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VCEC Report

By on June 22, 2006

Regulation & Regional Victoria

Overall the Government’s uptake on concepts put into the VCEC (Victorian Competition and Efficiency Commission) Report has been outstanding and should make a considerable difference to business.

NATIVE VEGETATION

  • A more strategic approach will identify significant native vegetation earlier in the planning processes
  • The new framework will afford land managers with greater certainty in making decisions about future land use capability
  • Local councils will assess smaller (standard) proposals and DSE will assess all others, this will reduce the need for landowners to engage experts
  • Flexible offsets arrangements allow permitted clearing of vegetation to be offset with equivalent improvements in native vegetation in other locations
  • Bush Broker is a system for registering and trading native vegetation credits

PLANNING

  • State Government is always willing to respond to requests for assistance from local government if a council deems it is warranted, involvement can range from policy or administrative assistance to support for economic development purposes

ENVIRONMENTAL REGULATION

  • EPA will seek independent review of draft Policy Impact Assessments before they are released for public comment along with draft statutory policies
  • EPA is working to finalise interim guidance documents as a matter of priority

DEPARTMENT OF PRIMARY INDUSTRIES

  • The mining memorandum of understanding (MOU) commenced in January 2004, DPI will extend the MOU to exploration to facilitate more timely and consistent decisions, and will make the MOU publicly available on DPI and DSE websites

HOW REFORMS ARE CONDUCTED

  • A 60-day public consultation period is supported where practicable on regulatory impact statements
  • Government is committed to transparent cost recovery arrangements

It appears (without referring to the CMPA submission) that many CMPA concerns have been addressed. It is hoped that these reforms are enacted promptly.

A full summary of the report is available from CMPA.

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