Global mining giants led by BHP are urging the Albanese government to push ahead with an overhaul of environmental laws after the prime minister shut down Senate negotiations last week over fears of a political backlash from West Australian resources players.

In a surprise intervention by the country's biggest company, BHP's Australian boss, Geraldine Slattery, warned failure to streamline mining approvals would crush the country's ability to lure global clean energy investors chasing "one of the greatest industrial shifts in history".

This "starts with streamlining permitting, making it easier to deliver major projects," Ms Slattery told a function hosted by the Melbourne Mining Club on Thursday.

"Inefficient regulation leads to project delays. Governments are figuring this out," in rival mining countries including Canada, Chile and Donald Trump's America, she said.

Ms Slattery's remarks — which include a "blunt assessment" that the country's ability to access skills and talent is under threat and that national innovation lags global rivals — come just over a week after Mr Albanese killed negotiations with the Greens on Senate passage of Labor's so-called "nature-positive" reforms.

The overhaul of federal environmental approvals is subject to a campaign of resistance by key parts of the resource sector and West Australian premier Roger Cook, who has personally lobbied Mr Albanese to dump the changes as they currently stand.

There has also been speculation that Mr Albanese's decision to halt cross-bench negotiations on the topic during last week's legislation-passing marathon deepened tensions between the prime minister and Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek.

Debate over the nature-positive bills could re-emerge if Mr Albanese opts to return to parliament during the first two weeks of February, as is currently scheduled.

Mining giants support regulatory overhaul, but not EPA

BHP's call echoes a push by rival global mining giant Rio Tinto, which in October backed the Albanese government in "prioritising and progressing" reform of the 25-year-old Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (EPBC) Act.

A Rio source told the ABC this week that there had been no change in the company's position on those reforms since last week's decision by the prime minister.

Rio backs strong "national environmental standards" that will help regulators weigh up risks of new mines and land use, the company said in a statement on its website.

While the mining giants are both supportive of the need for a better regulatory system, it is understood they do not agree with Labor's plans to establish an independent environmental protection agency (EPA) watchdog.

Instead, they would prefer a system that keeps decision-making subject to intervention by governments, rather than bureaucrats.

Rio said the system needs "overall ministerial accountability for approvals decisions and consideration of economic and social impacts".

Labor needs the support of either the Coalition or the Greens and other crossbenchers to pass its reforms, with green groups pushing for a strong, independent EPA.

Ms Plibersek said the reforms were about making environmental reforms "better for nature and faster for business".

That included an EPA to bring regulatory functions currently run by the department "into a single, faster, more efficient process".

Originally triggered by the former Coalition government, the proposed reforms were the result of a review led by Graeme Samuel in 2020 that found the natural environment was in an "overall state of decline" with an EPBC act that was failing to deliver for the environment, business or the community.

Permitting reform on the international agenda

"We must champion a more competitive Australia through our policy settings in the way we grant permits, regulate mining, and think about risk," Ms Slattery said on Thursday.

"We are proud of the high standards the industry upholds in Australia, but we need to be smarter and do this more efficiently.

"Time to market matters. In 2020, the Samuel Review found on average, complex resource-sector projects can take over 1000 days to assess and approve."

Ms Slattery noted the Biden administration introduced an Energy Permitting Reform Act this year and that the "incoming Trump administration is continuing the conversation about permitting reform".

Canada has created a federal permitting coordinator and overhauled its Impact Assessment Act "to accelerate decisions", she said, while Chile's government has made permitting a focus of its agenda.

"For Australia, the principles should be clear: put in place a risk-based permitting system that ensures processing timelines are certain and outcomes are reliable," she said.

"In short, we must modernise our permitting system in line with the changing nature of competition."

Ms Slattery said the global energy transition would "not occur without the minerals Australia provides".

"Amid this global economic realignment, Australia must avoid the trap of taking our history for granted. We must recognise that the playing field has shifted."

"We all know that Australia does not have the same natural advantages as we do with our iron ore and coal.

"We cannot change the rocks we have, but we can change the enablers and settings in their discovery, extraction and development."

Shadow environment spokesman Jonno Duniam said there was "no doubt" the laws needed an overhaul.

"We were promised new environmental laws a year ago, but all the government has given the parliament to consider is a brand new bureaucracy in the form of a federal EPA to administer the broken EPBC Act that will only increase red tape and make it harder to get an approval.

"The government are running investors offshore."

Senator Duniam vowed a future Coalition government would "halve approval times for projects under the EPBC Act, without compromising on standards, and will limit the capacity of third parties like the Environmental Defenders Office to challenge EPBC Act decisions".