Environment Department staff have hit back at cuts to their agency's budget, telling a survey they don't have the funding to do their jobs.
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The Commonwealth agency's public servants told an employee census they lacked the resources needed to perform well, while others sounded the alarm about the strength of its anti-corruption measures.
Less than half of the Environment Department staff surveyed said their team had the right level of funding, a result lagging far behind the rest of the public service.
About 40 per cent of the department's public servants believed the agency let them work productively as possible, far less than staff surveyed at other agencies.
The results from the public service commission's employee census, based on responses from 1,800 department staff to a May survey, follow years of budget cuts to Australia's federal conservation programs and environmental regulation.
Survey findings also flag doubt among many of the department's public servants about its protections against corruption, as nearly half declined to say it would be hard to get away with corrupt behaviour.
Community and Public Sector Union deputy secretary Beth Vincent-Pietsch said its members in the agency regularly warned there was a gap between the law and the public's expectations, and what the department could deliver with fewer staff.
"The work of our members has become reactive to media storms, so disproportionate resources might go to something that is seen as a potential embarrassment, while everything else is dropped or handled inadequately," she said.
Asked about the survey's findings on anti-corruption measures, Ms Vincent-Pietsch said Environment Department staff were aware their work had been politicised and that they might become targets for influence.
"Our members are charged with upholding our environmental laws and implementing sound policy, which may clash with corporate interests, and the integrity of their decisions is eroded by pressure to give outside influencers what they want in an under-staffed environment," she said.
The Coalition government has stripped millions of dollars from the Environment Department's conservation and environmental regulation programs since coming to power.
Government funding for its programs conserving Australia's environment has fallen more than $10 million since 2014, while annual funding for environmental regulation has shrunk $15 million, budget papers show.
More budgets cuts are expected before 2023.
Staff also told a CPSU survey, held between March and May, that budget cuts and staffing caps were undermining their work.
Nearly 90 per cent said the Coalition's cap on public sector staffing was negatively affecting their team and about 80 per cent said the efficiency dividend - or annual budget cuts - were doing harm.
Ms Vincent-Pietsch said recruitment freezes had hit some parts of the department.
"Members tell us this means they can't perform vital statutory functions, let alone perform them effectively for the benefit of all Australians and our environment," she said.
"All through the agency we see matters of moderate risk go unaddressed because there's no staff, only to have them blow up into media scandals.
"As they should, it is scandalous that our environmental protection agencies and functions are not properly staffed."
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Adding species to the list of threatened species had become a measure of success rather than saving them with remediation plans, due to budget pressures, Ms Vincent-Pietsch said.
A department spokeswoman said its budget was large enough and denied the staffing cap imposed on federal agencies was affecting its work.
The agency's overall staff numbers are rising from 1900 in 2017-18 to an estimated 2000 this fiscal year.
The spokeswoman said the survey findings about corruption were "largely positive" and many responses were neutral.
Survey findings on corruption couldn't be attributed to any one activity, she said.
"The department has a robust fraud control and anti-corruption framework in place and provides education and support to employees about suspected fraudulent or unethical behaviour."
The department told its bureaucrats last year it would cut 60 staff from its biodiversity and conservation division in 2018-19, nearly a third of its 200 employees.
A parliamentary inquiry into faunal extinction last year heard most Environment Department staff believed the government was doing poorly in meeting its obligations to protect threatened species.