Christine Milne (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I am glad there has been an interjection there, because I am going to give you some very good examples. If the mining industry cares to have a look, I refer them to the Tarkine in north-western Tasmania, where the Australian Heritage Council recommended that the area be protected for its natural values. I was appalled, during the last government, when the Labor minister decided not to implement the Heritage Council's findings and protect the area. Minister Burke came out strongly saying he would prefer mining to go ahead in the area, even though there was no business case—even though these tin-pot miners were going to make a wreck of the place. And that is exactly what has happened.

So let me just go through what has happened—and they get this, of course, in addition to accelerated depreciation for their capital, materiel and exploration costs and fuel tax credits. It goes on and on in this mission to use taxpayers' dollars to dig it up, cut it down and ship it away. That is essentially the only vision you have got. Why would you be using taxpayers' dollars to give these miners access to greenfield sites?

Venture Minerals proposed three open cut mines in the Tarkine. Mount Lindsay mine has tin, tungsten, copper and iron. The mine has a predicted life of eight years. It is the main mine in the group, and the lease was granted by the Tasmanian government in July 2014. The Stanley River mine has hematite, iron and tin. The predicted life of the mine is two years. The Riley Creek mine has hematite. The predicted life of the mine is two years. Work began in May 2014 and was suspended in August 2014. All of these mines sit within the area recommended by the Heritage Council for a Tarkine National Heritage listing. The Mount Lindsay and Stanley River mines are within the myrtle forest and the button grass and heathland in the Meredith Ranges reserve created under the Tasmanian Regional Forestry Agreement. The Riley Creek site would involve clearing myrtle forest. Threatened species that may be impacted through the clearing include the Tasmanian devil, the spotted-tail quoll and the wedge-tailed eagle, as well as the expected increase in road kills.

And then, of course, we have Shree Minerals. What a disaster! Their hematite, magnetite and iron ore mine at Nelson Bay on the west coast had a predicted life of two years. Imagine giving an incentive to these miners to go in and wreck the place for a mine life of two years! The mine was approved by the federal minister in July 2013. Work started in November 2013 and was suspended in June 2014—after the Tasmanian Labor government gave Shree Minerals a royalties holiday. So the federal minister overlooked the heritage listing and the Tasmanian Labor government gave them a royalties holiday. Worse still, we now find that legal action was taken against the Environment Protection Authority in Tasmania for allowing Shree to store at its mothballed mine more than 20 times the amount of acid-producing waste rock than was in the environmental permit—20 times more, stacked on the surface, than was in its environmental permit. And then, in August 2014, Shree surrendered its licence to explore at Rebecca Creek.

These miners have gone in and wrecked the place. They have left a great mess in the Tarkine. They have not said they are walking away, because then they would have to rehabilitate it. It is just going to sit there as a horrible great mess. All of this acid-producing waste rock will be sitting there in a mess as a tribute to the former minister Tony Burke and the former Tasmanian Labor Premier Lara Giddings. Good on them! Those photos will be there. The destruction is there. And now, in this federal parliament, suddenly it seems like a very good idea to the Abbott government to give more of these tin-pot mining companies taxpayer's dollars to go and wreck greenfields areas with relatively little possibility of ever creating the jobs they promised or indeed the production they promised.

I am sick to death of the fact that we cannot get real in this country about making the transition away from digging up, cutting down and destroying our natural resource base to recognising that the future depends on a transition to a low-carbon economy which invests in brains and capacity building—universities—and selling the technologies and the advancements rather than continuing to think that we are suddenly going to find all these great new mining prospects. The fact is that the mining companies have had a good go at Australia. They would argue that all of the major deposits that are relatively accessible and profitable have already been accessed. Now we have got the petroleum industry, the mining industry and the coal industry just out there after more, and I have absolutely no intention of ensuring that the mining industry gets access to even more taxpayers' dollars.

As I said, on top of their fuel tax credits, which is an absolute fossil fuel subsidy, and their accelerated depreciation, you now want to give them an exploration tax credit. Well, not with taxpayers dollars. You have not got the money to invest in universities and to support the healthcare system so that you do not impose co-payments. Let's be very frank, the so-called pause in index payments is just a continuation of what the former government proposed, which is to freeze the indexation, which is a cut every single year to support doctors and the health system. Let's face it, if we do not have the money to provide health and education, if we do not have the money to provide the basics in terms of public transport, we as sure as anything do not have the money to tip into the pockets of tin-pot miners who go in there and get the licences—and, if they do happen to hit it big, they of course have an arrangement with one of the big miners to move straight in and transition that prospect. If they walk away, the big miners do not have the liability that goes with cleaning up the site.

It has been my experience from one end of the country to the other that these rehabilitation bonds are not worth the paper they are written on. If you have a look in Victoria at the moment, with Hazelwood for example, why aren't they interested in closing down that coal fired power station and mine? It is because if they do close it down they are going to have to rehabilitate it. Rehabilitation is going to cost them way more than has ever been provided for, so they do not want to have to cop the cost of rehabilitation. That is going to be the case from one end of the country to the other—whether it is in the Hunter Valley, Victoria or wherever. That is because governments have failed to make mining companies accountable. They make their profits and their profits go offshore—overwhelmingly to foreign shareholders—and Australian communities are left holding the baby with the pollution of waterways and the destruction of agricultural land. It is just appalling.

People are going to look back and say, 'What sort of governments did you have in this country that were so keen to maximise the profits of the mining corporations at the expense of the community?' That is why the Greens will not be supporting this particular schedule. The Greens will be opposing schedule 1 and schedule 6 and would like the opportunity to vote on those separately in the committee stage.