4 September 2025 the Regulator published a short notice headed "Fire ant baits are not GMOs". It followed a statement on the National Fire Ant Eradication Program website on 25 August 2025 that led some people to believe GM organisms had been released without approval. The notice says "The...
The LECC Act lets the Commission watch police interviews of officers involved in a death or serious injury, but only with the consent of the officer and of the senior critical incident investigator (s 114(3)(c)). The Commission said in its 2017-18 annual report (p 16) that the power was...