ACTIVISTS responsible for decades of economy crippling green tape have been warned to get out of the way as the nation prepares for a post-virus recovery.

The caution comes as new research reveals environmental legal action had cumulatively cost the nation 10,000 days in project delays since 2000.

Federal Environment Minister Sussan Ley has announced plans to release the environmental handbrake prior to October’s emergency Commonwealth Budget in an effort to jump-start Australia’s shaken economy.

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She signalled legislative changes would be fast-tracked to the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act.

Ms Ley was responding to Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s instruction to prepare the economy for a speedy recovery.

“The Prime Minister has said we need to look at everything with fresh eyes and there is no better candidate than the 20-year-old EPBC Act,” she said.

“The last thing I want to see is unnecessary blockages getting in the way of key projects.”

Ms Ley said environmental imperatives would not be sacrificed.

“It’s about getting rid of process for process sake, duplication at State and federal levels.”

According to a report in The Australian newspaper a push to improve the Environment Department’s approval processes had already begun to show results, with almost 90 per cent of big project application processed on time. This compares with 19 per cent in the previous December quarter.

ENTERPRISES

The backlog of smaller projects is also expected to be cleared this year.

“That doesn’t mean everything will get approved but we are reaching out proactively … to job-generating enterprises.”

A new study by the Institute of Public Affairs has found environmental regulations have grown by more than 450 per cent since 2000.

Researcher Cian Hussey said regulations under the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act had grown by more than 10 per cent each and every year.

ACTIVISM

“That compares with annual economic growth of 2.9 per cent and an average population growth of 1.5 per cent over the same period,” he said.

Previous IPA research found that green activism flowing from the EPBC Act had put more than $65b of investment at risk and had held up major projects such as dams and coal mines by more than 10,000 days since 2000.

“The Morrison Government needs to cut the number of regulations back to 2000 levels,” Mr Hussey said.

Ms Ley agreed nobody’s interests were served the way regulation was being used in courts.

“There are better ways to deal with these issues [to resolve] differences.”PC