Perin Davey (NSW, National Party, Shadow Minister for Water) Share this | Hansard source

Let's be clear: the Minister for the Environment and Water's appalling decision to block the McPhillamys goldmine in Blayney is just another example of a growing list of Labor failures, particularly in regional Australia. The Albanese government needs to be held to account for what it has done not just to Blayney and the community of Blayney but to the mining sector, to the Australian economy and to Australia's reputation as a good place to invest.

The cancellation of a billion-dollar investment into this country on the baseless claims put forward by a legally insignificant Indigenous corporation whose views have been roundly questioned and dismissed by countless other recognised Indigenous bodies is, as I said, appalling. Then there are some of the headlines that have been reported on this decision from other Aboriginal corporations. The Daily Telegraph: 'None of us have heard of it'. The Australian: 'Land council chiefs to hold crisis meeting on Plibersek'. One thing this decision has done is actually unify all the New South Wales land councils in coming together and calling for better recognition, better understanding and better transparency in this process.

What this minister has shown is Labor is not interested in listening to the recognised Indigenous voices in matters that affect them. If this minister did, she would have heard that support for this project was given by nearly every Aboriginal land council, including the Orange Local Aboriginal Land Council. As the recognised authority in this area, under New South Wales law, there was neutral—they recognised the economic benefit. They felt that the risk to cultural heritage was minimal.

Instead, this minister made this appalling decision. My understanding is she never travelled out to the site, but she listened to an organisation that has 17 people representing it, according to reports, that has no native title to the land. The Wiradyuri Aboriginal corporation didn't even issue a written statement to the minister, choosing instead to convey their concerns verbally. We can't get to the bottom of whether that verbal information was passed on to a member of the department or directly to the minister herself. If it was to a departmental official, the minister's actually getting into Chinese whispers because it's not a written statement. There is simply no way of confirming what was actually said to the minister and how that advice could possibly lead to a veto of federal and state approvals.

As we learnt through Senator Duniam's questioning in Senate estimates, they didn't even send out the person who had done the section 10 audit and who had recommended against the section 10 declaration. The departmental appointed person was not sent out again to reassess and re-evaluate following this verbal information. For a government that claims to be transparent, there is a significant gap between what is being said and what is being done. It needs to be called out. People need to be held accountable and people need to be questioning the minister's reasoning for her decision as day by day her reasoning seems to change. She provides different reasons. First she said the mine threatened cultural heritage. Then she said it was environmentally risky. Well, if it was environmentally risky it would have failed the environmental approvals. If it was culturally risky it would have failed the Aboriginal cultural heritage assessments that had been done at both state and federal levels. Plibersek has shown no courage—