A company given millions of taxpayer dollars to cull the devastating crown-of-thorns starfish on the Great Barrier Reef altered a scientific report about the "poor management" of its own program, an ABC investigation can reveal.

Key points: Original report into effectiveness of crown-of-thorns culling program was highly critical

Original report into effectiveness of crown-of-thorns culling program was highly critical Company that commissioned report made changes to version uploaded online

Company that commissioned report made changes to version uploaded online Report author says he "didn't think they would go down that track and actually manipulate a document"

Report author says he "didn't think they would go down that track and actually manipulate a document" The not-for-profit company says the report was submitted as "under review"

The changes to the document were made despite the author demanding it be published "as is", with a company employee suggesting it "wear the wrath" of the scientist.

Marine biologist Dr Udo Engelhardt told the ABC he was "baffled" as to why changes were made to his report.

"It's difficult to speculate about this, the reason for these changes appearing. They are quite extensive changes, so a bit of effort has gone into that quite clearly," he said.

The not-for-profit company, the Reef and Rainforest Research Centre (RRRC), was helping deliver a $4.2 million government contract to destroy crown-of-thorns between 2013 and 2015.

In 2014, it hired Dr Engelhardt to determine how effective the program had been.

Dr Engelhardt's final report, which has been obtained by the ABC, was highly critical, stating there were "several serious concerns relating to overall poor management [of the program]".

The report also said the program had been "operated without any concern given to the inherent ecological risks of inadequate control measures".

The ABC has also obtained email correspondence between Dr Engelhardt and the company, as well as internal correspondence between its managers.

They show Dr Engelhardt agreed to a number of changes to the document, and then put his foot down.

"Please find attached my FINAL, FINAL COTS [crown-of-thorns starfish] Controls Efficacy Report for publication as is!!!," Dr Engelhardt wrote in an email to the RRRC.

A few days later it was forwarded to Sheriden Morris, RRRC's managing director.

In that email, a RRRC project manager said: "Udo has accepted a reasonable amount of changes. But the barbs and emotive words are still peppered through."

The employee also noted that the report could cause problems with the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, which had given millions of dollars of grants to the RRRC.

The email then provided four options for what to do next, including a possibility to: "Keep our changes and publish it with Udo's name and wear the wrath of Udo."

Six days later, a version of the report was uploaded to a commonwealth Department of Environment reporting portal, with changes made throughout the document, including ones Dr Engelhardt had refused to make himself.

That version of the document is still available on the government website.

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'That is very bad style, to put it mildly'

"I objected to making some of those major changes because they simply would have been misleading," Dr Engelhardt said.

"They would have then included false statements that I couldn't have supported. And just because they couldn't get their way, to then go ahead and publish this.

"That is very bad style, to put it mildly.

"It just absolutely throws me. I didn't think they would go down that track and actually manipulate a document."

Ms Morris, the managing director of the RRRC, told the ABC: "In 2015 Dr Engelhardt was fully paid by RRRC for his consultancy to produce two reports.

"Regrettably they did not meet our scientific standards for publication and hence remained as drafts.

"There is no contractual requirement for RRRC to share its privately commissioned reports with the Department of Environment, as work was conducted for internal purposes, however, these reports were shared with the Department of Environment on the understanding that they were still under review.

"There has been no conspiracy to withhold or dampen information on the basis that it would benefit any individual within the RRRC.

"Such conspiracy sits in the imagination of Dr Engelhardt."

Ms Morris added they would welcome a review of the crown-of-thorns starfish program and said the RRRC would call for an independent inquiry into the program.

A former employee of the RRRC who was involved in editing the report said the changes improved the report's objectivity and its accuracy.

Crown-of-thorns are currently killed one-by-one by divers who use a large syringe to inject bile into them. ( Supplied: Australian Institute of Marine Science )

RRRC awarded contracts worth millions of dollars

As Dr Engelhardt's report was being finalised, the RRRC was awarded a further $7.7 million by the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority to continue culling crown-of-thorns starfish.

And since then, the RRRC has been awarded contracts worth millions of dollars for other projects on the Great Barrier Reef.

Based on contract notices published to the Government's AusTender website, the RRRC has received more than $18m through tenders since 2008.

