The Federal Government and Coalition are vying for the support of the mining sector, with Peter Dutton branding his party as the sector's staunchest ally. In his speech at an industry conference today, Dutton promises to 'turbocharge' the approval process for hundreds of mining and energy projects. Political reporter Tom Lowrey has more from Canberra.
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00:00Industry leaders are in Canberra this week for a whole series of Minerals Council events.
00:08This of course comes at a somewhat tense time, I suppose, in relations between the government
00:12and the minerals sector. Environment laws are on the political agenda this week. This
00:17is something of enormous interest to the resources industry, as you'd expect. Peter Dutton is
00:22going to give a key speech to one of these events this morning, and he'll use that speech
00:27to make that pledge to turbocharge, in his words, approvals for about 420, he says, mining
00:33and energy projects right around the country. That of course would be somewhat contentious
00:38from a climate perspective. He'll also use that speech to try and paint Labor as hostile
00:44to the resources industry, particularly even pointing back to old debates of the years
00:50gone by, like carbon tax and mining tax sort of debates, to try and paint that picture
00:55of Labor. The Albanese government has been trying to push back on that narrative for
00:59some time, even spending much of last week in Western Australia holding key meetings
01:04with resources industry figures. And Madeleine King gave a speech of her own, the resources
01:09minister, to one of these events this morning, and was asked during a Q&A session afterwards
01:15about the key issue of approvals for the mining sector, how to potentially streamline and
01:21speed up approvals for key projects. Some in the industry is particularly interested
01:26in. Here's a bit of what she had to say, trying to make that pitch that the Albanese government
01:31is friendly to the industry.
01:33I know there are frustrations at some levels about how long approvals can take. I note
01:41the World Bank puts us fourth in international rankings on how we do run our approvals processes.
01:49But I admit, and I've said this often in public, we always can do better and we seek to do
01:56so. It's a continuous improvement, is what I like to say.
02:02There are negotiations going on in the background during this sitting week about the government's
02:06push to set up a new body, Environment Protection Australia, essentially a new environmental
02:12protection agency. Now, the government's been at a bit of a stalemate in negotiations. Interestingly,
02:18the industry is backing the creation of this new body if it takes an offer from the Prime
02:23Minister made last week in WA to somewhat weaken it, to strip it of some of its approval
02:28powers. That looks to have fallen flat. The coalition isn't keen to work with the government,
02:33it seems, to set up that new body, at least for now. Negotiations are a bit of a stalemate
02:38there, which might force the government to work with the Greens and other crossbenchers
02:41if it does want to push ahead with that legislation, which could almost ironically see perhaps
02:46a stronger body emerge than what the resources industry would have liked.