How best to drain the alchemist's cauldron: A study of the problem of marine pollution in Australia

There exists a significant problem of marine pollution in the Commonwealth of Australia. The present paper attempts to explore three aspects of this problem: the scientific, legislative, and probative. With respect to the scientific, the kinds (eg hydrocarbons, toxic metals, and viruses and bacteria) and sources (eg ship‐source and dumping) of marine pollution are examined. With respect to the legislative, the Offshore Constitutional Settlement 1979, as well as relevant‐ Commonwealth and state (Victoria and New South Wales) legislation are studied. Finally with respect to the probative, three solutions including cooperative, bottom‐up and top‐down ones are proposed and, at least in the case of the first of these, evaluated. The paper finds that the problem of marine pollution is rooted more in the federal nature of the Australian constitution than in the concurrent (as distinguished from coordinate) nature of the powers of the Commonwealth and states under this same constitution.