PERTH (miningweekly.com) – Despite both federal and state governments' attempts to streamline environmental applications, the mining industry was still facing a significant level of regulatory complexity, compared with seven years ago, the Minerals Council of Australia reported on Monday.

An audit by environmental and economic consultants URS compared approvals laws in 2006 and 2013, and indicated that there has been a significant number of changes to state and federal government approvals laws and supporting legislation.

The audit indicated there had been six new pieces of legislation, six replacement Acts and more than 60 sets of amendments to approvals laws.

In addition, the report details more than 50 sets of additions and amendments to subordinate legislation, regulations and codes of practice.

Minerals Council CEO Mitch Hooke noted that the changes identified in the URS audit have had a material impact on the time and the cost of obtaining approvals in Australia without any related increase in environmental protection.

“The approval processes have become more politicised and, with a shorter-term focus since the 2006 audit, this has increased uncertainty and compliance costs for industry, as well as the costs incurred by government agencies in administering the processes,” he said.

Hooke added that the audit showed that, in many cases, there had been an inability to specify the problem or market failure the regulatory changes were designed to redress. This despite a 2007 Council of Australian Government agreement that new regulations would only be introduced after government had established a case for action.

“It is well past time that all levels of government got serious about their commitments to improve Australia’s regulatory environment,” he said.

“This does not mean less scrutiny, nor should it mean lower environmental standards. It means more efficient and effective oversight. It also means less words and more action from all levels of government.”

Hooke warned that the extent of regulatory churn was highly destabilising for business and noted that the audit update also revealed that, while there was a strong commitment to red/green tape reduction by governments, this had resulted in a plethora of review processes rather than efficiency reforms.

The URS audit pointed out that the mining industry was subject to more regulatory requirements than most, if not all, other economic activities, and that the creation of independent expert panels had the potential to undermine the confidence in existing approvals processes.

The report also noted that offices of best practice regulation became involved too late to have a significant influence on the development of policy initiatives and associated regulatory measures and that the loss of capacity, capability and competency within government agencies had adversely impacted on the ability to make the right regulatory decision in a timely manner.