Planning System delays costing NSW jobs and millions

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Increased delays in the NSW Government’s broken planning system are costing jobs, investment and royalty revenue for our state. 

 

A new report by PricewaterhouseCoopers has revealed that changes made in 2011 by the NSW Government to the Planning Assessment Commission (PAC) process have added an average of over five months to planning applications for new mines.

 

In addition, project applications affected by the new ‘gateway’ assessment process introduced in 2012 face a further 3­4 months delay, meaning up to 9 months or more of additional delays for proponents from these two changes alone.

 

NSW Minerals Council CEO, Stephen Galilee, said the report confirms that the broken planning system is adding costs and lengthy delays to attempts to attract job­generating investment to NSW.

 

“This analysis shows how much of a burden the PAC system has become for planning approvals in NSW.

 

The NSW Government went to the last election promising to fix the planning system, but instead they’ve made it worse. And we know from previous research the cost to jobs, royalties and investment,” Mr Galilee said.

 

“In July last year, a PricewaterhouseCoopers report estimated that project delays of six months would cost NSW $400m in lost royalties and 8,500 jobs in 2016­17 alone, including 1,900 direct jobs, mostly in regional areas.”

 

Delays of 12 months or more were estimated to cost NSW, over the next 20 years, 29,000 jobs across the state, $10.3 billion in lost investment and $6 billion in lost mining royalties,” he said.

 

“Mining is one of the pillars of the NSW economy, with coal representing our state’s largest export commodity. At a time when the industry is doing it tough, the NSW Government should be reducing assessment timeframes, not lengthening them,” Mr Galilee said.

 

“Instead, we’ve got a planning process that is taking nearly half a year longer, and delivering outcomes that cost jobs, including 500 jobs at Anglo American’s Drayton South mine in the Upper Hunter and over 100 jobs at the Coalpac project in Lithgow.”

 

“Over the last two years around 4,000 mining jobs have been lost in NSW.”

 

“And with over 20,000 further jobs in mining projects alone caught up the state’s planning system, it’s time the NSW Government to act,” Mr Galilee said.

 

A copy of the report by PricewaterhouseCoopers can be found here.

 

Contact: Chris Rath