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business|environment|exploration|gas|oil-and-gas|petroleum|project|projects|resources|environmental

Appea members call for green tape reform

14th July 2020

By: Esmarie Iannucci

Creamer Media Senior Deputy Editor: Australasia

     

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PERTH (miningweekly.com) – The Australian oil and gas industry has called for green tape reform to support investment confidence and to rebuild the Australian economy post Covid-19.

A survey of more than 100 of the Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association’s (Appea’s) members had shown that nearly 70% of them saw reducing red and green tape as the critical steps to improve the investment environment, streamline approval processes and restore business confidence amid Covid-19 and near record low oil prices.

“Regulatory reform, particularly green tape, is top of the industry’s agenda as we work with the Australian government to implement steps to help the oil and gas industry support the nation’s economic recovery,” said Appea CEO Andrew McConville.

“The Productivity Commission and more recently the Australian National Audit Office (ANAO) have found significant overruns in approvals, inefficiency and duplication in current legislation and processes, none of which help to deliver good outcomes for the environment or for business.”

The latest ANAO statistics showed the average overrun of statutory timeframes for approval decisions in 2018/19 was 116 days and almost 80% of approvals assessed contained conditions that were non-compliant with procedural guidance or contained clerical or administrative errors. The statistics also highlighted approval timelines for resources projects had blown out to more than 1 000 days, McConville said.

Despite these challenges and inefficiencies, the oil and gas industry was committed to working with governments and the community to protect Australia’s unique environment, he added.

“The right regulatory framework would deliver strong environmental protection and support investment certainty. As the ANAO report outlines, the current regulatory approach is not proportionate to the environmental risk of undertaking sensible economic activity.

“Overlapping requirements between states and the Commonwealth and the duplication of processes does not add to protecting the environment and instead often causes unnecessary project delays resulting in higher costs for no environmental benefit.

“Recent announcements by the government to further streamline unnecessary regulation are welcome. This can build on action taken in 2019 to reduce the backlog of outstanding approvals and improve decision-making timeframes. We look forward to the draft report of the review of the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act.”

Edited by Creamer Media Reporter

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