The head of project development at Hancock Prospecting has taken aim at “onerous and overreaching” conditions imposed on a delayed West Australian mine, and claims the state’s environmental agency wrongly double-counted emissions from a planned iron ore project.

Atlas Iron, a subsidiary of Gina Rinehart’s Hancock, estimates regulatory processes and delays affecting the McPhee Creek iron ore mine have delayed billions in tax revenue for the government, and are damaging Australia’s reputation as an attractive jurisdiction to do business.