The Kemerton Strategic Industrial Area (KSIA) is a State-significant industrial precinct in Western Australia’s South West, established to support strategic and heavy industries. It is home to a number of major industrial operations and has been identified as a key location for future investment and economic development.

As the largest Strategic Industrial Area in the South West, the KSIA provides land for heavy industry and downstream processing industries that add value to the region’s natural resources, including mineral sands and lithium.

The KSIA is strategically located with access to major road, power and gas infrastructure. It is approximately 17 kilometres north-east of Bunbury Port and includes land reserved for a potential future rail connection.

Located within the Shire of Harvey, the KSIA covers approximately 7,510 hectares and includes:

• a 2,012-hectare Industrial Core designated for heavy and strategic industries
• a 5,498-hectare Buffer, which separates industrial activities from surrounding land uses
• a 293-hectare General Industrial Area within the Buffer, intended to support industrial operations in the Industrial Core.

The KSIA is the largest Strategic Industrial Area in Western Australia’s South West region, servicing both export and domestic markets.

The KSIA is a major contributor to the South West and Western Australian economies. The area supports more than 1,000 direct jobs and creates additional employment opportunities throughout the region through supply chains, services and supporting industries.

The KSIA encompasses a number of businesses across a range of industrial activities, including:

• peaking power production
• lithium hydroxide processing
• the production of silica sand, silicon, chlor-alkali, titanium dioxide, oxygen and nitrogen.

The KSIA was first planned in 1985 and first zoned for industry under the Shire of Harvey Local Planning Scheme in the late 1990s. A larger KSIA area was subsequently identified in the Industry 2030 Greater Bunbury Industrial Land and Port Access Plan (2000).

The expanded area was included in the Greater Bunbury Region Scheme in 2007.

The KSIA comprises a mix of land ownership, including land held by DevelopmentWA, the Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions, other State Government agencies, and private landowners.

Within the KSIA, DevelopmentWA is seeking State and Commonwealth environmental approvals to support future industrial development within the Industrial Core and associated infrastructure service corridors.

The Industrial Core is intended to accommodate heavy industry, with a Buffer area to mitigate the impact of industrial development on the surrounding area.

Development within the Buffer is expected to remain limited. However, infrastructure service corridors and associated facilities may be required within Buffer areas to support future industrial development and essential services across the KSIA.

The General Industrial Area is intended to accommodate uses that support activities within the Industrial Core. The General Industrial Area is not included as part of the Strategic Assessment.

Development of the KSIA is guided by a number of planning frameworks, including the Local Planning Scheme, Greater Bunbury Region Scheme and the KSIA Structure Plan. These frameworks establish how land can be used and developed within the area and identify the environmental, planning and infrastructure requirements that must be addressed before subdivision or development can occur.

Development proposals within the KSIA are assessed by relevant regulatory authorities, including the Shire of Harvey, Western Australian Planning Commission and environmental regulatory agencies.

Proponents seeking access to DevelopmentWA-owned land within the KSIA must apply through DEED’s Land Allocation Framework. This framework ensures land is allocated in a transparent and consistent manner, supporting projects that align with the strategic objectives of the area.

A Strategic Assessment is an environmental assessment and approval pathway under Part 10 of the Commonwealth’s Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (EPBC Act) that allows environmental impacts to be considered at a landscape scale, rather than assessing individual projects.

The Strategic Assessment considers Matters of National Environmental Significance (MNES) alongside future development needs and helps support better planning, provides greater certainty for industry and the community, and ensures significant environmental values are protected and managed over time.

The EPBC Act is Australia’s national environmental law. It helps protect places, animals, plants and ecosystems that are considered nationally significant. The Act ensures that the potential environmental impacts of proposed developments or land use are carefully assessed before they can proceed.

The EPBC Act protects nine Matters of National Environmental Significance (MNES):

1. World Heritage properties
2. National Heritage places
3. Wetlands of international importance (Ramsar wetlands)
4. Threatened species and ecological communities
5. Migratory species protected under international agreements
6. Commonwealth marine areas
7. The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park
8. Nuclear actions, including uranium mining
9. Water resources affected by coal seam gas and large coal mining developments

These nationally significant environmental values are considered during planning and assessment processes to help ensure they are protected and managed for current and future generations.

DevelopmentWA has worked closely with the Commonwealth Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water (DCCEEW), now the National Environmental Protection Authority (NEPA), and the State Department of Water and Environment Regulation (DWER) to identify the most appropriate environmental approval pathway for the KSIA.

While the State and Commonwealth approval processes are separate, they are generally run in parallel and assessed together, resulting in a more streamlined process.

Given the scale and complexity of the proposed development area, a Strategic Assessment under the EPBC Act was identified as the most effective approach to obtaining Commonwealth environmental approval. The assessment area contains a range of MNES.

