Dave Sharma (NSW, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak in support of this disallowance motion because what's at issue here are the local Indigenous community and whether their voices have been heard and an important project that would be of immense benefit to the community.

The last-minute intervention in August by the Minister for the Environment and Water, under section 10 of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Heritage Protection Act, goes against the advice of the very people she's purporting to protect—that is, the Orange Local Aboriginal Land Council, the recognised representative body of the local Wiradjuri people. They consider the claims of cultural heritage and songlines to be baseless and they are the organisation that should are been consulted and listened to by the minister.

What this means is that the Blayney goldmine, a project worth about a billion dollars in the New South Wales Central West, will not be able to go ahead, meaning there are no jobs for the region. Regis, the company concerned, disputes the minister's suggestion that there are alternative sites for the tailings dam, saying it would take another five to 10 years to find a viable site, which is simply not commercially viable. And it's a terrible decision for investors and for future resource projects. If you're a commercial entity, why would you explore, why would you develop plans and why would you bother consulting with the local Indigenous community and stakeholders if you were to find at the end of it all, a minute to midnight, that the minister could overturn your decision with one of these section 10 determinations? Incidentally, this one is very scant on the reasons that the intervention was issued.

I want to read to the chamber some of what the local Aboriginal land council, the Orange Local Aboriginal Land Council, have said about this decision. They've described the claims on which the minister made her determination as 'baseless', saying: 'You have made baseless claims now the accepted truth.' They go on to say they are respectfully requesting a review of the section 10 evidence through proper consultation, and they demand to be consulted and listened to. They dispute that the claims which formed the basis of the section 10 application for cultural heritage had any basis whatsoever. The Orange Local Aboriginal Land Council were consulted extensively throughout this process and they made clear that, although in the past they had been opposed to the project, they had come to support it.

If you look at the New South Wales government's Independent Planning Commission report on this project, you see that they provided conditional approval of the project in March 2023. That was after a three-member commission panel had taken over 1,000 public submissions, held a public hearing and consulted closely with local stakeholders, including the local Aboriginal landholding group.

The commission's findings, as announced in March 2023, are:

"The Commission finds that on balance, the Project is in the public interest" and that the "application is consistent with the Objects of the Environmental Planning & Assessment Act 1979" …

The Commission noted the strategic benefits of the gold mine in "produc[ing] a significant mineral resource to meet the growing demand for raw metals", finding that "the positive impacts resulting from the Project—including employment, training, investment and additional economic activity—will outweigh the negative impacts".

The Commission acknowledged concerns raised by stakeholders about social and amenity impacts including visual, air quality, noise and vibration impacts, and impacts on water resources, Aboriginal cultural heritage … The Commission found that these impacts could be effectively avoided, minimised or offset through the strict conditions of consent imposed by the Commission.

The New South Wales planning panel, under their own environmental protection act, has approved this project, and the local landholders and the Aboriginal land council, the body which is the recognised representative body of the local Wiradjuri people, consider the project to be worthwhile and valid and do not object to it; yet the minister, acting on the advice, seemingly, of another group—a dissident group or an alternative group; however you prefer to phrase it—has prioritised their views and their statement of evidence over that of the legally constituted and legitimate authority here.

This is a terrible decision on any respect. It will not only have an implication for that local community in Orange, not only for the local Orange Aboriginal land council, but it will have a chilling effect on resource projects across the country. Despite the best efforts of resource companies and extraction companies to consult with local stakeholders, to get local Indigenous groups on board, to protect cultural heritage, to preserve cultural heritage, to re-engineer their projects and plans for the site depending on the input of these groups, they might well find that, having gone through quite an exhaustive process over many years, having done the right thing, having spoken to the correct legally constituted groups, having developed environmental protection and mitigation plans and strategies to make sure local cultural heritage is preserved, at one minute to midnight, when they're in their final capital raise for this project, the environment minister is contacted by another group that purports to represent the area or purports to have identified site of cultural significance and, without testing those claims, without interrogating those claims, but simply accepting them at face value, the minister might issue a section 10 determination, which will undoubtedly frustrate that project, just as it frustrated the Blayney goldmine.

The consequential effect is that it will have a chilling effect on investment in Australia, and it will raise the legitimate concerns of sovereign risk in Australia. What investors value in Australia is predictability of decision-making, certainty of decision-making and a well-understood and well-documented process. They respect our environmental laws. We are free to write them as we wish, and we as the parliament are free to change the laws as we wish. They have a legitimate expectation that, once those laws and frameworks are put in place and the requisite consultation is undertaken, they can depend upon decisions being taken in a predictable manner. That has not happened in this instance, and it has been manifestly clear in the way the minister has handled this.

The minister has failed to provide a statement of reasons and she has been contradicted by her own leader, the Prime Minister, and by the New South Wales Premier, both of whom say they would like to see the project proceed. The minister has hidden from scrutiny, refused to disclose reasons and seemingly refused to discuss the issue despite entreaties with the Orange Local Aboriginal Land Council, who have described the claims on which she bases this determination as baseless. She's hiding from scrutiny on this issue because I think she knows the decision that has been made is a terrible one with consequences that go beyond her particular portfolio and to the heart of Australia's resource industries.

In the absence of a more compelling and detailed statement of reasons from the minister, I don't think the Senate can have any choice but to support this disallowance motion and seek for the minister or her representative in this chamber to provide a detailed and compelling statements of reasons as to why she didn't listen to the local Indigenous landholding group and why she decided, on the basis of another group, to disregard the work that had been done, disregard the decision of the New South Wales independent planning panel, disregard the views of the Orange Local Aboriginal Land Council and disregard the views of any number of local stakeholders and prevent this project.

In the absence of that compelling reason, we should be supporting this disallowance motion.