Bridget McKenzie (Victoria, National Party, Shadow Minister for Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Development) Share this | Hansard source

It gives me great pleasure to rise to speak on this piece of legislation, the Blayney Gold Mine Bill 2024. I know there are several senators who are very, very keen to have their say about what has been an absolute shocker of a decision by the Labor government and indeed the minister responsible—shall I say, irresponsible—Minister Plibersek. Here we have a project that would be delivering jobs in a regional community, a project that the local Indigenous landowners wanted to see developed and a project that the broader community had been waiting for to come to fruition. Yet the Labor Party, in some vain attempt to secure votes in inner city seats like Melbourne, Fitzroy, Brunswick and their equivalents in Sydney and Brisbane, overturned those stakeholders and that regional community—800 well-paid jobs in a country town.

Why are we surprised? Why are the Liberal and National parties surprised that the Labor Party, once the great political movement of the workers, is now the political party of the far-left extremists in our society and is more interested in waging war with the Greens on ideological issues such as the State of Israel's right to exist and whether nuclear power should be part of a net zero solution? The Labor Party has turned its back on the working men and women of this country. That's why stalwarts such as Kim Carr and Jennie George have similarly turned their back on the Labor Party and called out the duplicitous behaviour. They're saying one thing out of one side of their mouth and, when it comes to making serious decisions of government, turning their back on the working men and women of Australia.

This project would have delivered $1 billion worth of economic benefit to this community, not to mention the social benefit of well-paying long-term intergenerational jobs. But yes. In order to have another fight with the Greens to somehow seen to sop to the inner city elites, Plibersek has really nailed this government's colours to the mast. It's just another decision in a litany of decisions of turning their backs not only on regional Australia—we kind of take it as given on this side of the chamber that when Labor comes to power the nine million of us that don't live in a capital city will get shafted. Hello, welcome to a Labor government. It's no different under this lot. Unfortunately, they've turned their back on their own tradition, on their own heritage and turned their back on mining projects which are subject to severe and significant environmental regulation and also provide much needed benefits to communities. I know that Senator Davey has more to say on this matter.