Adam Bandt (Melbourne, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Resources. Labor promised to strengthen environment laws and back the Uluru statement, but, after big gas corporation Santos wrote to them and complained about traditional owners winning court cases, Labor rammed a bill through the House that gives the resources minister the power to override the Federal Court decisions and remove existing protections. Why is Labor working with the climate-denying Liberals to fast-track climate-destroying gas projects and weaken the voices of First Nations traditional owners?

Madeleine King (Brand, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Northern Australia) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I refer to the question from the member for Melbourne. It might be a surprise to the Greens political party that the resources industry does from time to time write a letter to the ministers—sorry, the Minister for Resources. It was ministers over on that side, but, of course, there's only one resources minister in this government! The government has been really consistent in its position that it would work with stakeholders to further strengthen the bill to which you have referred, to give everyone confidence about the intent of the changes. The Senate inquiry, in recommending the passage of the bill, has illustrated there is scope for additional protections, which we are pursuing, and those amendments will be discussed later today.

What I have observed in my time working on this offshore safety legislation and other matters is this: it's become increasingly clear to me the Greens political party simply want to continue the situation where there is an absolute lawyers' picnic over approvals of various projects going through the courts. They would prefer to see millions of dollars get spent in the courts, delaying the right of Indigenous people to have their say. What we are doing right now is making sure consultation provisions are indeed improved so they're more clear for everyone concerned, whether it be traditional owners or the wider community that host these projects or have concerns over them, no matter where they're from. This is the point of the consultation we're undertaking right now. It's very open and very public. We have extended it. Many people have submitted to it.

The Senate inquiry last week, indeed, revealed that traditional owners, as well as the wider community, as well as proponents, are frustrated by the lack of certainty around the consultation provisions as they now stand. I for one, and this government, would rather pursue reform to that to make it more certain through legislation rather than let this endless lawyers' picnic continue. You may shake your head, Member for Melbourne, but the truth is the Greens political party would prefer lawyers to get a lot of money pursuing this through the courts and wasting everybody's time—and wasting the courts' time, I might add—rather than letting environmental regulators look over approvals and see them done properly, and see consultation and make sure consultation is required to be face to face, has guardrails around it and introduces certainty for everybody, not just bits and pieces of who has interest, who has money to go to the court, who has access—like millionaires that go to courts, as you well know, and publicly funded bodies that get donations from very rich international trusts that go to fund these processes through the courts. I for one want to end this lawyers' picnic, end the practice where we see dodgy academic people going through the courts to support Greens—

Honourable Member:

An honourable member interjecting—

Madeleine King (Brand, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Northern Australia) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Well, they are dodgy; I can hear the interjection—apologies, Mr Speaker. We know what the court has said about some dodgy academic practices that go toward this lawyers' picnic. I want it to end, and I want it to end now.