A National Scorecard of Mining Project Approval Processes shows wide variations in the design and administration of mining project approval processes across Australia which are a fundamental capacity constraint on the minerals industry's growth and develo
A National Scorecard of Mining Project Approval Processes, released today by the Minerals Council of Australia, shows wide variations in the design and administration of mining project approval processes across Australia which are a fundamental capacity constraint on the minerals industry's growth and development.
Former Newmont Australia Managing Director and MCA Board Director Paul Dowd presented the Scorecard today at the Regulatory Efficiency Forum, part of the Minerals Council of Australia's Minerals Week 2006, at the Hyatt Hotel in Canberra.
The National Scorecard rates specific areas of the project approval process in each jurisdiction to identify areas of leading practice and areas for improvement. In doing so, it builds on the MCA's "National Audit of Regulations Influencing Mining Exploration and Project Approval Processes," released in February 2006.
That Audit concluded that the minerals industry is dogged by excessively complex, conflicting and/or overlapping regulatory requirements across governments and regulatory agencies, which increase costs or restrict or delay exploration and mining project approvals.
The Scorecard covers a key range of important regulatory issues including tenure, environmental impact assessment, land access, water management, and native fauna and vegetation management. Project approval processes are benchmarked on two counts - the quality of policy and regulation design, and the quality of implementation and administration.
Approval processes that scored highly include environmental impact assessment processes in NSW; tenure in the Northern Territory; and land access in South Australia and Victoria.
Approval processes that scored poorly include the Commonwealth's environmental impact assessment processes; native vegetation management in South Australia; land access in NSW; and tenure in Western Australia.
The Scorecard shows that while there are variations between jurisdictions in the quality of individual aspects of the project approvals process, in aggregate there is no stand-out of excellence across States, Territories or Federal systems.
As well, processes generally scored higher for their design than for their ongoing administration.
Mr Dowd said, "The Scorecard, in identifying leading practices, provides a platform for advocacy on moving to nationally consistent project approval processes without lowering standards. To remove the artificial constraints to growth, the industry needs project approval processes that are efficient, effective, transparent, non-prescriptive and based on common standards and codes of practice. The MCA and its partner State and Territory Councils and Chambers are committed to working with governments to achieve this."
Mr Dowd added, "The leadership of COAG and the Ministerial Councils for Minerals and Petroleum Resources and Environment and Heritage will be important to the implementation of the agreed reforms through Commonwealth and State and Territory agencies."
The Scorecard research was conducted by a group of consulting firms - URS, Enesar, GHD, SKM and Environment Action - with key exploration and mining project approvals experience across Australia.
The full Scorecard report is available on the MCA website www.minerals.org.au.
