Mining giants push government to pilot AI
The mining industry has claimed that artificial intelligence could negate the trend of creating jobs bloodbaths and instead create a jobs boom, shortening years-long approval waits for major advances in the process.
The Minerals Council of Australia will seek $13 million in the May federal budget for an AI pilot that it believes will deliver a billion-dollar benefit to the economy in the long term by improving regulatory decision-making.
While nearly 26,000 homes across the country are stuck in an approval backlog, the country’s miners’ peak body estimates $51 billion of resource projects are stalled each year due to slow decision-making processes.
Minerals Council of Australia chief executive Tania Constable said application wait times could be halved by using artificial intelligence to review “thousands of pages of approvals”.
“It takes approximately 3.8 years to meet the regulatory approval deadline, which represents a 60 percent increase compared to 2.3 years in 2019,” Constable told this imprint.
“We think this can be paired immediately with the use of AI. The end game is getting approvals faster.
“It takes approximately 16 years for an idea to be implemented, a final decision to be reached and construction to take place with a project.
“You want to make sure that every stage of the process is as efficient as possible so that a project proponent, an investor, can make a decision that puts Australia first.
“We’re in huge competition with the rest of the world and we want Australia first.”
Delays in applying for approval have long been a source of frustration for the industry.
Last year, Woodside’s application to extend the life of the North West Gas Shelf in Western Australia to 2070 was accepted. approved by the federal government – The oil and gas giant first made the application in 2018.
Coming out of an economic roundtable last August, the federal government said it would cut bureaucracy and speed up delays by implementing reforms, including two areas where immediate action could be taken.
Among these reforms was the artificial intelligence pilot.
In this context, it is understood that the Ministry of Climate Change, Energy, Environment and Water is carrying out preparatory work for the pilot application, but no operational tools have been used at this stage.
Housing would be the primary beneficiary of the deployment of AI.
Liberal think tank Menzies Research Center said the government would not be able to meet housing needs without adopting this technology and would miss the opportunity to reduce energy prices with around 5,000 kilometers of transmission lines waiting to be built.
“There is a risk that Australia will miss out on a lot of these investments that fund these major projects because we have one of the longer approval time processes in Australia,” managing director David Hughes said.
“We’re talking about major new electricity transmission lines that could help bring down energy prices, and we’re also talking about the 26,000 new homes that are now part of this backlog. The government really needs to act now.”
Shadow Housing Secretary Andrew Bragg has vowed to “hold the government’s feet to the fire” as he says the opposition has failed to set approval deadlines through environmental reforms.
“What we’d like to see going forward is the use of technology to approve applications, because it’s ridiculous that it takes years, sometimes decades, to get approval under this federal planning rule,” Bragg said.
“In fact, the ministry says there are at least 10,000 people waiting to be certified because a parrot flew over a piece of land in 1971,” he added playfully.
“Albo and the environment minister [Murray Watt] “They didn’t take their fingers out.”
Disruption in artificial intelligence has pushed software companies to make major job cuts, headlines Mike Cannon-Brookes. Atlassian will lay off 1600 people.
The Minerals Council of Australia believes the use of artificial intelligence will accelerate major developments, creating more jobs in the industry.
“There is approximately $140 billion worth of critical minerals ready to be extracted from the ground by 2040, which is a huge opportunity,” Constable said.
“Delays in approval processes create a handbrake on the economy and create serious bottlenecks to employment-creating developments. [Faster approvals] This means more jobs are occurring all over Australia.
The Minerals Council has promised that if it accepts Treasurer Jim Chalmers’ request for funding for an AI pilot, the final decision on any development application will rest with the human; This is a stance also supported by the Menzies Research Centre.
“I think Australians are concerned about the potential for AI to take away their jobs, but what we shouldn’t worry about is the use of these technologies to help us do our jobs better and faster,” Hughes said.
Start your day with a summary of the day’s most important and interesting stories, analysis and insights. Sign up for our Morning Edition newsletter.
