A new $22 million state approvals pathway designed to streamline green energy projects is on foot but has struggled to find staff, energy minister Bill Johnston says.
A new $22 million state approvals pathway designed to streamline green energy projects is on foot but has struggled to find staff, energy minister Bill Johnston says.
Mr Johnston spoke at the Pan Pacific Hotel in Perth's CBD on Wednesday morning at the 2023 Africa Down Under conference, which was opened with a key note address from Botswana’s president Mokgweetsi Masisi.
More than 1,200 delegates, including senior ministers from more than a dozen African nations, are in town for the three-day conference.
President Masisi gave a nod to West Perth-based Sandfire Resources as the only Australian mining company currrently operating in Botswana.
The Brendan Harris-led company began copper production from its Motheo mine in the Kalahari copper belt in May this year.
Taking to the podium to showcase Western Australia's credentials as one of the world's leading mining jurisdictions, Mr Johnston drew an impromptu applause from the crowd when he outlined a $246 billion windfall generated by the state's resources sector in the 2022 financial year.
The minister also pointed to the government's $22 million spend on a new 'green energy' approvals pathway within the Department of Jobs, Science, Trade and Industry which was unveiled in the 2023 state budget in a bid to speed up approval timeframes and help develop renewables projects in WA.
Delays in getting environmental and permitting approvals are a widely publicised gripe among WA's explorers and miners.
The new environmental assessments pathway opened for business in July 2023, however Mr Johnston told Business News that finding labour for the new project team still remained a challenge.
"[It's] hard to find people," he said.
"We have the same trouble that everybody else does, finding the right people to do the jobs... but the directors of the units are all in place and they're doing the recruitment to find the people."
About $4.1 million was set aside to fund the new team, according to 2023 state budget papers.
He confirmed that the Department of Mines, Industry Regulation and Safety had previously had staff on loan from the private sector to help with the backlog but that had also presented its challenges.
"We had some people on loan but the challenge is that conflicts of interest have to be managed," Mr Johnston said.
"For example somebody comes from a iron ore company then they can't do approvals in the iron ore sector.
"It’s vey difficult to manage but we have tried it and it has had some success."
Mr Johnston's federal resources counterpart minister Madeleine King is due to speak at the forum on Friday.
