It is amazing what can be achieved when political ideologues get out of the way and let industry do what it does best, particularly in WA.

The emergence of WA’s lithium sector has delivered thousands of new jobs and promises to realise the long-held dream of adding some value to the minerals extracted from our soil.

But the political chaos in Canberra, and Labor’s promise to introduce new environmental regulations if it wins government, risks disrupting the growth of the sector at a critical time.

Only five years ago, WA’s lithium mines employed less than 400 people.

The latest figures from the Department of Mines show that has jumped more than 750 per cent, to more than 3300, as new mines fill booming demand for the commodity from battery plants in Asia, Europe and beyond.

Those figures don’t include the hundreds of administrative jobs at the miners, or those of the exploration companies not yet close to production.

It also doesn’t include the thousands of additional jobs appearing as WA begins turning lithium concentrate into high-value lithium hydroxide, worth 20 times more than the raw material.

In 2012, newly appointed as The West Australian’s mining reporter, I travelled down to Talison Lithium’s Greenbushes mine to look over its newly unveiled $75 million expansion.

Even then Talison was talking about the opportunities coming from the expanding battery market, before electronic vehicles turned into a viable commercial alternative to the petrol-driven version and offered to propel battery production to new heights.

Talison was already planning a downstream processing plant in Kwinana, now a reality, and talking up the need for further expansions of the mine to cope with coming demand.

The sector is now powering along.

Albemarle’s announcement on Wednesday night it will soon break ground on a lithium hydroxide plant near Bunbury will add hundreds of new jobs to the region, as will its $1.6 billion decision to buy into Mineral Resources’ Wodgina project. And Pilbara Minerals’ announcement yesterday of new funding for a further expansion of its own project is more welcome news.

Both the Barnett government, which presided over the start of the lithium boom, and Mark McGowan’s Labor Government, which will reap its benefits, should be lauded for helping ensure WA’s miners can take advantage of surging prices and get new mines into production well before any other jurisdiction across the world can respond.

That nimbleness has long been the strength of WA’s mining industry.

The same dynamic played out during the iron ore boom, when the Pilbara miners moved faster than their rivals in Africa and South America, helping maintain Australia’s market dominance. The same attitude has sustained WA’s gold and base metals miners over the years.

But as lithium emerges, the partisan political atmosphere in Canberra and the looming election risks interrupting its swift development.

Albemarle’s new lithium hydroxide plant will rely on further expansions to the Greenbushes mine for its feedstock, needing environmental approvals for the last two stages. There is a multibillion-dollar queue of other projects behind it, all requiring approvals to win support from investors.

At the same time, miners in South America, Africa, the US and beyond are scrambling to get up and running to supply the same market.

Investors hate uncertainty and delays in the approval process, whatever the reason, count as uncertainty.

A Federal election is looming by May, perhaps even earlier. When the election is called, the customary caretaker provisions mean those assessments will be put on hold for the duration, delaying them by a month or more.

And then you can add another month or so for a new minister to get their head around their brief.

Added to that is the prospect of a change of government.

Labor enters the campaign promising new Federal environmental laws and a new regulator. Details are thin, but it has already raised the ire of the mining industry.

The policy is almost certainly a response to Canberra’s coal wars, which has seen the commodity become a new front in the culture wars.

The Federal Government is belatedly climbing on board WA’s lithium bandwagon, but it has still invested more time and energy backing one mediocre coal mine in Queensland than the whole of the lithium sector.

The controversy over that single mine, Adani’s proposed Carmichael operation, has cast a political pall over the process of approving any major project.

Vociferous support from conservatives within the Government, and vehement opposition from anti-coal campaigners, has turned an approval process that should rest on balancing science and economic development into a political football.

Play Video The Pilgangoora lithium project has brought hundreds of jobs for West Australians. The West Australian Video The Pilgangoora lithium project has brought hundreds of jobs for West Australians.

Plenty of mining executives, particularly those outside of coal, wish Adani would quietly disappear for fear the controversy that surrounds the company’s project will spread elsewhere.

Promising a new regulator hints at a way to see Carmichael killed without forcing Labor leader Bill Shorten to risk votes in Queensland by opposing it.

But there is more to mining than Carmichael, and behind the WA lithium projects already under construction are plenty more, yet to receive approval, that promise thousands of new jobs.

The disruption caused by the looming election is bad enough, but any sense that Labor’s plans could push out approval time lines risks investors taking their money elsewhere.

The industry should be regulated once, properly. Duplicating the work of State agencies at Federal level won’t achieve better outcomes for the environment or the economy.

And nobody can seriously believe that a bureaucrat sitting in Canberra can better assess the impact of a project in WA’s South West than a local scientist working for the State Government.

There is also merit in taking the approval process out of the hands of politicians, if that is what Labor intends.

But given it hopes to make significant ground in WA at the election, it needs to flesh out those proposals sooner rather than later.