Association of Mining & Exploration Companies (AMEC)
AMEC welcomes ‘surge’ funding for Approvals
The Association of Mining and Exploration Companies (AMEC) has welcomed today’s announcement by the Western Australian Premier to invest $1.6 million in reducing application wait times for key environmental, mining and heritage approvals.
“This is a positive step which will help improve turnaround times on approvals applications for major projects and will take some pressure off the system,” said AMEC Chief Executive Officer, Warren Pearce.
AMEC has been calling on Government to increase the resourcing for key approvals agencies, such as the Department of Water and Environmental Regulation and the Department of Mines, Industry Regulation and Safety.
“Combined with further streamlining measures to improve the efficiency of the approvals process, these additional resources will help bring forward greater mining investment into Western Australia.”
There has been a considerable rise in approvals applications from the mining and exploration industry and companies investing in Western Australia. The successful management of COVID-19 in Western Australia has also increased the State’s investment attractiveness to global capital.
“The good news for Western Australia is the increase in approvals applications can be expected to grow as new projects head toward development, supported by a strong investment environment and good commodity prices.”
“The Government’s commitment to continue to deliver long term regulatory reform through the Streamline WA initiative is needed to boost the effectiveness and efficiency of the approvals process.”
“The short-term boost in staff numbers is timely, but the Government will need to deliver on planned long term reforms if elected for a second term.”
“A permanent increase in capacity and capability across the State’s key approvals agencies will be needed,” said Mr Pearce.
Source: https://secureservercdn.net/198.71.233.51/0h5.0cf.myftpupload.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/03-AMEC-welcomes-surge-Funding-for-Approvals.pdf?time=1616552061
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