IQA CONFERENCE 2019
IMPROVING THE REGULATORY
SPACE FOR THE EXTRACTIVE INDUSTRY In recent years, the Victorian Government has made a concerted effort to improve earth resources and approvals processes. Anna Cronin, the Victorian Commissioner for Better Regulation, explains what these reforms are and how industry members can assist the regulator to fast-track approvals.
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nna Cronin is Victoria’s Commissioner for Better Regulation. She oversaw a review of the Earth Resources Regulator in 2017 and her report – Getting the Groundwork Right – was released in 2018. The Victorian Government endorsed all of its recommendations, including development of a new legislative framework for the regulation of Victoria’s earth resources. Cronin has more than 25 years’ experience in regulatory issues across numerous policy areas. She started her career as an economist in the Bureau of Agricultural Economics and the Productivity Commission. She has subsequently served as CEO of the National Farmers’ Federation, as the senior bureaucrat for major project approvals in the Western Australian Government’s State Development department and as chief of staff to two Victorian Premiers. At the IQA conference, Cronin will outline the “reform journey” in the earth resources regulatory framework, with emphasis on impacts on the extractive industry. What is your key message to the industry? That it’s a really exciting time for the quarrying industry – there are great opportunities to support government and private construction projects. In 2019, communities and governments have high expectations of how quarrying businesses will manage the impacts of their business, eg dust, sound, safety, etc. So we have an opportunity for the industry to work with governments and local communities and think about how regulatory frameworks can provide certainty to industry. That will help business planning and investment, and create clarity about what’s expected in operations. It’s a two-way street – the community wants to maintain the highest standards and industry needs certainty. It’s time for productive conversations between communities and industry about the best designed regulatory frameworks.
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Quarry October 2019
councils. For the longer term, I suggested government should review the Mineral Resources (Sustainable Development) Act and draw on lessons from the new approach being taken with environmental protection, in terms of a more outcomes-based approach to regulatory frameworks and consideration of legislative reform in the longer term. I’m pleased to say the Government in early 2018 accepted all the key initiatives and recommendations, and in the 2018 Budget, put considerable monies into funding them.
Commissioner for Better Regulation Anna Cronin.
You oversaw a review of the Earth Resources Regulator in 2017. What were some of your recommendations? The major finding was that the Earth Resources Regulator (ERR) at that point wasn’t equipped to deal with the significant growth and demand for approvals underway in Victoria. It was suffering from poor morale and poor staff culture, had been through numerous reviews without much change and industry found the regulator very frustrating. Our report identified what we called “quick wins” to speed up and streamline the approvals process without undermining its regulatory integrity. The Minister Tim Pallas was willing to add resources to the ERR to address the greater demands of applications and approvals, and we quickly secured extra resources. We helped the approvals staff by giving them a clearer framework and guidelines for dealing with different applications. These “quick win” initiatives were put into place very quickly. We also identified, from the regulator’s perspective, other initiatives for the short to medium term involving more planning certainty and collaboration with local
The Victorian extractive industry insists raw materials could become more expensive and infrastructure project budgets could escalate if not enough new quarries are approved in coming years. Why has the approvals process traditionally been slow? The approvals process is complicated. There are lots of community groups and issues that need to be considered. The ERR is only one of the regulators with a finger in the pie. We have had some very constructive discussions with senior people from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Victorian Planning Authority, the Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning, and local councils about how we can speed up some of the approvals processes, including using concurrent processes rather than doing everything sequentially. Quite often in approvals processes, things build up sequentially, eg you have to do this bit before you go on to do that bit, etc. We tried to speed up some of the approvals processes by examining if they could be conducted simultaneously. Do you think the ERR’s new risk-based approach to approval of work plans or variations has addressed industry’s concerns about raw material and project costs? I think the new approach is paying dividends. The ERR is putting out information about it and bedding down the approach. Industry
