General News
5 March, 2025
North West makes sense for economic zone, says Power
Mining guru Nev Power wants to see approval processes sped up in the region.
Former Fortescue Metals Group CEO Nev Power has identified unaffordable power costs, skilled worker shortages and onerous red tape as three major hurdles hampering economic growth in the North West.
Mr Power, who delivered the keynote address at the Mount Isa City Council’s Future Ready Economic Roadmap launch, told North West Weekly that he believed the creation of a Special Economic Zone in the North West could streamline approval processes, which would potentially decrease the need for government subsidies to drive new project development.
“I think there are a number of candidates across Australia that would be viable locations to investigate a Special Economic Zone and I believe this region is clearly one of them,” he said.
“We need to break down what the scope of the zone would be, but primarily, I think there is an opportunity for a revised tax and investment regime.
“The timeframe for permitting new projects is a huge deterrent to investment capital and our response is to think we need to introduce more government subsidies, but in effect, those subsidies are only compensating for what could be done if we streamlined the approval processes. We are not even talking about cutting out steps in the approval process – let’s get the same outcomes – but we have seen projects take nine or 10 years to gain government approval, and yet the outcomes reached were exactly the same as what was proposed at the start.”
Mr Power said the future of the Mount Isa Mines copper smelter relied on being able to secure more feed from the region, which required aiding the development of new copper mine projects.