SYDNEY, Sept. 7 (Xinhua) -- New South Wales (NSW) will be the first Australian state to strip companies of profit made while breaking environmental laws in strict new measures announced by the NSW Environment Protection Authority (EPA) on Friday.
The changes will allow the NSW EPA to request that courts strip perpetrators of profits gained by breaking environmental laws when they are sentenced.
"It is a fundamental principle that offenders should not profit from crime," NSW environment minister Gabrielle Upton said.
"This will be a deterrent to offenders and an incentive for operators to take proper precautions."
Upton said that she expects other environmental regulators across Australia to follow the state's lead and implement similar systems.
The approach can be applied to financial gains accrued while delaying spending money on complying with environmental legislation, including license and waste disposal fees.
The NSW EPA provided the example of a quarry which exceeds its annual extraction limit, making 465,000 U.S. dollars in profit and avoiding 14,000 U.S. dollars in extra licensing fees.
"There is now a clear and transparent method for calculating the amount of the illegal profit that offenders should payback," Upton said.
"Polluters should not be allowed to profit from their environmental offences."
