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Productivity Commission Report on project development
The NSW Minerals Council welcomes the release of the Productivity Commission’s report into major project development in Australia.
The report highlights a number of areas for attention, including unnecessary complexity and duplicative processes, lengthy approval timeframe, lack of regulatory certainty and transparency in decision making.
The report makes a number of recommendations, including a five-point plan to move towards a ‘one project, one assessment, one decision’ framework for environmental approvals that includes strengthening assessment and approval agreements between the Commonwealth and the States and Territories.
“The NSW minerals industry welcomes the acknowledgement of the duplication between State and Commonwealth assessments. The “One Stop Shop” policy will reduce duplication and delay and we welcome it,” said Mr Galilee.
“Uncertainty and delay are crippling investment in major projects in NSW, including mining. This poses a direct threat to the long term economic future of mining communities and the job security of thousands of NSW miners” Mr Galilee said.
“Research undertaken by PricewaterhouseCoopers for the NSW Minerals Council found that delays of more than 12 months for all projects over the next twenty years would result in a huge loss of opportunities in NSW, including, 6445 direct jobs in mining, $10.3 billion in investment, $600 million per year in direct revenue from mining royalties.”
“The NSW Parliament has the opportunity to address many of the concerns expressed by the Productivity Commission by passing the Planning Bill without the amendments passed in the Legislative Council that gutted the capacity of the Bill to effect real change” he said.
“The planning laws in NSW have suffered from uncertainty for more than two years. With all parties considering the Planning Bill over the Christmas break, close attention should be paid to the Productivity Commission report,’ Mr Galilee said.
Contact
: Chris Rath
or 0409 758 734