Ian Campbell (WA, Liberal Party, Minister for the Environment and Heritage) Share this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Siewert for the question, which relates to an incredibly important part of Western Australia and, of course, Australia—that is, the Burrup Peninsula. A number of companies are proposing expansions of operations in this area. It is the home of a multibillion-dollar export business around liquefied natural gas—a business that obviously creates massive employment for Australians and underpins a lot of our gross domestic product. Very importantly—and this has been missed by a lot of commentators—it also makes a fantastic contribution to lowering the world’s greenhouse gas emissions.

A lot of the gas that comes from the North West Shelf and will come from the proposed expansions of the LNG facilities at the Burrup will go to China and hopefully North America. I think we need to remember that, whenever you substitute good, clean north-west Australian LNG for coal or oil, you get an immediate benefit in the order of a 40 per cent to 60 per cent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere which will, of course, help us to address the significant global challenge of climate change. Here on the Burrup, alongside that phenomenal environmental and economic benefit, you also have some quite historic and incredibly important Aboriginal rock art, known to the experts as petroglyphs, going back up to 10,000 years.

These operation expansion proposals—for example, for the Pluto project—are looking at a footprint area of around 20 hectares. I remind the Senate that I think this does need to be put into context, because I happen to believe very passionately and firmly that you can balance the economic development interests of Australia with what I am currently considering for the National Heritage List—and which on the face of it looks like incredibly important heritage—in that unique part of Western Australia. To put it into context, the Burrup Peninsula itself is an area 27 kilometres long and four kilometres wide; so just the Burrup Peninsula, which is only one part of the precinct, is 108 square kilometres. I go back to the Woodside expansion proposals, which have a footprint of disturbance of around 20 hectares—that is, 20 hectares as part of 108 square kilometres.

One of the National Heritage List areas proposed by the traditional owners comprises an area of 220,000 hectares. Again, I say that this is a 20-hectare area of potential disturbance of rock art that is spread out over an area in excess of 220,000 hectares. The area of the Dampier Archipelago, which comprises 42 islands, islets and rocks ranging from two hectares up to 3,290 hectares in size, covers an area of something like 4,000 square kilometres. The rock art, I remind all senators through you, Mr President, is spread across this area. It ranges from 7,000 to 10,000 years old. It is incredibly important archaeology. That is why the government has spent so much on it. Senator Siewert asked about alternative—