FROM THE CMPA SECRETARIAT (Issue 70)
Meeting with DSDBI
DR ELIZABETH GIBSON, General Manager CMPA reports on DSDBI – meeting with Kylie White and Ron Barr.
A meeting was held on 19 July 2013 in Melbourne with Rob Barr, Deputy Secretary Corporate Planning and Compliance Services and Kylie White, Director Earth Resources Regulation Branch (EERB) of the Department of State Development Business and Innovation (DSDBI). In attendance were Ron Kerr and Dr Elizabeth Gibson from CMPA. Kylie is new to her position and Rob has just taken responsibility for EERB with the Government restructure. A number of issues were raised by CMPA with DSDBI.
The first issue raised was regarding the availability of construction materials. Currently, there is a lack of knowledge of available stone in Victoria. There is also sterilisation of rock occurring due to poor planning decisions with buffer zones being encroached upon. Additionally, urban growth makes the land value too high and impacts on the viability of the quarry industry. Hence, greater distances will have to be travelled to deliver construction material.
The impact of regulation is leading to a sharp decline in new work authorities due to the costs of compliance being too high with there being no certainty of outcome. Additionally, large companies are leaving from smaller regional quarries due to the lack of profit to be made.
Native vegetation legislation is of particular concern to the industry. Native vegetation off sets are unsustainable. It is difficult to find a like for like off set. Once found, they are difficult to procure with often the landholder selling to the highest bidder. The alternative is caveats on title; however, caveats can be removed from title. The centralised tracking of these off sets by Government will be near impossible. See article “Reforms to Native Vegetation in Victoria” in this issue.
Also of concern to the industry is the Aboriginal Heritage Act 2006. Originally, Cultural Heritage Management Plans were costed at $4-8,000 for a desk top study in 2007; in 2011 a desk top study was costing $40,000.
The rehabilitation bonds imposed by government are restricting access to the market for small and medium businesses. The bond should be valued for terminal faces only and the value of the site should be considered in determining a bond value. It was suggested that CMPA look at a risk based model for rehabilitation bonds which CMPA took on board. A comment was made by DSDBI that the magnitude of rehabilitation bonds was not high enough and currently did not equal the risk to government. CMPA does not agree with this comment and believes that the high risk of the mining industry is being confused with the lower risk extractive industry.
DSDBI requires information from quarries to be submitt ed by a certain date. Hence, DSDBI needs to publish the collated data in a timely manner.
It was suggested that Invest Assist (DSDBI) may be able to assist investors with progressing approval processes. An article from Invest Assist will occur in the next issue of Sand & Stone.
It was stated at the end of the meeting that the government is very keen to have development in the state.
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