Jonathon Duniam (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Environment, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Heritage Protection (Kings Plains) Declaration 2024, made under the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Heritage Protection Act 1984, be disallowed [F2024L00999].

In doing so, I think it's important to reflect on what's been happening in this debate around this very significant decision that was made by Ms Plibersek, the minister for the environment. What concerns me most about this debate, though, is the fact that the government seek to minimise what's happened here. They seek to pretend it's like a business-as-usual decision and just something that would happen any other day of the week, sweeping away the seriousness and the far-reaching consequences of what this decision actually means for the so many people that have been impacted by this decision, particularly in regional communities like Orange and its surrounds—

and particularly for the community of Blayney, as Senator Cadell points out. This is anything but business as usual—far from it. It's not just a small hiccup for the proponents of a project. It's not just something that we can do without, pretend it never happened and move on. It's not easily fixed up either, contrary to the claims that were made in question time today by the minister representing Ms Plibersek in this place, Minister McAllister. There is the idea that we can just turn around, resubmit applications and wave a magic wand, and would the proponents of this billion-dollar goldmine in Blayney, creating 800 jobs and hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue, empowering local communities, including Indigenous communities, not just pop up tomorrow if they were to go back down to the offices of the department of environment and have another meeting! If this government thinks that this is business as usual and is an acceptable approach to take—that this is something good governments do—then we are in more trouble in this country than we realise.

Here are some of the facts relevant to what we're talking about here. It wasn't just some small project in the middle of nowhere that had no impact on anyone. It was, in fact, a significant project and a massive investment in a community that needs it. As I say, there were 800 jobs for Blayney and Orange and the people of that community, and, of course, there were all the contractor jobs that go with that. There was the vote of confidence that would be felt in that community as a result of that investment getting up. There was the billion dollars in construction costs injected into the economy. And, as I've mentioned already, there were those hundreds of millions of dollars that would go into revenue from royalties in the state of New South Wales on the way through.

I've mentioned the direct impacts, but the biggest impact, of course, is the one that relates to certainty—sovereign risk. The fact is that a proponent of a project will engage with government, go through all the processes, comply with every request, go through every test, jump through every hoop and over every hurdle, and then, at the end of this protracted process of near on five years, have a decision like this made to have their proposal knocked on the head at the 11th hour. I'll go to the detail of some of the things that the proponents have gone through to get to the stage they have. I know that there was a long period of engagement through that, but the decision was made right at the end and, of course, after a number of approvals had been given.

Potential investors are watching this. I spent the last week in Western Australia talking to, amongst other groups, representatives of the mining community. Many of them are multinationals, and they're making decisions about where they invest their money. Do they come here to do business, create jobs and provide royalties so we can pay for things like child care, hospitals, schools, roads and the things we need to make our country a great and livable country? They're considering whether they invest here or go somewhere else where they will get a certain outcome, where sovereign risk isn't as much of an issue. For those of us who get paid every fortnight no matter what, including the people that made the decision here, perhaps that doesn't matter. It certainly worries me. Those people who work in industries like mining and the businesses that depend on it, in the small communities that it is based in, like Blayney, are very worried about it.

Why did we get this outcome? Why did we arrive at this outcome, especially when, as we know, as is on public record, the McPhillamys goldmine, proposed by Regis Resources, had full state and environmental approvals—both state and federal? It is not an easy task to attain that level of approval. We know so many projects that fall foul of any of the processes that are required of them at the state, territory or Commonwealth level. This project had received all its approvals. It had been through the New South Wales Independent Planning Commission, had worked through any issues it needed to address and had received its full approval. It had gone through the assessments of the EPBC Act at the Commonwealth level and had been given the tick. That's a pretty good sign that this project was on solid ground.

If you look at comments made by groups like the Orange Local Aboriginal Land Council, the land council that is recognised at law as the one with authority to speak on behalf of country, it said—and this is an Indigenous representative group—that the proposed development in relation to the McPhillamys mine 'would not impact any known sites or artefacts of high significance':

It is a matter of concern to OLALC that a range of claims have been made—

and we'll come to those claims in a moment—

on this issue, by people and organisations lacking the experience, expertise and authority to hold themselves out as authorities on Aboriginal Cultural Heritage … We question the motives of people and organisations who participate in promoting unsubstantiated claims and seek to hijack Aboriginal Cultural Heritage in order to push other agendas.

Rather damning from the Orange Local Aboriginal Land Council in relation to the project before us and why this happened.

The minister, in responding to all the concerns that have been raised, the outrage in the community, the questions we've rightly asked in this place—which have not been answered, I might add, to any level of satisfaction. We've had changing answers provided, and changing reasons. It started out with the cultural heritage concerns, which we can see have clearly been debunked there. It then moved to other environmental considerations, like the destruction of the headwaters of the Belubula River—which is rather unusual given we're talking about a cultural heritage assessment, not environmental, and given they already had EPBC Act and state approval; I'm not quite sure how the minister, in referring to these environmental considerations, was in any way relevant to the question before her—and the impacts on the beekeeping sector and goat farmers in the local community as well. There were a range of answers given but no statement of reasons, not one—something the minister is supposed to provide to both the proponent and those who are interested in the process. We haven't seen that yet. I don't know; maybe the government will table that today and we can all go home happy and fulfilled in our pursuit of information around why this terrible decision was reached.

