Estimates committee hears errors meant wrong name was listed in document listing projects to help threatened species

Federal government claims that funding a series of heritage works – including conserving a historic cargo ship and restoring stones at Old Melbourne Gaol – was protecting threatened species came about as result of an administrative error, a Senate estimates hearing has been told.

As part of the Our Wide Brown Land series, Guardian Australia revealed that the federal environment department listed several heritage works among more than 1,000 projects across the country said to be helping threatened animals and plants.

In Melbourne, they included timber deck conservation on the ship Polly Woodside, which is now an attraction at South Wharf on the Yarra river, stone conservation at the jail and building maintenance at Como House in South Yarra.



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In Queensland they included heritage conservation works and graffiti removal at second world war military remnants at Cape Pallarenda conservation park in Townsville.



The projects are among $255m the government says has been dedicated to species protection since the appointment of Australia’s first threatened species commissioner in 2014.



Conservationists said the heritage activities were worthy community projects, but there was little chance they would benefit the threatened species that the document said would be helped, including the grey-headed flying fox, the powerful owl and the eastern-barred bandicoot.



The environment and energy department’s first assistant secretary, Kylie Jonasson, told Senate estimates: “When the [Guardian Australia] article was published officers went through that comprehensive list again to make sure that we had provided the right information … and out of 1,200 projects we did find, unfortunately, two transcription errors.”



Under questioning from Labor senators, the new threatened species commissioner, Dr Sally Box, said the Polly Woodside conservation work was one of three projects that made up one proposal for funding under the Coalition’s Green Army program.



Box said the same proposal also included weed eradication work to improve habitat in remnant bushland at Endeavour Fern Gully on Victoria’s Mornington Peninsula.



“An administrative error occurred there where the title and description of [the Polly Woodside] project were included in that list instead of the Mornington Peninsula project, so we can correct that title and description of that project today,” Box told Senate estimates.



She said the work at Old Melbourne Gaol and Como House had been similarly incorrectly listed. In the case of the Townsville graffiti removal from military remnants, Box said the relevant work that should have been listed as having been funded was habitat restoration, including introducing 5,000 plants.



Box said the projects listed on the 236-page document were funded through several different programs, including Landcare, the Green Army, the 20 Million Trees program, the National Environmental Science Programme and some targeted threatened species projects. In each case, the applicants seeking funding had said their work would protect threatened species, and their application was assessed against the program’s criteria.



Department officials were asked how generic environment projects funded through the Green Army and 20 Million Trees programs, such as street tree planting in Penrith, would benefit threatened species.



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The hearing heard the environment department did not audit projects designed to protect threatened species.



Labor senator Anthony Chisholm asked why, of 1885 listed threatened species or communities, only 712 – 38% – had formal recovery plans.



The department’s assistant secretary, Geoff Richardson, said the decision on whether there would be a recovery plan was made by the environment minister after advice from the threatened species scientific committee. He said every threatened species had conservation advice prepared when they were listed that set out the threats they faced and the priority actions needed to help them recover.



He said recovery plans took years, required public consultation and were generally only prepared in complex cases when there was a lot of information and a range of perspectives to take into account.



There was a review process for recovery plans, he said, but added: “There isn’t, at the moment, a systematic review of all conservation planning documents and the efficacy of the actions that have been taken and funded by the government.”