Queensland coal and gas producers warn that notifying the public every time an approved project was changed would be costly and could cause delays.
Mandatory public notifications are among a suite of environmental law changes being considered by a state parliamentary committee on Monday.
The Australian Petroleum Production & Exploration Association says it supports “reasonable” notification requirements, but making them mandatory would be a material cost and potentially significantly delay projects.
“All at a time when we are seeing unprecedented pressures on energy supply across the East Coast,” Queensland APPEA director Matt Paul told the committee.
He also noted that the proposal applied only to the resources industry, while non-resource projects would be treated differently, regardless of their environmental impact.
The APPEA boss called for the government to wait until a Queensland Law Commission review of notification process was completed before making any changes.
The Queensland Resources Council criticised the criteria for the early refusal of projects as being too broad.
Chief executive Ian Macfarlane said the QRC had no objection to the early refusal of projects in places where they would obviously be illegal.
But he said the bill proposed early refusals for “absurdly vague reasons”.
“For example, the definition of cultural heritage such as that the project is considered to impact on an area of social or technological significance to the present generation or past and future generations,” the QRC chief executive told the committee.
The bill would also hold former company bosses responsible for environmental breaches from their projects during their tenure.
Both APPEA and QRC said they were bewildered and blindsided by the proposed changes.
Mr Paul said the government had initially told the sector the amendments would only be administrative and minor, but that wasn’t the case.
“There were major changes to policy to legislation, there were major policy proposals being advanced that had not been consulted on and discussed with major investors who were going to be affected by them, and it was being done in a very compressed timeframe,” Mr Paul said.
He said he couldn’t give investors any forewarning about the bill because the state made companies sign confidentiality deeds.
“That situation does not give them much confidence in public processes,” Mr Pail added.
“I’ve been in this space for a while, I’ve never had to sign a confidentiality deed of that nature in order to receive and distribute draft legislation to our members.
“Having it so restrictive, things that I couldn’t even send to our member companies was unprecedented in my experience.”
Mr Macfarlane also criticised the government for failing to explain why the bill had been revised.
“Every step or every move the government makes to impose more regulation, more green tape, to take away the certainty of process is seen through a prism of does Queensland really want resources to underpin its economy in the future,” he said.