They've also won a tender to continue further crown-of-thorns starfish-control activities this year, the value of which has not yet been published.

The RRRC also administers one of six hubs of the $145m National Environmental Science Program (NESP), which the Government says represents its long-term commitment to environment and climate research.

Professor Thomas Clarke, an expert on corporate social responsibility and sustainability at University of Technology, Sydney, said the situation was very troubling.

"The report that was originally written was highly critical of the work that had been done," he said.

"The report has been changed to suggest more of the same will work, and I think Dr Engelhardt's report does not support that view.

"In my view, changing a report that's intended to inform the Government, a scientific report that's been altered, without any honest admission, could be interpreted as an attempt to deceive. It could be interpreted as a fraudulent act."

Alex Steel, a professor of criminal law at the University of New South Wales, said: "If a body hands a document to the government that isn't true, then there's a range of laws they could potentially be breaking," he said.

Here's what was changed

Changes that Dr Engelhardt refused to make himself appear throughout the document, including in the executive summary, main body, and in the final recommendations.

Dr Engelhardt said the tone of the report had been changed.

For example, the executive summary of the report he wrote said the report "identified several serious concerns" while the version the RRRC submitted said "there are a number of concerns".

Dr Engelhardt said the most serious concern he had was the removal of what he saw as a very serious problem with the program.

He found that if starfish-culling programs weren't effective, they risked not only failing to protect coral cover, by actually making the problem worse, but creating "chronic" outbreaks that lasted much longer than they would naturally.

In the executive summary of his report, he flagged this, saying: "Furthermore, the program has been operated without any concern given to the inherent ecological risks of inadequate control measures."

This highlighted sentence was removed from Dr Engelhardt's report. ( Supplied )

That sentence was deleted from the report the RRRC submitted. And in the main body of the document, the RRRC also changed wording around the same issue.

The RRRC took some of that wording and put it in another context that completely changed the meaning.

In addition, the version submitted by the RRRC had entirely new sentences added, which provided positive judgements of the program.

That includes a sentence talking about the high intensity of the culling program, which had "partial success" at some sites.

The version submitted by the RRRC had entirely new sentences added to the executive summary. ( Supplied )

Significantly, it also added a number of sentences suggesting the recommended changes had already been adapted, and that some of the problems raised by the report had been fixed.

One sentence added by the RRRC was: "It is worth drawing attention to AMPTO's efforts in continuous improvement who, while acknowledging control was relatively haphazard initially … improved the approach … to ensure control was repeated adequately at the majority of sites."

Ms Morris reiterated to the ABC that those improvements to the program had indeed been made.

The RRRC also added a recommendation that didn't appear in Dr Engelhardt's report, and which he says he does not agree with.

In emails seen by the ABC, Dr Engelhardt explicitly rejected several changes that the RRRC requested, saying he was happy for it to be published "but with NO further changes".

In another email he said to RRRC staff and others involved in the program: "It is unfortunate that, at this stage, there seems to be a focus on trying to deny the obvious shortcomings of the current project, rather than accepting the need for major changes."

Dr Engelhardt's report 'full of subjective opinions and not accurate'

The project manager at the RRRC who was liaising with Dr Engelhardt in 2015 told the ABC the changes were sent to Dr Engelhardt for approval, but he wouldn't agree.

"He kept on saying he wouldn't do it. Those comments weren't picked up. So the last final, final [version], we went, 'oh my god, he's never going to listen'," she said.

The manager, who has now left the RRRC, said the report was full of subjective opinions and was not accurate. She said the changes improved the report's objectivity and its accuracy.

"More than anything I was trying to protect Udo [Engelhardt] — if that went out with all those things in there, he left himself out there, too," the project manager said.

"There is an element there — what Udo said was potentially a bit difficult for, in regards to other agencies.

"Would he really be surprised? That it was submitted with some of the emotion and recommendations drained out of it? Would he be surprised?

"We improved the product that the RRRC submitted. I can't see anything other than the highest motivation.

"The proof in the pudding is in the program right now. It is rolling along really well."

In September, the ABC revealed a board member of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, which awards contracts for these programs, was also the owner of the company subcontracted to do the actual in-water culling of starfish.

That board member did not declare all her relevant interests at board meetings of the authority. She resigned a few days after the story was published.