Pauline Hanson (Queensland, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) Share this | Hansard source

Here we go again—the same radical inequality I've been speaking against for almost 30 years. The $1 billion McPhillamys Gold Project in New South Wales had all the environmental approvals it required and no objection from the Orange Local Aboriginal Land Council on cultural heritage grounds; then along came Tanya Plibersek to effectively shut it down on the mere claim of another Aboriginal corporation about cultural connections to a local river.

The Orange Local Aboriginal Land Council has criticised what it calls 'unsubstantiated' cultural heritage claims made by people unqualified to make them. It says:

We question the motives of people and organisations who participate in promoting unsubstantiated claims and seek to hijack Aboriginal Cultural Heritage … to push other agendas.

Give me a break!Aboriginal corporations and individuals use cultural heritage as well. So many of these groups do it all on their own, citing mythical beliefs like rainbow serpents, or citing secret women's business and men's health. Green extremists have been caught several times deceiving traditional owners and confecting spiritual and cultural connections that never existed in order to stop developments.

Let's also not forget the approved Bowdens Silver mine in New South Wales that Minister Plibersek had shut down over the supposed environment impact of a 13-kilometre transmission line. Labor's happy to lay thousands of kilometres of transmission lines to connect its wind turbines and solar panels to the grid without caring about the impact on farmers, but it will stop development of a world-leading silver deposit—a critical mineral in those very same solar panels—over a mere 13 kilometres. You can't make this stuff up.

The future of Australia is being held hostage by confected radical division and green extremists. Enough is enough. The goldmine would have created more than 800 jobs and have generated $200 billion in royalties for the people of New South Wales. (Time expired)