Matthew Canavan (Queensland, Liberal National Party, Minister for Resources and Northern Australia) Share this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Xenophon for his question and for the prior nomination of the topic. The second round of figures—56 to 44 per cent—were as a result of some early consultations my department did in Kimba with a narrow range of the community. We are not using those figures as a reliable estimate of community support; they were never intended to be used in that way. It was to try and make an assessment as to whether this nomination should be taken forward any further. I must clarify to the Kimba community and to others that we are not using those figures as a basis for further decisions because they were not a full and comprehensive assessment of support in Kimba. The earlier figure that Senator Xenophon mentioned was from a consultation period concluded early last year, and he is correct that the results were 51 to 49. We did not take that nomination forward. Even though it had majority support, we did not view that as being broad community support so it was not further.

We had taken forward a proposal from the Hawker region—Senator Xenophon might be aware of that—where support was at 65 per cent. We have not put a definitive figure on broader community support, for the reason that it is not just about the overall figure; we would need a figure in the range of the support we received in Hawker. There are other considerations to factor in, depending on the local circumstances, including the neighbouring landholders and their support, which is of great importance to me and my department in making the assessment—as are the views of any traditional owners who might be present or might have rights on land that has been brought forward through this voluntary process. For the two nomination that I have accepted this week, the department's assessment is that there is greater support from neighbouring landholders. We are aware of only one landholder who is opposed to these two nominations coming forward from the direct neighbours. I will go further in the next answer— (Time expired)