PERTH (miningweekly.com) – A number of industry bodies on Thursday called on the Senate to reconsider their position and pass the one-stop shop environmental reforms as soon as possible, after it emerged the Greens party had banded together with the Palmer United Party (PUP) to block the reforms.

In exchange for the Greens party backing PUP in its efforts to launch a Senate inquiry into the activities of Queensland Premier Campbell Newman, the PUP has backed plans by the Greens and the Australian Labour Party to block the programme.

The one-stop shop reform will create a single assessment and approval process that satisfies both state and Australian government requirements, reducing the regulatory burden on business by streamlining the environmental assessment and approvals process, while still maintaining high environmental standards.

The introduction of the reform was expected to save Australian businesses around A$420-million nationally every year.

The Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association, the Business Council of Australia, the Minerals Council of Australia, the National Farmers’ Federation, the Property Council of Australia, and the Urban Development Institute of Australia have banned together to warn that delaying the environmental reform could affect Australia’s competitiveness and could result in costly delays to secure project approvals.

“These delays stem from the duplication of commonwealth and state processes and impact a wide range of industry sectors, including agriculture, minerals, oil and gas, property and construction,” the industry representatives said in a statement.

“As the Productivity Commission has emphasised, the one-stop shop is a crucial reform aimed at minimising regulatory duplication and making approval processes more efficient, without compromising the quality of environmental outcomes.”

The Association of Mining and Exploration Companies has also added its voice to the outcry, with CEO Simon Bennison saying that a reverse in the inroads made by the federal coalition and the previous Labour government in reducing red tape and streamlining the approvals processes, was disappointing.

“The announcement of the deal struck between the Greens and the PUP to block the one-stop shop is creating uncertainty and instability for business investment decisions,” Bennison said, pointing out that the PUP had in the past supported the one-stop shop for environmental approvals.

“The Coalition’s one-stop shop must go ahead. It will improve the efficiency of the approvals process, removing the significant duplications and costs, whilst also maintaining high environmental standards. This is critical for Australia’s international competitiveness.

“We need to enable the industry to get on with business to create new job opportunities for Australians and generate revenue streams that are desperately needed,” said Bennison.

However, the Greens said on Thursday that big business’ outcry over the decision showed a complete disregard for the country’s most important natural assets, many of which underpinned sustainable industries.

“Big business wants to scrap federal environment protections that have been in place for more than 30 years through Tony Abbott’s one-stop shop but thanks to the Greens’ leadership, the Senate won’t let that happen,” Senator Larissa Waters, Australian Greens environment spokesperson, said.

“Far from the bogus claims that the one-stop shop would reduce delays by one or two years; the reality is federal and state approval processes are generally concurrent so the federal approval adds no time and, where it occurs after a state approval has already been issued, it adds a mere 20 to 40 business days to the approval timeframe.”

Waters said that the "streamlining mantra" disguised big business’ “blatant desire to give environmentally reckless state premiers the final say over damaging developments”.

“State governments aren’t responsible for upholding international environmental treaties in the same way the federal government is and state government approvals are too often influenced by royalties, donations and lobbying efforts.

“What’s more, handing over federal approval powers to the states would have created a patchwork of different approval processes across the country and would have meant inconsistency for business,” Water said.

“Our nation’s most precious places and wildlife deserve national protection and we’re so proud that through the Greens’ efforts the Senate will ensure that this remains, despite Tony Abbott and the business community’s attempts to unwind environment protection by more than 30 years.”