The federal environment minister will decide if Australians see a milestone report on ecosystem health and management before or after the election, its authors say.
Sussan Ley has had the five-yearly State of the Environment report since December. Two co-chief authors who have spent two years working on it say she could have released it any day between then and now, but hasn't.
The report is a health check on all major ecosystems. It also assesses how well they've been managed and what future priorities should be.
Dr Ian Cresswell and Professor Emma Johnston say the 2021 report contains information that would be valuable to ecosystem managers, who are dealing with a raft of environmental pressures including climate change.
"It's pretty obvious, isn't it, that all the authors would want to see their report released," Dr Cresswell said on Friday.
"It could have been tabled any day. Any time that she's ready, she can."
Conservation groups and political rivals say the report must be released before the election so voters have time to digest the independent assessment of the coalition's environmental management record.
A spokesperson for Ms Ley has said the report will be released within the statutory time frame set out under federal environmental laws.
Those provisions mean the minister must table it in parliament within 15 sitting days of receiving it but Dr Cresswell says that's a maximum, and there is no minimum.
"It's totally at her discretion whether she releases it on the first day or the 15th day, or indeed any day in between. It doesn't even have to be a sitting day, it can be tabled out of session."
Prof Johnston is an expert in marine ecology and says the latest report is the first to include a dedicated chapter on extreme events.
"The reason, obviously, is that the influence of extreme events has become so much more apparent over the last five years," she said.
"Sometimes I felt like I was just cataloguing disasters, the reef bleaching, and the big floods and the bushfires. Things are changing so quickly we have run out of time, so we need to move fast.
"We are looking forward to seeing the report out as soon as possible so it can be used not only by government but also by industry and community groups."
Dr Cresswell said the 32 experts who contributed to the report had agreed to abide by a set of media policy and protocols, and there was nothing unusual about that.
Those arrangements mean the minister has the privilege of revealing what's in the report before scientists speak about the fine detail.
Dr Cresswell said that broadly speaking, the latest report is like the previous five - a mix of good and bad, with the latter including the impacts of recent disasters such as bushfires and floods.
"It will contain some bad news, of course it will, because they all do. It's not like everything's been fixed in five years.
"Will it also contain some good news on things where we're starting to see improvements, and new initiatives that are helping? Yes it does that as well."
