Gerard Rennick (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak against Labor's decision to stop the development of the McPhillamys goldmine out near Orange. First of all, I'd like to acknowledge the people of Orange in the Central West of New South Wales. It's a beautiful city and it's a city that's very close to my heart. It's where my parents got married and where my grandmother and aunt are buried. I spent my childhood travelling up and down the Newell Highway from Chinchilla, spending many holidays in that beautiful town of Orange—so a big shout-out there.

I want to clarify that my support for this mine will only ever be there provided it has met all environmental approvals for the mine, because Orange sits at the headwaters of the Lachlan River. I know one of my cousins would have my guts for garters—he loves fishing over there around Orange; he's a big fisherman—so by all means let the mine go ahead, but we definitely don't want to destroy any of the environment around that beautiful part of the world in the Central West. It's fantastic.

I also acknowledge the gold industry. It is one of the forgotten minerals of Australia's massive export sector, when it comes to minerals. Of course, iron ore and coal are the top two minerals, but the next mineral after that is gold. Three or four years ago, gold exports were valued at about $22 billion and that was when gold was about $2,000 an ounce; it's now worth about $3,700 an ounce, so I'd expect it to be heading above $30 billion anytime soon. If iron ore comes off—and far be it from me to start predicting the price of metals—we do need other metals out there and other ways to make sure we keep generating export income. Gold is certainly one of those metals, especially given the value of the US debt, at something like $35 trillion and rising by a trillion dollars every quarter. People are suddenly starting to see the value in the world's oldest currency, gold, itself. It has always acted as a hedge against the irresponsible behaviour of central banks, who are used as a means for governments to act responsibly. Instead of going out to the market and issuing bonds, they just rely on their central bank to buy their bonds—and we have seen the consequences of that over the last two decades, ever since the GFC. Anyway, I digress. I'll come back to the MPI.

My issue with this particular decision is that it doesn't seem to express the opinions of all Aboriginals in the area. Indeed, in the local Orange area—according to reports; I haven't spoken to these people myself—there seems to be some disagreement amongst the Aboriginals themselves, amongst the Aboriginal communities themselves, as to who is responsible for making those decisions. I guess this is the problem with cultural heritage when you don't have clear title: Who gets to make the decisions? Is it this Aboriginal group or that Aboriginal group? As Senator McDonald mentioned before, the EDO, the Environmental Defenders Office, was funding the group that opposes the mine. So are these people genuine locals, or are they activists from the city pretending to be locals?

One of the reasons why this mine has been stopped is cultural practices. However, these cultural practices have to remain commercial; they're not confidential. I always get a little bit cynical when I hear about people talking about commercial-in-confidence and how it has to stay confidential. I'm not quite sure what cultural practice you would have that has to be confidential. It doesn't make a lot of sense to me.

As much as I love the great city of Orange, I know jobs are important out there, and jobs don't come by every day. If towns like Orange don't get these opportunities—albeit it is close to Sydney, so a lot of retirees like to move out there. They have to find ways to keep their local population employed, or people move out of the town, and we don't want to see that happen out there in the central west. So we've got to consider the jobs that this will provide—as well as to the New South Wales government.

I've read that it's going to provide $200 million just in royalties. There is a fair bet that, if it's going to provide $200 million dollars, there will be another $200 million in payroll tax delivered to the state government. There will be hundreds of millions in corporate tax. There will be more money in the PAYG that the workers will pay back to the federal government. So we've got to make the best of these opportunities, especially in an area like this.

Just down the road, Bathurst was the site of one of Australia's first gold discoveries. It's an industry that's been with us for almost 200 years, and we need to protect it and our regions.