Critical minerals projects ‘at risk from Labor environment plan’
Billions of dollars in future investment and tens of thousands of jobs in Western Australia’s critical minerals and wider resources sector are at risk from the Albanese government’s plans to reshape environmental protection laws, industry warns.
More than $300 billion worth of known investment projects are yet to receive environmental approval in the state, according to a Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Western Australia report that suggests “a significant portion” risked being delayed or scaled back by federal environmental reforms.
The Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Western Australia says federal environmental reforms will unfairly target the state.
And while the Albanese government has moved to spur investment in critical minerals with an additional $2 billion in taxpayer-funded loans and guarantees, the chamber warned it would amount to little without reasonable environmental approval processes.
“The government’s extra commitment for critical minerals is welcome, but will count for nothing if projects get tied up in years of pointless green tape. We’ll be all dressed up with nowhere to go,” CCIWA chief economist Aaron Morey told The Australian Financial Review.
“While we can’t compete with the scale of subsidies on offer in the US, what we do have within our power is to make our approval system as efficient as possible.”
The report said the government’s move to expand environmental oversight and create a new national environmental protection agency would unfairly target WA due to the state’s reliance on extractive industries.
“WA has the most to lose from the federal government’s proposed new environmental agenda,” the report said.
“The more the Commonwealth reaches into Western Australian regulatory systems, the longer the timeframes and the greater the risk of imposing an ‘east-coast centric model’ that is ill-fitted to WA.”
A senior WA mining industry source speaking on the condition of anonymity said slated federal reforms were a massive overreach, and had the potential to “kill” any new projects in the state.
“They’re coming up with these rules and criteria without any understanding of how it’s currently managed by the state government and project proponents,” they said, adding the industry was so far disappointed with the level of consultation it had received from the federal government.
At the heart of the Albanese government’s “nature-positive” reforms is a $121 million plan to establish an independent Environmental Protection Australia, which Labor has described as “a tough cop on the beat”.
CCIWA has warned against the move being rushed through without proper consultation, particularly in WA’s resources-heavy industry, and believe it may unreasonably overlap with existing state processes.
“Australia – and WA in particular – is in the box seat to capitalise on the green energy revolution, through our rich deposits of critical minerals like lithium, cobalt and rare earths, which will power the transition to net-zero,” Mr Morey said.
“Under these proposed changes, there’s a real risk that many of those minerals will stay in the ground because the cost and complexity of extracting them in Australia is too high.”
The report recommends the WA government push to limit the scope of the Commonwealth’s reforms to avoid duplication, contradiction or added complexity to existing environmental approval processes.
Close to 130 megatons of iron ore, 15 megatons of ammonia and 17 megatons of hydrogen each year are at risk from onerous approval processes, the report warns.
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