News & Media

New traditional owner opponents against Santos’ $5.8 billion Barossa offshore gas project in the Northern Territory have joined the legal battle, as a Federal Court proceeding started that could be a key test case over underwater Aboriginal cultural heritage approvals.

Australia is struggling under the burden of red tape that is growing at nearly twice the rate of the national economy, leading to urgent calls for parliament to act to cut out-of-date regulations and ban new rules from being imposed without old ones being repealed.

Until recently, debate over the Anthony Albanese’s Closing Loopholes legislation has largely ignored a factor that could smash the economy. Unless this is clarified, resources and energy operations could shut. Thousands of workers could be out of a job. Frankly, it is ludicrous to think the FWC, with only one of its 50 members ever having run a substantial business, could be allowed to make assessments about future work plans that experienced business managers and board directors haven’t yet contemplated.

Australia’s slow pace of mining approvals is diminishing its attraction as a global investment destination, Hancock Prospecting, owned by Australia’s richest person Gina Rinehart, said on Tuesday. "The current policy environment, duplication of processes, overreach from all departments and delays to approvals is negatively impacting new investment into the mining industry and is reducing Australia’s competitiveness in the international resource sector,” said Hancock.

In addition to its impressive corporate successes in the mining and agricultural industries, Hancock Prospecting group of companies are amongst those leading the way in supporting the men and women who have served and sacrificed for their country.

Few figures embody the essence of great Aussie values and respect for our military more than Mrs Gina Rinehart AO.

EXCLUSIVE Former AGL Energy boss and power industry veteran Michael Fraser has warned Australia needs a reality check on meeting its net zero targets as the nation moves ever closer to a rolling energy crisis. One of the country's most experienced power executives, Mr Fraser told The Australian the race to take coal and gas out of the system means the coming decade is likely to be marked by regular blackouts and surging prices, given the massive shortfall in efforts to switch the power grid to renewables. "Nobody's saying that we're on schedule or ahead of schedule. We're behind schedule," said Mr Fraser, who ran Australia's biggest power generator for eight years until 2015. Mr Fraser cautioned "a return to the 1970s" when state-backed power networks suffered from chronic blackouts.

But Mr Veldsman said that, under the Bill, there was no guarantee those different categories of driver would continue to be paid about the same. “We’re talking about draft legislation where the ‘full rate of pay’ is so unclear, so undefined, so broad and so open to speculation that we can’t say in future if this Bill is to actually pass that we can still do that,” he said. Mr Veldsman added a number of Hancock’s projects had already stalled due to red tape. Another major concern is a proposal to give casual workers the right to ask to convert to permanent employment after six months of regular hours.

Ontario Energy Minister, Todd Smith, claims nuclear power has been a real “success story” in Canada, declaring “Nuclear has provided about 60 per cent of our electricity”.

I can sense panic is starting to set in behind the scenes in the Federal and the east coast State governments on the energy front. On one hand they have so successfully demonised fossil fuels and created unrealistic expectations on the time lines for the transition to large-scale renewable sources. But on the other hand they are loving the massive growth of revenues flowing into their treasuries from the very same fossil fuels both during and after the COVID lockdown years. The world is demanding more, not less, electricity but people want it generated and distributed in a more environmentally friendly way.