Minister Plibersek overruled her handpicked adviser, who was engaged to provide advice under the section 10 application of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Heritage Protection Act—someone who ought to know, and who went away and did the work and determined that the application should not be upheld. The minister overruled that recommendation from her expert adviser. She disagrees with the Independent Planning Commission in New South Wales; with the group of people who have gone through copious amounts of work and determined, on both environmental planning and cultural issues, that the mine and its tailings dam were okay to go; with the Labor Premier, Mr Minns, who said this was the wrong decision; and with the Orange Local Aboriginal Land Council.

I'm not quite sure how all of these groups and individuals got it so wrong and the minister was right. And because we don't have a statement of reasons—all we have are these various vague responses—we don't know how this minister reached this conclusion, and I do believe that is an abrogation of duty.

The minister chose not to come to Orange to talk to the community. She was invited. She would have had the opportunity to explain her decision to those in attendance at the Bush Summit last Thursday, or indeed anyone else in the community of Blayney or Orange. But the minister chose not to come, chose not to provide answers or give an explanation. That community deserves those answers. This country deserves answers about the decision-making process this minister has gone through.

We have an absence of a statement of reasons, so I wonder how this Senate, anyone in this chamber, could back this decision-making process and not support this disallowance without the full facts. The statement of reasons is necessary for us to understand exactly why the minister's decision was right. We're a house of review. We shouldn't be denying that community economic advantage and opportunity without a justification. You only need to talk to locals like Tanya Cassel, the butcher from Blayney, who said:

We paid more than what we would have liked to—

this is in relation to setting up their business in Blayney—

but we knew the mine was setting up soon, and thought lots of business would come along with that … The mine was … going to be fundamental for town growth and employment.

Sharon Kearney, the local newsagent, said: 'The town needs this industry to keep us moving forward.' She added:

As a small business we need to be able to survive and keep going—putting industry and infrastructure into the town is what is going to make it grow.

But that is not going to happen now; that will not be happening. This town, that community, this state, our country has been denied all of that because of Minister Plibersek's decision, which she has been unable to back in yet.

I want to refer to two pieces of correspondence, because we are operating in a void at the moment. One is a letter that I gather was provided to a number of senators. It's from the CEO of Regis Resources, Mr Jim Beyer. In his letter he goes through the history of this project, and I want to take a little bit of time to go through that. He said, 'This decision'—the one we are talking about here—'has ceased progress on the project indefinitely and caused uncertainty within the community and our wider mining sector about the viability of investment in Australian mining.' I think he'd know a thing or two about that.

'As part of the application process over a number of years, more than 1,700 pages of expert reports, legal summaries, representations were submitted by Regis Resources, including 15 expert specialist heritage reports. Regis also engaged six separate expert archaeologists and anthropologists through the assessment process as part of the section 10 application.' This rather puts paid to the claim that Minister Plibersek makes, which is the company was seeking the cheapest, easiest and most convenient site for their tailings dam—quite outrageous!

'Additionally, since 2016, Regis actively engaged and consulted with 13 registered Aboriginal parties, including the section 10 applicant.' Then he goes through the process that he engaged in and makes the point that the final decision was made by Minister Plibersek on an application that bore no resemblance to the original claim, highlighting how difficult this process has been. 'Additionally, as part of the section 10 process, the Orange Local Aboriginal Land Council submission clearly indicated that there was an absence of reasonable basis to assert particular Aboriginal cultural significance of the Belubula River, it's headwaters and springs.'

He also makes the point: 'Minimum cost was not the primary selection criteria at any time. The construction methodology chosen for the site is downstream and is one of the most expensive, and also one of the safest. To find an alternative site for this facility, the tailings dam, could take anywhere from five to 10 years.' These are some of the facts missing from the answers provided from government and in public commentary from the government about this terrible decision. 'Should the minister have harboured other environmental concerns in relation to the project, such as downstream water quality or destroying the river, as has been cited in various media commentary since the decision, one might question why the minister had already herself approved the project on environmental grounds through the EPBC Act.'

There you have it; some facts. I hope that weighs on people's minds as they make a decision on this motion. But let's see what Mr Roy Ah-See, a Wiradjuri elder, said about this.

He had the guts to turn up to Orange and talk to the community about what was going on there. His letter to Minister Plibersek, which was published in part in the Australian over the weekend, says:

You and your advisors completely rejected their evidence and have disrespected these highly regard Wiradjuri elders. Your advisers never even spoke with them. This is disgraceful. It's obvious your minds were made up.

The letter goes on: 'You and your advisers have refused to accept the OLALC authority to promote and protect Aboriginal culture and heritage under section 52(4) of the Aboriginal Land Rights Act. In your recent interview on ABC morning news, you stated that you and your advisers spoke to "the most appropriate group" in this matter, and therefore you've systematically made the 121 Local Aboriginal Land Councils, which make up the land rights network, irrelevant.' He questions what this does to Indigenous control over Aboriginal land.

Then he goes on to say, as he did in Orange: 'At the end of the day, what has happened here should be concerning for industry and for other sectors but, more importantly, for the structure of Local Aboriginal Land Councils. Here we've got a minister who's knocking back a million-dollar mine that would create economic empowerment for my people. The green attitude is that all our land should be locked up for environmental national parks, and that wasn't the intent of the New South Wales land rights legislation.' Around the grounds, everyone is criticising the minister's decision and her inability to back it in. Senators need to support this disallowance and do the right thing by anyone concerned.