Following today’s deal to pass environmental legislation reforms, the Minerals Council of Australia (MCA) has said the industry is now “firmly focused” on working with the Federal Government to support a more competitive Australian minerals sector.
Despite expressing some reservations about the reforms, MCA chief executive officer Tania Constable, said the body will now encourage the Government to “rapidly accredit all states for both assessments and approvals which would support a more competitive Australian minerals sector”.
“This would be a major step forward for Australian mining companies, which currently face a laborious, lengthy and complex double-track assessment and approval process on issues which are mostly identical,” she said.
Among the amendments included in the final bill are several provisions the MCA and others in the mining industry had advocated for.
These amendments included:
- a simplified definition of unacceptable impacts – a critical new test where projects will either be rejected outright or move forward for detailed assessment;
- the limiting of Environment Protection Orders to a maximum of 28 days;
- and the retention of some key existing approval pathways in relation to preliminary documentation – the most used pathway for resources projects.
The Federal Government hailed the deal to pass the reforms as a “significant victory”, with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese saying it has the potential to “speed up the rollout of critical minerals projects”.
Prior to today’s announcement, the Association of Mining and Exploration Companies (AMEC) called for a tri-partisan federal agreement to deliver a system that supports both the environment and the mining sector.
AMEC said that a compromise from “all sides” was needed.
The association said that it believed the current climate is the “best opportunity” in the last five years to modernise Australia’s environmental laws.
AMEC said that the “benefits” for the mining industry come from the reforms that will drive faster, clearer, and less duplicative approvals under bilateral agreements between the Commonwealth, the states, and the territories.
