Major infrastructure projects affect - and will be affected by - their surrounding environment. Environmental considerations should form a fundamental aspect of infrastructure project selection and planning processes. Collaboration across a diverse set of stakeholders is integral to ensuring that Australian infrastructure is sustainable and delivers wide benefits to society.
The challenge for environmental regulators across governments is to find a model of oversight that facilitates efficient project implementation while ensuring that current standards - in line with local needs and Australia's international obligations - do not decline.
Federal, state and local governments hold environmental management legislation, leading to some duplication of administration in regulatory and approval processes for projects. Clear efforts have been made to align these approval processes. By December 2014, all states and territories had executed assessment bilateral agreements with the Australian Government.100
A cohesive, transparent structure for managing environmental issues transforms environmental assessments from a regulatory impost to a valuable forum for discussion of the environmental impacts of projects as part of the planning and scoping process.
The challenge for environmental regulators across governments is to find a model of oversight that supports efficient project implementation while ensuring that current standards - in line with local needs and Australia's international obligations - do not decline.
Audit findings 24. Environmental considerations should form a fundamental aspect of infrastructure project selection and planning processes. 25. More rigorous and transparent strategic planning offers the potential to minimise project level disputes about the environmental merits and impacts of specific projects. |
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100. Hunt, MP (2014a) and Hunt, MP (2014b)