The Strategic Assessment process allows potential environmental impacts to be considered at a landscape scale, rather than on a project-by-project basis. This approach enables a more comprehensive and holistic assessment of cumulative and long-term impacts, supporting improved conservation outcomes for MNES and providing greater certainty for future development.

This coordinated approach helps to identify, avoid, mitigate and offset impacts on nationally significant environmental values while supporting informed planning for future development across the KSIA landscape. It also provides greater certainty for industry, government, communities and other stakeholders by establishing a clear estate-wide environmental approvals framework through the completion of a large-scale assessment of the area’s environmental values and structuring the holistic development of land within the KSIA.

DevelopmentWA is working closely with both State and Commonwealth environmental regulatory agencies to help ensure environmental assessment and approval processes are aligned and deliver efficient, transparent and long-term outcomes for the environment and the community.

The draft Strategic Assessment documentation describes the impacts, management measures, environmental outcomes and commitments relating to future development to protect MNES and State environmental values.

Key measures to protect and manage environmental values include, but are not limited to:

• avoidance and retention of significant fauna habitat and vegetation communities
• protection and enhancement through ongoing management measures
• rehabilitation, restoration and/or enhancement of native vegetation and fauna habitat to improve environmental values.

The Agreement and Terms of Reference entered into with the Commonwealth Minister to undertake a Strategic Assessment set the requirements for how an assessment of impacts within the KSIA must be undertaken.

While the EPBC Act establishes the legal framework and requirements for the assessment, the Terms of Reference outline the specific matters that must be considered and addressed as part of the Kemerton Strategic Assessment process.

The Terms of Reference are found in Appendix B of the KSIA Impact Assessment Report.

Following public consultation on the draft Terms of Reference in 2022, DevelopmentWA has been preparing the draft Strategic Assessment documentation for the KSIA. The assessment outlines how potential impacts on MNES will be avoided, mitigated and offset through strategic planning, environmental management and conservation outcomes.

The draft Strategic Assessment documentation must be made available for public comment before it can be finalised.

Feedback received during the public consultation period will be taken into consideration in finalising the Strategic Assessment documentation before being submitted to NEPA for consideration.

To achieve Commonwealth Minister approval of the KSIA Strategic Assessment, the Minister must first decide whether to endorse the final Plan. The Minister must be satisfied the Plan provides an appropriate framework to avoid, mitigate and offset impacts to MNES and achieve acceptable outcomes.

Following endorsement, the Minister may approve the class of actions described in the Plan and Strategic Impact Assessment Report, to be undertaken in accordance with the endorsed Plan and any conditions that may be attached to an approval.

At the State level, DevelopmentWA is continuing to work with DWER, as the key regulatory body supporting the Western Australian EPA in conducting its Environmental Impact Assessment of the Strategic Assessment.

This has involved the finalisation of information required for public advertisement of the State component of the draft Strategic Assessment documentation.

Public advertising is anticipated in at least 12 months, due to the need for additional, seasonal environmental surveys and modelling.

Following assessment by the Western Australian EPA, the State Minister for the Environment will decide whether to endorse the draft Strategic Assessment as part of the State approval process.

The draft Strategic Assessment covers the future development of the KSIA and the environmental management measures required to support that development.

Since the preparation and submission of the draft Strategic Assessment to State and Commonwealth environmental regulatory agencies, further government engagement has been undertaken to identify the preferred locations and requirements for future infrastructure service corridors needed to support the industrial area.

The proposed infrastructure service corridors and their associated environmental impacts, which would otherwise have been developed separately from the Strategic Assessment, are now being considered as part of this public consultation process. This approach enables the environmental assessment of the broader KSIA precinct as a whole.

As this work has progressed separately and continues to be refined, it has been presented in a supplementary document (Appendix G within the documentation).

The supplementary document allows the most up-to-date information on proposed infrastructure service corridors to be considered alongside the draft Strategic Assessment documentation, while maintaining transparency regarding the assessment process and the assumptions used in developing the draft Strategic Assessment documentation.

Yes, in line with the National Environmental Protection Authority’s requirements, the draft Strategic Assessment documentation will be available for public comment from 2 November 2026 to 30 November 2026.

The draft Strategic Assessment documentation will be available on the KSIA page of the DevelopmentWA website at: Kemerton Strategic Industrial Area (this page).

DevelopmentWA will manage the public consultation process and promote the public advertisement of the draft Strategic Assessment documentation through newspaper advertisements and the DevelopmentWA website.

Interested parties are encouraged to review the documents and provide feedback during the consultation period. Comments received during this period will be reviewed and considered in the final Strategic Assessment documentation.

If you would like further information or to discuss, please email the Kemerton SIA project team at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or phone 08 6200 4000.