Unlocking certainty: Why Australia must invest early to build smarter

As we accelerate Australia’s transition to net zero, deliver critical infrastructure, and unlock new industries, the systems that govern environmental approvals are facing unprecedented pressure. 

Chronic underinvestment in early-stage environmental and geotechnical assessments is costing billions in design flaws, delays and cost blowouts. According to the Grattan Institute, one in four megaprojects in Australia exceed budgets by over 50 per cent, often due to issues that could have been identified earlier. The same report stresses that many business cases are completed after funding decisions are made, indicating early-stage assessments are rushed or bypassed.

If we’re serious about leading on environmental reform, and doing it at the pace our economy and climate demand, we need to fix the front end of project planning.

This isn’t a just technical problem, it’s a policy gap. Yet, it’s one we can solve.

The policy landscape: Fragmentation and friction

Australia’s environmental approvals system is complex, multi-layered and often inconsistent. Proponents must navigate federal and state legislation, including the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (EPBC) Act, state planning laws and a patchwork of biodiversity and offset policies. 

This fragmentation creates friction. Projects are delayed, investment is deferred, and opportunities to embed ecological integrity within national development agendas risks slipping away. 

This undermines confidence in the system and erodes public trust in the outcomes. 

Three core issues are driving inefficiency and uncertainty: 

1. Duplication and delay: Overlapping federal and state assessments waste time and resources.

2. Unclear standards: Inconsistent benchmarks for biodiversity, offsets, and cumulative impacts create confusion and risk.

3. Limited capacity: Agencies and proponents are stretched thin, slowing decisions and reducing quality.

These challenges aren’t new, but urgency to address them has never been greater.

Labor’s renewed intent to combine national standards and federal EPA into one legislative package is positive. But this must translate into swift action and accountability to prevent further delays that risk compounding environmental harm and investment uncertainty. 

Industry realities: What’s at stake?

Drawing upon our industry experience in Australia, many projects allocate a minimal portion of capital budgets to early-stage geo-environmental assessments. While specific budget allocations are rarely disclosed, large-scale projects routinely prepare comprehensive Environmental Impact Assessments as part of early-stage planning. However, without certainty around legislative standards, these assessments risk being absorbed into broader planning costs, often resulting in blowouts later in the project lifecycle.

This creates a system that reacts to risk rather than planning for it. The consequences are visible across sectors. 

In mining, proponents in South Australia are navigating uncertainty under the Hydrogen and Renewable Energy Act, with transitional arrangements creating delays and regulatory ambiguity. Industry bodies such as South Australian Chamber of Mines and Energy (SACOME) and Association of Mining and Exploration Companies (AMEC) have warned that the Act’s prescriptive regulations, and lack of grandfathering provisions, are undermining confidence and slowing progress on decarbonisation-aligned mining developments at early-stage planning. 

In energy, Queensland developers face misalignment between state environmental approvals and federal emissions safeguards, slowing delivery and shaking investor confidence. Retroactive refusal of the $1 billion Moonlight Range Wind Farm is an ongoing example of friction between state planning laws and the federal Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999. The success of other major projects like the CopperString transmission line, Mount James Wind Farm, North Queensland Super Hub, and the Borumba pumped hydro project, also depend on regulatory alignment, timely approvals and a stable investment environment.

In South Australia’s water infrastructure space, the progression of projects like the $5 billion Northern Water Supply are contingent on resolving overlapping vegetation and biodiversity rules due to misaligned state and federal frameworks.

These aren’t isolated challenges. They’re symptoms of convoluted systems that undervalue the front end of planning and over-rely on reactive fixes.

Unlocking certainty

To move forward, we need to reframe environmental approvals, not as a bureaucratic hurdle, but as an enabler of certainty, productivity, public trust and ecological value.

1. Certainty through reform: Certainty isn’t about lowering standards. It’s about making them clearer, faster, and more consistent. A dedicated national taskforce could lead this work, drawing on successful models like New South Wales’ Planning Delivery Unit, which has shown how targeted coordination can accelerate complex projects without compromising integrity.

But this isn’t about creating another committee. What’s needed is clear accountability and delivery. We must bring engineering, economics and politics together to drive outcomes, not just process.

2. Productivity without compromise: Faster approvals don’t mean weaker protections; they mean better planning. Performance-based assessment models, early regulator engagement and clearer guidance for proponents can help reduce delays while maintaining environmental integrity. Reform should enable timely, high-quality decisions, especially for projects with significant community and budget impacts.

A call for collaborative action

Environmental approvals are often treated as a bureaucratic hurdle. But in reality, they’re a critical lever for national productivity, investment confidence, economic prosperity and ecological resilience. Australia has the chance to lead on environmental approvals reform, not by choosing between nature, economic outcomes and increased productivity, but by designing systems that deliver all. 

The path forward requires collaboration, not confrontation. As Environment Minister Murray Watt, put it, “It’s very easy in these sorts of big debates for people to get in their corners”.

The message is clear: environmental reform must be decisive, inclusive and focused on high-quality outcomes.