Speaking in Brisbane to the American Chamber of Commerce in Australia, Tanna said the anti-development activism threatened jobs and revenue.

She highlighted a bill passing through Parliament as one example in a long string of activism slowing down operations in Australia.

The amendment to the federal Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act was rushed into Parliament earlier this year.

The proposed changes would broaden the act to make water resources a matter of national environmental significance and subjecting coal and natural gas industries to an additional round of approvals.

“We believe the proposals are fundamentally flawed because they deal with a fabricated perception and not with reality and will effectively shift the regulatory goal posts for projects already approved by a regulatory regime that already works,” she said.

Tanna said the industries had little bearing on water and highlighted the bigger questions at hand when looking at the bill.

“When fully operational our business will contribute more than $A1 billion a year to state and federal government revenues,” she said.

“That’s equivalent yearly funding for more than 20 primary schools or about 1000 hospital beds.

“That is a measure of what is at stake when we have decision making on this basis, when green activists and their supporters deliberately misinform and when motives and charges go unquestioned and unchallenged.”

BG Group’s Australian arm QGC is on a list of Australian companies and industry groups trying to get the bill withdrawn from Parliament.