The department was responsible for matters including environment protection and conservation of biodiversity as well as energy policy.
[3] The Administrative Arrangements Orders listed the department's responsibilities as follows:[4][5] The head of the department was its Secretary, Finn Pratt AO PSM, responsible to the Minister for the Environment and Energy, the Hon.
The department was staffed by individuals from the Australian Public Service.
As of 2019[update], the DEE website also hosted the Australasian Underwater Cultural Heritage Database (AUCHD), a searchable online database containing data about shipwrecks, aircraft and other cultural heritage artefacts which are or have been underwater.
[6] The website also hosted a number of other databases and applications in the areas of biodiversity, climate change, heritage, the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (EPBC Act), environmental protection, land and water, as well as photo galleries of Australian plants, and environmental and cultural heritage subjects.