Ross Cadell (NSW, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

It's interesting when you come to take note of answers and you find the other side has nothing to take note of in your questions and what has been said—because what's been said over there is a lot of hope: 'We hope the Regis mine goes ahead. We hope they can find another location. We hope that the 800 jobs can be re-created. We hope the $7 billion income goes ahead.' But there is no hope when the boss of the mine goes to the ASX and says, 'This will end the project.' There is no hope for the 800 people that were hopeful of getting a job to be able to put food on the table, keep roofs over their heads put their kids through school and get over these cost-of-living dramas. There is no hope of that anymore.

I have stood on that site. I have walked around with the people of Blayney and I've seen the hope that they had for a better life from this project. This mine had all the approvals. They had land council approval. They had all of these things ready to go, but 17 unknown people raising an unnamed, undisclosed problem with an area of the site has ruined that. I have gone through IRC Engineering with the owners in Blayney—people out there gearing up for what they hoped could be a new boom area for the town.

When we talk about this site, and they talk about the cultural heritage, let's be clear. When we went on the site, we had to stay on the roads because it has been mined that much in the past in the previous gold explosion—it has been mined out by all the old technology—that there are pits everywhere. We could fall down into existing pits, existing workings and these sorts of things. This isn't cultural heritage. This has been mined or farmed within an inch of its life on the surface, and this was a new chance to go forward.

The answers that we got talked about this happening under us—a similar thing up the road. It was a go-kart track. It was a go-kart track that was knocked back under section 10. To my son and me, that may be almost as important, but, for the people of Blayney and people trying to put something on the table, it is not. We come here, and we say that we hope the project can go ahead. It's on the scoreboard. The company has said it can't, not because of the local land council or even the First Nations elders. Seventeen people came with a complaint or an issue that can't be told or put forward on a site that was being mined and farmed for generations.

This is what we're getting to in this country—the reason we can't do things. If you want to stop something, you have so many more advantages than those who want to go and do something. Regis put up $150 million to make the lives of these people better, and you have stopped it.

Question agreed to.