The Coalition will create super-fast-track environmental assessments for “national interest projects” and unwind changes that bar oil and gas projects from using more streamlined processes, Angus Taylor will commit on Monday.
The Opposition Leader will pledge to “unashamedly back our resource sector” in a speech to the sector’s leaders in Perth, kicking off his first trip west since taking the party’s helm.
He’ll also double down on Sussan Ley’s policy to scrap the safeguard mechanism that was set up under the previous Coalition government to manage emissions from the largest polluting facilities, describing it as another carbon tax.
The Coalition’s climate policy agreed last November promised to scrap the safeguard mechanism and replace it with a voluntary scheme. This would require large emitters to report against a baseline level of emissions each year, but not force them to buy or surrender credits for exceeding it, or face fines.
Mr Taylor will tell the Chamber of Minerals and Energy WA that Labor has had the resources industry in its crosshair.
“With activists now ascendant in Labor’s rank-and-file, it’s no wonder the Albanese Government has adopted policies that are hostile to primary industries,” he will say, according to a draft speech seen by The West Australian.
He describes the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act overhaul – which has yet to start operation – as a “disaster” and laments that Labor teamed up with the Greens to pass the legislation late last year.
Negotiations on the bill went down to the wire, and many across business and the resources sector wanted the Coalition to make compromises to do a deal with the Government, but ultimately it was unbending.
“The laws put environmental goals ahead of economic and sovereign capability necessities,” Mr Taylor will say.
“They have been drafted not with a reasonable intent to protect and preserve our environment.
“Rather, the laws have been drafted to weaponise a green activist anti-development and anti-industry agenda.”
Under amendments the Greens demanded for their support, fossil fuel projects cannot access new streamlined assessment pathways or be eligible for “national interest” approvals that allow the minister to step in.
Mr Taylor says the Coalition would change the laws to ensure all projects can access these streamlined pathways, claiming the exclusion of oil, gas and coal “months out from the Middle East conflict reveals a government that is blind to the long-term needs of the country”.
He’s also promised to create a new stream for “national strategic priority projects” that are of critical sovereign or national significance, or are considered national-building.
Such projects on Commonwealth land or waters would have approvals fast-tracked, while the Federal Government would step out of the assessment process for those on State land.
“If Britain was a nation of shopkeepers, Australia is a country at risk of being weighed down by bureaucrats,” Mr Taylor will say to describe the need for this.
“It’s Perth – not Canberra – that is best placed to understand local conditions and assess local impacts.
“It’s time the Commonwealth Government trusted the states to get on with the job.”
The West revealed this month that talks between the WA and Commonwealth governments for an agreement allowing the State to assess projects under federal law are yet to begin in earnest, prompting fears from industry that WA will be left behind when the new EPBC laws come into effect.
Mr Taylor will also pledge to reinstate the junior minerals exploration project, matching the $100 million promise Peter Dutton took to last year’s election, but quarantining half that money for oil and gas exploration.
