9 9 WES TERN A US TRALIA Gold R oyalty increase defeated The Government announced in the 201718 S tate Budget its intention to increase the gold royalty rate by 50 AMEC fought against this major increase and with a strong combined industry campaign was successful The increase was voted down twice by the W A P arliament AMEC will fght against any future attempts to raise it Aboriginal heritage reform AMEC prepared a detailed response to the W A Governments review of the Aboriginal Heritage Act This legislation has been unchanged since it was introduced in 1972 and is considered outofdate inefcient and inefective by industry and stak eholders AMEC has made a number of administrative recommendations for early implementation R egulatory reform underway AMEC is working closely with the Government on its R egulation R eform agenda with a focus on L and Access and Approvals across relevant agencies Following a submission from AMEC the Government is considering the development of an environmental consultant accreditation scheme to speed up approvals W e continue to promote a risk based outcome focussed assessment and compliance process Building and Construction Industry T raining L evy Following an announcement in the S tate Budget that the resources sector e x emption will be removed we have work ed closely with the Government to increase its knowledge of mining operations and work for e x cavation in order to calculate the levy This has resulted in some increased clarity on what should be included and e x cluded in the calculation defnitions L ocal Government R ating improvements As a direct result of AMEC highlighting a number of concerns in relation to the budget and rate setting processes within regional L ocal Government A uthorities there have been e xamples where transparency and accountability improvements have been made This has also resulted in reduced rates in a few instances AMEC is continuing to seek e x emption of mineral e xploration tenements from shire rates in line with all other A ustralian jurisdictions AMEC is directly involved in the R eview of the L ocal Government Act and advocated for change Nick el royalty loophole closed AMEC prevented a proposed change to the R oyalty R egulations which could have seen an inadvertent and unacceptable increase in the royalty rate for nick el AMEC R eport 2018