A federal push to establish a national oil and gas regulator has been deferred until the completion of the inquiry into last year's devastating Montara oil spill.
A federal push to establish a national oil and gas regulator has been deferred until the completion of the inquiry into last year's devastating Montara oil spill.
WA Business News understands that a telephone hook-up between Federal Resources Minister Martin Ferguson and his state-based counterparts today ended with an agreement to postpone the contentious proposal in order to factor in the findings of the Montara inquiry.
Confirming today's decision by the Ministerial Council on Mineral and Petroleum Resources, a spokesman for Mr Ferguson told WA Business News the ministerial council had merely "confirmed what has always been the intention".
"That is, to consider the findings and recommendations of all the Varanus Island reports and the Montara Inquiry," he said.
The proposal, which would have seen a new national regulator take on all responsibility for regulating the offshore oil industry by 2012, was one of 30 proposals to be decided at next month's meeting of the Council of Australian Governments.
Flagged by Mr Ferguson in August last year, the proposal followed a Productivity Commission report which found that billions of dollars could be saved annually by reducing duplication across state and federal jurisdictions and speeding up approvals.
A national offshore petroleum regulator was one of the report's key recommendations.
However, as first revealed by WA Business News in November, the proposal was violently opposed by the Western Australian and Northern Territory governments as one that would significantly diminish their influence over development within their own domain.
The WA and NT governments have instead proposed their own plan to eliminate duplication between state and federal jurisdictions without ceding responsibility to Canberra.
The remaining states, in which there is limited offshore development planned or under way, generally back the federal proposal.
Currently, activity in waters three nautical miles from the low tide mark comes under the umbrella of the Commonwealth, but hands-on responsibility is effectively delegated to the state government.
State mines and petroleum minister Norman Moore could not be reached for comment today, but last November said it would be "ludicrous" to scrap the current shared arrangements because the Commonwealth simply lacked the expertise to take over that hands-on role effectively.
He also warned it would prevent the current coordinated approach to developments involving both offshore and onshore components, over which the state government has absolute jurisdiction. Nor could the WA government be forced to relinquish its jurisdiction over activities in state waters.
