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

by leave—I move:

That the Senate take note of the document.

This is a tabled document relating to the McPhillamys goldmine decision made by the minister for the environment, Minister Plibersek. The document which was tabled is not extensive in nature, I believe, and in fact is just a notification to the Senate that the government hasn't yet had enough time to comply with the order. I find it astounding that on this decision by the minister, which was made quite some time ago now and has been the topic of much conversation in the community, particularly in New South Wales but also far beyond, the government didn't think that perhaps by now, particularly when an order for the production of documents was passed by the Senate, by majority, they would need to comply with it by the date it was tabled in some form of substance. Sure, we have a response, but it basically says, 'We'll get back to you in a couple of weeks.' That to me is an astounding thumbing of the nose at this parliament, at this Senate, when it comes to matters of accountability and scrutiny.

The reason we asked for these documents is that we want to actually understand how the minister managed to make the decision she did, which was on any level, by any metric, a bad decision. It was the wrong one, and people are paying the price. We are determined to ensure that this government does not get away with frankly what is an appalling and egregious decision and a breach of faith with not only the people of Blayney, the region around Orange, the people of New South Wales and the people of Australia but a whole range of people from across the globe who invest in companies like Regis Resources, who have spent $192 million only to not build a goldmine and have nothing to show for it because of a decision by this minister.

I will remind colleagues what we asked for. We asked for correspondence between the minister and the Wiradyuri Traditional Owners Central West Aboriginal Corporation between 1 March this year and the decision date. We asked for all correspondence between the Prime Minister and his office in relation to the McPhillamys goldmine project. We asked for correspondence between the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water and the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet in relation to the McPhillamys goldmine project. We asked for correspondence between the federal minister, Minister Plibersek, and the New South Wales Minister for the Environment, Minister for Heritage, Minister for Climate Change and Minister for Energy in relation to the same project and also correspondence between the minister and the New South Wales Minister for Finance and minister for domestic manufacturing and a range of others, including the Premier. I could go on.

The point is that all of those people I just mentioned, including the minister's own department, who are not an easy crowd to please when it comes to projects like this, the New South Wales Labor Premier, the New South Wales Minister for the Environment, the New South Wales department of planning—all of these individuals and entities—gave this project the big green tick. We are still at a loss to understand how the government reached the conclusion they did that this mine was not to proceed. We've asked for the statement of reasons and we still don't have it. As far as I'm aware, the proponents of the mine still don't have the legally required statement of reasons for the minister's decision. So how, after months have passed since this terrible decision was made and after a huge amount of scrutiny has been applied to this—and we have attempted every which way to penetrate this black box of decision-making that happens to be the minister for the environment's office—do we still not know what the actual reason was, the written reason that she is duty bound by law to provide to the proponents and, I believe, the community? We don't understand how the voices of 18 members of the Wiradyuri Traditional Owners Central West Aboriginal Corporation outweighed the scores of voices of the Orange Local Aboriginal Land Council, the organisation recognised at law as the authority to speak on behalf of country as traditional owners. How did that small group manage to outweigh the concerns of the Orange Local Aboriginal Land Council? How is that possible? We still do not know today, because our ability to scrutinise this decision is being denied.

I might also add that it was the Orange Local Aboriginal Land Council that expressed extreme concern that this group, the Wiradyuri Traditional Owners Central West Aboriginal Corporation, were gearing up to hijack the laws available to them to prevent this mine from going ahead. If people like those from the Orange Local Aboriginal Land Council, those recognised by law to speak on behalf country, are saying that then we should be worried. Yet the minister wasn't worried. She backed them in, and made a decision off the back of their cause, though we still don't understand what that amounted to. In the face of full federal and state environmental and planning approval, including cultural heritage recognition, we still have absolutely no clarity.

Again, I invoke the words of Roy Ah-See, a Wiradjuri elder from this neck of the woods, where the McPhillamys goldmine was supposed to be built, who said that he felt this decision had denied his people economic empowerment—opportunities to actually do something for themselves in their part of the world, on country. That's something they would have welcomed and something that would have enabled them to do something constructive. That opportunity has, in his own words, been denied.

There was a scathing letter that he sent to Minister Plibersek, which, of course, is not in any way addressed by the response to the order for production of documents, where he says that her decision basically unpicks decades of work and recognition when it comes to traditional owner groups and land councils, who have legislative authority to speak on behalf of their community and their country. Her decision, according to his letter, has undermined all of that. But we have no clarity and no ability to scrutinise any of this.

I do express extreme disappointment in the government's nonresponse to our order for the production of documents thus far, along with the nonresponse to the documents relating to the Kings Plains declaration and the nonresponse to a range of other orders for the production of documents that we have here.

I won't go on. I think my dissatisfaction is well established. I seek leave to continue my remarks later.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.