Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the House for the opportunity to present this motion, which goes to a significant concern of the residents of the Sutherland Shire and particularly in my own electorate of Cook. Kurnell and Botany Bay are places of profound national significance to all Australians, whether you live near Botany Bay or across the country. It is the landing site of Lieutenant James Cook on 29 April 1770 and was named Botany Bay for the biodiversity of plant and marine life that was discovered there at that time by Banks and Solander and which was much celebrated when they returned to the United Kingdom after their historic voyage. It was the place of first serious exchange between Europeans and Indigenous Australians and, I might also note, Polynesian people—as Tupia was also on the Endeavour. The Indigenous Australians on that occasion were the Gweagal people of the Dharawal nation. I was there on Saturday again for a reconciliation service. There was much talk about the significance of that site and the relationship between Indigenous Australians, European Australians and all other Australians.

It is on the National Heritage List. It is home to the Towra Point wetlands, a Ramsar listed wetland that includes approximately half the remaining mangrove communities in Sydney, habitat to over 30 species of migratory birds listed under the Japan-Australia Migratory Bird Agreement and several others species listed under the New South Wales Threatened Species Conservation Act. It is home to the weedy sea dragon, sting rays, starfish, nudibranchs, feather stars, sea urchins, sea dragons and other invertebrate groups. Most of these are territorial, and they cannot survive once their homes are destroyed. In fact, I am sure all members would be surprised at this. When we think of Botany Bay we often think of industry, ports, large ships, petrol refineries and so on. But those who have had the opportunity to explore the unique marine environment of Botany Bay, particularly the areas of the Towra Point wetlands in my electorate of Cook and Botany Bay National Park, will know it is a rich environmental area. It is also home to more than 700 people and families living in the close community of Kurnell Village. It is a bay where for 70 years hundreds of chemical and industrial plants have poured their wastes, including arsenic, cadmium, chromium, cyanide, lead, mercury and zinc. All of this has been poured into this bay over a long period of time, particularly through the Georges River and the Cooks River, and these wastes have now settled. They have been undisturbed and are lying dormant on the floor of the bay.

This motion is about addressing the serious threat to this very sensitive and very special place posed by Labor’s desalination plant and the associated pipeline at Kurnell. The pipeline is of the same height and width as the Lane Cove tunnel in Sydney but more than three times its length. Its construction will require removal of over one million tonnes of seabed material. This is an ill-considered and ill-conceived project. I would argue on behalf of the residents of my electorate that it is not needed. Of the 1,200-plus average millimetres of rainfall in Sydney each year, 97 per cent goes out to sea. We have a catchment problem in Sydney, not a rainfall problem. Also, it will become a stranded asset. In the Sydney Morning Herald on 17 September 2007, a former New South Wales government water adviser, Stuart White, was quoted as saying:

... if the plant’s need was based on dam levels it would ‘never have been used in the last century’.

‘The plant is likely to be needed very infrequently. This makes it a ‘stranded asset’—economic language for ‘white elephant’ ...

This is the wrong place for it. If you do have to proceed with it, it should be built not at Kurnell but at Malabar. There you can plug into the water network, and the water will be used in the eastern suburbs and the inner western suburbs of Sydney. Then there would be no need for a pipeline across Botany Bay, which is a very shallow bay of no more than five metres on average in depth.

It is a breach of the state Labor government’s commitment to only proceed with this project if dam levels hit 30 per cent—and this is probably the most telling blow of all for the residents of the shire, particularly Kurnell. There was a commitment that we would only go ahead if we were in a crisis where dam levels hit 30 per cent. Dam levels hit 33 per cent and Morris Iemma, the Premier of New South Wales, hit the panic button and he proceeded with the project against the advice of experts, who also said it should only proceed if dam levels hit 30 per cent—dam levels are now over 65 per cent. It is overpriced. While they talk about a price of $2 billion, that does not include the $2 billion that will be needed to develop the wind farm to power the desalination plant so the government can meet its commitment to green energy. That $2 billion spent on green energy should be spent on green energy to displace other forms of energy use across New South Wales. But instead it is going for a white elephant at Kurnell—not to mention the up to $1 billion that will probably be needed in other pipeline associated works to connect the desalination plant to the infrastructure of the city’s water distribution network. So that is $5 billion.

It has been made possible by an ill-considered law at a state level, the state significant infrastructure provisions under the EPandA act. This bypasses environmental protection laws, including assessment of impact and public consultation. It removes third-party rights of appeal. It prevents stop work and interim protection orders. It prevents notices regarding cultural heritage, threatened species and pollution. And it ignored also the advice of numerous departments at a state level, including the New South Wales Department of Primary Industries, the New South Wales Department of Environment and Climate Change and the New South Wales Department of Health—not to mention the Sutherland Shire Council, who were just completely ridden over the top of.

The intent of raising this matter in today’s debate is really to draw attention to the need to undertake some remedial action. In going forward with this matter, I wrote to the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and the Arts. I raised this matter with him because this government has said it wants to put an end to the blame game. So I wrote to the minister not only because he is the minister but also because he is the member for Kingsford Smith and Botany Bay is covered by his electorate. Instead of actually joining me in trying to put some pressure on the state government to ensure that, once they build this thing, they clean up their mess, his response was nothing to do with ending blame games. It says in his letter to me:

I have the power to make decisions in relation to matters of national environmental significance. I am unable to intervene in decisions of state and local government that do not impact on these matters.

This is an opportunity for the federal government in this post blame game era to actually get involved with a project which is causing serious environmental damage to the Botany Bay area and the Kurnell Peninsula, and the minister has remained stonily silent on this issue, despite the fact that Botany Bay sits within his own electorate. The intent here is to put forward some sensible solutions as to what can be done now. The Kurnell community and those who live in the shire are not saying, ‘Stop the desalination plant.’ They understand that it has been rammed over the top of them using the state significant infrastructure legislation. But they are asking for a number of things. Firstly, they are saying develop a remediation plan for this project. If you are going to insist on proceeding, then clean up your mess and compensate the communities and the environment for the unregulated impact of this project. Secondly, do the work to understand the damage that is being done to Kurnell and the bay. At present, because of the way these laws of environmental assessment were bypassed at a state level, we simply do not know the full impact of this project on the environment of Botany Bay, not to mention the cultural and heritage significance of the area. Thirdly, ensure the cop is on the beat. We hear about cops on beats on other issues, but we need a cop on the beat on this project because currently it is residents who are standing and looking over the fence of the construction project and blowing the whistle when they are violating site conditions, when they are violating benchmarks for shudder vibrations from sheet piling. When silt nets are breaking and silt is spilling into the bay, it is the residents who are the ones who are actually blowing the whistle.

As this pipeline comes across Botany Bay and goes into Kyeemagh and starts working its way through the outer southern suburbs of Sydney, residents on that side should heed the warning of what is happening in Kurnell—that this is an unregulated project which will cause major disruption. Furthermore, we need to plan for the future and safeguard the environment from future environmental vandalism under the New South Wales state significant infrastructure legislation. Where parallel approvals are required from the Commonwealth, these remediation plans and the supporting documentation must be a requirement. If Labor wants to lower the bar on environmental protection at a state level, then let us not let the Commonwealth government follow suit. Let us ensure that we insist with state significant infrastructure legislation or promise coming to the Commonwealth on that basis that we apply the tests. The New South Wales Labor government is not listening. It was my hope that the federal minister would listen, if not for the sake of Botany Bay and Kurnell, and in his capacity as minister for the environment, then in his capacity as member for Kingsford Smith with responsibility for his own bay.

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