PERTH (miningweekly.com) – The Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association (Appea) has welcomed the Commonwealth government’s progress on the development of a one-stop shop for environmental approvals, after bilateral agreements with both South Australia and New South Wales were thrown open for public comment.
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.
Appea CEO David Byers said industry strongly supported removing inefficient and unnecessary regulation that imposed project delays and increased costs for investors.
“At a time of global financial uncertainty and falling national income, governments across Australia must act to increase productivity and enhance our investment climate,” Byers said.
“Addressing unnecessary regulation and reducing the compliance burden on industry is critical. Regulations that restrict innovation and flexibility, and impose unnecessary, duplicative or inconsistent bureaucratic processes unrelated to the risk of the activity and deliver no net benefit pose a real threat to ongoing investment, growth and prosperity.”
Byers noted that while several factors which impact on the current and future investment in the industry, such as the high Australian dollar, were largely beyond the ability of both industry or government to control, other key challenges such as deregulation could and must be addressed.