Andrew Gee (Calare, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

To the Prime Minister, the decision by the Minister for the Environment and Water to make a section 10 declaration over the McPhillamys mine project near Blayney has been met with widespread shock, anger and concern in our local area. These concerns include the lack of transparency, lost jobs, the timing of the decision with state and federal environmental approvals already given, the contrary opinion of Orange Local Aboriginal Land Council and the impossibility of moving the dam within existing mine boundaries. Will you meet with me to discuss this, and will you now consider reversing this decision?

Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My door is open to every member of the House of Representatives, as the member for Calare knows, as other members here know as well, including members on both sides of the chamber. The question as to the detail, though, under the way that the EPBC Act operates, the minister has responsibility, and I'll ask her to respond to the question.

Tanya Plibersek (Sydney, Australian Labor Party, Minister for the Environment and Water) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to thank the member for Calare for his question. I have a lot of respect for the member for Calare, and he has been to my office to discuss this project with me, and he brought with him Scott Ferguson, the Mayor of Blayney, and I was pleased to meet with the Mayor of Blayney as well.

I understand that the company in question want the cheapest, most cost-effective option for the building of their tailings dam. That's them doing their job for shareholders. Me doing my job for the parliament and people of Australia is applying the law on the basis of the evidence before me. There were people who wanted to stop this whole project. There were people who wanted it to go ahead completely unchanged. I have not taken either of those courses. What I've said is that the tailings dam cannot be built on the headwaters and springs of the Belubula River and that, if the company want to come back with an alternative design—they've told me they've looked at four sites; they've told me that they've looked at 30 different design options—they can do that. It is a 2½ thousand hectare site, and my section 10 declaration applies to 400 hectares of that 2½ thousand hectares. That's about 16 per cent of the existing site. So I haven't blocked the mine. My decision protects the headwaters and springs of the Belubula River.

Just incidentally, I would say to the House I've actually ticked off more than 40 mining projects. This is not about a mining project; it's about making sure that when we tick off on mining projects they have all the necessary approvals, based on the evidence in front of me as the decision-maker. What I wouldn't do is do what those opposites seem to be doing, which is saying: 'We don't need to look at the evidence. We don't need to read the reports. We don't need to hear from the experts. We're just going to tick it off because we like the look of it.' That is not the way to make decisions, and it's exactly that attitude that led to the problems those opposite had with robodebt, carpark rorts, sports rorts, secret ministries, au pair visa scandals, Origin 360, Leppington triangle, Jam Land, the visa privatisation sandal. The list goes on and on. What people want is consistency— (Time expired)