00:02Side by side and all smiles.
00:07The Premier and Federal Environment Minister agreeing on a timeframe for a simpler assessment process.
00:13With the Western Australian Government taking on the role of assessing projects against both state and federal environmental laws,
00:21rather than requiring separate assessments.
00:24Why the hold up? Why the delay? It's costing us projects, it's costing us jobs.
00:29The agreement builds on updated federal environment laws which passed late last year with the support of the Greens.
00:36Mining and exploration companies hope the new assessments pathway will result in faster decisions.
00:42This could make a really huge difference to investment in Australia.
00:45Twelve months can be the difference of living and dying in terms of project development.
00:48The Commonwealth is also aiming to lock in new national standards which projects will be assessed against by the middle
00:54of the year.
00:55But conservationists are worried the system won't be able to cope.
00:58When we're failing to meet our current obligations at a state level, why would we hand even more work to
01:05those departments?
01:06The Federal Opposition Leader was in Bunbury critical of the Government for a part of the laws which closed the
01:11door on coal, oil and gas projects accessing a faster approvals pathway.
01:15And we opposed it. And we were right to oppose it. That was bad legislation. It's not our job to
01:22make bad legislation slightly better.
01:24He is the wrong person to enter in any criticism of it now because he's the one that simply walked
01:30away from the debate.
01:31Federal Treasurer Jim Chalmers has also been in Perth.
01:35The ABC understands he's had discussions with the state government as well as industry groups on issues including fuel supply
01:42pressures.
01:43Federal Trending Technology
01:43Paul Co harvesters
01:43Data Committee
01:44Son ofICES
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