David Shoebridge (NSW, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I want to associate myself not only with the contributions made by my Greens colleagues, led by Senator Cox, but with the comments made by all of my colleagues. I think we should get a couple of things clear. First of all, who speaks for country? I've actually been there—it's a beautiful part of my state—on country with the TOs, the Wiradjuri mob, and I've seen their care for the country. I've actually walked to the top of Wahluu with them, otherwise known as Mount Panorama, and from the top of Wahluu you can look across and see over to the Belubula River. You can see around that whole stretch of this beautiful country. It has been called Mount Panorama for the last 200 years because when you're on the top of it you can see and feel the connections with country all around. That's one of the reasons why Wahluu is sacred, and, as Senator Cox made clear, it's one of the three brothers from the Dreaming story. It's a really special place.

I had the privilege to go to Wahluu and work with Wiradjuri traditional owners in their first struggle under this same legislation to protect their country. It was, at the time, to protect Wahluu, the southern side of which is a sacred women's place. The local council there, headed by some Nat, had decided they wanted to ignore the sacred women's place and build a go-kart track over it because they thought a go-kart track was more important than that extraordinary cultural place. Did I mention that, when you're there, you can feel that it's a sacred place? You can see those connections around that country. It's a remarkable place.

I rarely give the coalition credit, but former coalition minister Ley had those representations from those same traditional owners—the same traditional owners that are now calling for the protection of this beautiful country on the Belubula River. When she got the representations under section 10, which were viciously opposed by the local council, who just wanted to build their go-kart track, Minister Ley listened to these same traditional owners and, to her credit, protected the site. She understood the cultural connection. She listened to the traditional owners. She accepted their cultural authority—the very same people, the same traditional owners, who have pressed this section 10 application. It's the same country; you can literally see the river from Wahluu. You can see that beautiful stretch of magical countryside from Wahluu.

I gave Minister Ley the credit at the time, but I'll repeat it. She listened to the TOs and she protected that country. It was the right thing to do. She actually had to stare down some pretty ugly Nats in New South Wales, not least the then, I think, Minister for Local Government, Paule Toole—he then became at some point the Nat leader. She had to stare him down to do the right thing, to protect the country. She did, and I give her credit.

Now we have Minister Plibersek, who has had representations from the same traditional owners. Indeed, their section 10 application to protect this beautiful stretch of land on the Belubula River went in, I think, in October 2020, which was about a year before Minister Ley protected Wahluu, which was in 2021.

A year before Minister Ley did the right thing and protected Wahluu, these same traditional owners put in their section 10 application to protect this beautiful stretch of Belubula River, the countryside around it and the dreaming stories that are there. Minister Plibersek has inherited a process that started under Minister Ley, because Minister Ley started the consultation, as she should have. She did the right thing as a minister.

Between the two ministers, Minister Ley and Minister Plibersek, we've now had six rounds of consultation on this section 10 application since October 2020. The local traditional owners don't have external support. They don't have a corporate law firm—a bunch of highly paid lawyers—and cultural consultants and environmental consultants. They've just got their knowledge, strength and stories. Each time, they've engaged in those rounds of consultation. Meanwhile, the WA based mining company has paid high-end lawyers to come in and bombard them. Those opposite talk about a process that's caught someone on the hop. You couldn't jump over the amount of paperwork that the TOs have had to deal with and confront to defend their country and stories. Six rounds of consultation—did I mention that?—and the coalition say that this somehow got hijacked by the minister in the last few months. That's a total falsity from the coalition. There have been six rounds of consultation, which started under Minister Ley. The same traditional owners she listened to and respected, for whom she did the right thing and protected Wahluu, are saying: 'Listen to us again. Hear our cultural authority. We want to protect this beautiful part of the site because of the dreaming story about the three brothers and the creation story about the blue banded bee.' These aren't secrets. This isn't secret knowledge. This is knowledge they've shared with their community. It's knowledge they shared with us in a briefing earlier today. Senator Cox read that onto the record today. I won't repeat it. It's information they'd share with the coalition if they wanted to listen, but they don't want to listen. They only want to listen to the WA based goldmining company, which obviously wants to make some money out of this patch of land.

It is an extraordinary place. It's called Belubula because in Wiradjuri 'belubula' means 'two rivers'. It's where the two rivers meet. There are 30 natural springs in this place. Of course natural springs in a part of my beautiful home state that so often can be pretty dry—this beautiful patch of country just to the west of Bathurst—are pretty special places. That's why landowners there and anyone who looks will find artefact after artefact on this little stretch of river. It's because it's always got water and always has had water. It's a special part of my home state. It's a special part of the country.

They've made their position clear not since March but since October 2020, and it's knowledge that is thousands of years old. The coalition don't want to hear it. I get that they don't want to hear it. They don't care. They just want to approve a goldmine. I get that. They see gold and money. They don't see beautiful country and they don't want to hear the TOs. And then they say, 'Oh, but the land council has gone from opposition to neutral.' The only authority that they want to listen to is the land council. I wish someone in the coalition understood what land councils are in my home state of New South Wales. Land councils in New South Wales are established not under First Nations cultural authority but under the New South Wales Aboriginal Land Rights Act. Under the New South Wales Aboriginal Land Rights Act, their purpose is as follows. I will read from the New South Wales government's Aboriginal Land Rights Act website:

The purpose of the ALRA is:

It's a New South Wales act which establishes statutory authorities to manage that land claim process and to provide some community benefit to all the Aboriginal people in the area from the land that is transferred to them by the New South Wales government, and sometimes by councils. It's a statutory process designed to manage that land rights process. It does not provide for cultural authority. Sometimes those people elected on to land councils do also have cultural authority. They sometimes are traditional owners, but it's by happenstance and not by design.

If you want to find the traditional owners for a part of my beautiful home state of New South Wales, sometimes they will be on the land council, but most often they're not because the land council's job is not to speak with cultural authority. It's not a statutory job. It was never established as a statutory cultural authority, and there's a reason for that—because the New South Wales parliament shouldn't nominate who has cultural authority and shouldn't nominate who are the traditional owners. That's a matter for First Nations mob, to give that cultural authority, to identify the elders.

And so when the coalition comes in here and says, 'The land council has gone from negative to neutral and that's the end of it,' it shows base ignorance about what land councils are in New South Wales—deep, base ignorance. They're not the cultural authority. They're not the traditional owners. Sometimes those elected do have that authority, and then they bring that authority to the work that they do. A land council is elected from all of the First Nations peoples that live in the geographical region of the land council. But to come in here and misrepresent the role of land councils as though they are the final arbiter of cultural authority shows base ignorance by the coalition. But you wouldn't expect more from them, would you? You wouldn't expect more from them, because this is convenient for them. They can point to the land council and say, 'Well, the land council has said something, so we can ignore all these traditional owners'—even the ones, the very same ones, former Minister Ley quite rightly listened to and accepted the cultural authority of.

This Labor government has done the right thing. They've done the right thing here. Minister Plibersek has followed the process that was established by Minister Ley and, after six rounds of consultation, has accepted the cultural authority of the Wiradjuri elders and the traditional owners and has protected this beautiful part of the state from a tailings dam. It's not a determination about the whole gold mine, but it is a determination about the tailings dam in this beautiful little patch of New South Wales. We're giving credit where credit's due, and we'll back it in on this motion.