improving access to precompetitive geological data and information streamlined and efcient land access and approvals processes reducing the costs of doing business better access to cost efective infrastructure and more efective industry promotion Victorian Mineral R esources S trategy The S tate of Discovery Mineral R esources S trategy 20182023 was released prior to the election AMEC contributed to the development of the strategy and emphasised that Victoria had to actively compete with other S tates in order to attract investment and industry to the S tate L egislative Scoping Group In late 2018 AMEC was invited by the Minister for Earth R esources to join an informal group of k ey stak eholders to discuss the opportunity and scope for a major reform of the Mineral R esources Sustainable Development Act 1990 Signifcant problems with the Act had been identifed over a long period from a range of sources including ERMA C the Earth R esources S tak eholder R eference Group SRG and the Hazelwood Mine Fire Inquiry The initiative will build on the work of the Commissioner for Better R egulation in her report Getting the Groundwork Right as well as the S tate of Discovery Mineral R esources S trategy licences for the area Exploration licences are e xpected to be awarded from around March 2019 and will share in over 2m in T ARGET grants over a fve year e xploration program The fve remaining block s and other areas currently under e x emption in the S tavely Arc area will remain e x empt from minerals e xploration until further notice AMEC Election P olicy Platform AMEC released its Victorian Election P olicy Platform prior to the S tate election in 2018 In the P olicy AMEC members proposed 29 recommendations to increase mineral e xploration activity and reduce the cost of doing business in the S tate They were collated into fve k ey focus areas including VICT ORIA Earth R esources R egulation s S tak eholder R eference Group SRG Following the winding down of the Earth R esources Ministerial Advisory Council ERMA C AMEC joined the Earth R esources R egulation s S tak eholder R eference Group SRG The Group provides a forum for consultation with industry stak eholders about statutory regulatory and stak eholder relations in the conte xt of the current policy and regulatory framework The SRG aims to strengthen standards and support improvement to the regulatory environment by identifying opportunities to simplify processes and Getting the Groundwork Right Implementation Plan S tavely Ground R elease This release was announced in July when the Department of Economic Development Jobs T ransport and R esources DED JTR tendered 11 new minerals e xploration licence areas in the southern part of the S tavely Arc in western Victoria The tender was supported by e xtensive new precompetitive geoscience data packages and reports and included up to 500 000 in e xploration grant cofunding available per block Six companies including AMEC members were successful in the tender process and now have the e x clusive right to apply for minerals e xploration 20