Glenn Sterle (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to Senator Ian Campbell, the Minister for the Environment and Heritage. Can the minister confirm that he actively campaigned against a community-run wind farm in an abandoned limestone quarry because some people in the area objected to it? Did the minister’s department advise him that there were no environmental grounds on which to oppose this project? Can the minister also confirm that he approved the construction of a brickworks close to houses and schools, despite widespread opposition from the local community? Didn’t the minister’s department, in evaluating the project at Perth airport, identify a number of concerns, including the potential for adverse health impacts? Why does the minister require everyone to agree to a non-polluting wind farm before it can go ahead but approve a polluting brickworks when the community is vehemently opposed to it?

Ian Campbell (WA, Liberal Party, Minister for the Environment and Heritage) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Firstly, I did not approve the brickworks. It was approved by the Minister for Transport and Regional Services, who has responsibility for the Airports Act—a minor technical detail!

Chris Evans (WA, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Did it go to your department?

Ian Campbell (WA, Liberal Party, Minister for the Environment and Heritage) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Who asks the questions around here, Mr President? Old windbag over the table there?

Paul Calvert (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order, Senator Campbell!

Ian Campbell (WA, Liberal Party, Minister for the Environment and Heritage) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

If someone asks a stupid question, I think it does not hurt to point it out. For the Leader of the Opposition in the Senate to compound, once again, Labor’s flailing, hopelessly incompetent performance in the Australian Senate by further underlining the stupidity of the question—

Paul Calvert (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Minister, I remind you of the question.

Ian Campbell (WA, Liberal Party, Minister for the Environment and Heritage) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Mr President. The question relates to the brickworks at Perth airport and the questioner clearly does not know the process or does not take an interest in the process. The process includes a reference of the brickworks proposal to me by the Minister for Transport and Regional Services, and that is the normal process that applies to all airports around Australia. Under the Airports Act the reference was made to me. What we found when my department made an assessment of the brickworks—

Chris Evans (WA, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thought it was nothing to do with you.

Ian Campbell (WA, Liberal Party, Minister for the Environment and Heritage) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr President, the Leader of the Opposition in the Senate really needs to either clean his ears out or grow a brain in between his ears.

Paul Calvert (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! I ask the Leader of the Opposition in the Senate to stop interjecting and, Senator Campbell, I ask you to return to the question.

Ian Campbell (WA, Liberal Party, Minister for the Environment and Heritage) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am trying very hard to focus on the question, but the Leader of the Opposition in the Senate, who has a problem keeping his mouth closed and not interjecting, is a constant interference.

Paul Calvert (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator, I ask you to return to the question now.

Ian Campbell (WA, Liberal Party, Minister for the Environment and Heritage) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The question relates to the Perth brickworks. The assessment conducted by my department showed something that was incredibly, deeply embarrassing to the WA Labor Party and Senator Sterle’s comrades in Western Australia. It showed that the Western Australian Labor government had approved two kilns for existing brickworks in the Swan Valley area that were pouring noxious gases into the airshed above the people who live in Guildford, Hazelmere and the Swan Valley. Of course, I have released that environmental assessment—unlike the WA Labor government, who have hidden all of their assessments and in fact did not even do an assessment of the two kilns.

So yes, in fact, there are very serious issues about brickworks’ emissions into the Swan Valley airshed. Our department found that the proposed brickworks on the Perth airport site would be a world-leading example of a brickworks and would have massively lower emissions than the brickworks within the Midland area. We also found that the WA government did not even submit the expansion proposals for the brickworks, which are less than a kilometre away from the Perth airport site, to any environmental assessment at all, nor did they allow any public consultation. Our process was one that included the longest public consultation period of any environmental assessment process in Australia. It is an incredible embarrassment to the WA government and it should be an embarrassment to Senator Sterle. The environmental approvals processes and monitoring of toxins in the airshed over the brickworks in the Midland area are a national and international disgrace over which the Labor Party should be absolutely hanging their heads in shame.

Glenn Sterle (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I ask a supplementary question, Mr President. Does the minister agree with the member for Hasluck that the decision to approve the project was a ‘serious error’, that the government has failed the people he represents and that the local community will ‘bear the burden of this mistake for generations’? Why did the minister totally ignore the concerns of thousands of residents in approving the brickworks? Can the minister also advise whether, if there had been a proposal to put a wind farm at Perth airport, he have been more willing to listen to the community’s concerns?

Ian Campbell (WA, Liberal Party, Minister for the Environment and Heritage) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I think anyone who tries to draw a parallel between a brickworks and a wind farm should perhaps have a good look at themselves. In Stuart Henry I think the people of Hasluck have the most vigorous and capable representative that they have ever had. He has fought tenaciously for his community. I have responded to every letter from Stuart Henry and his constituents about the proposal. Who have let down their constituents? The WA Labor Party, for keeping secret the fact that they approved the expansion of two brickworks less than a mile from the airport which are pumping toxins into the atmosphere at an unprecedented rate—and with no public consultation. The best thing that can happen for the people who live in Stuart Henry’s electorate would be that the WA environment minister ensures that other brickworks meet the very strict standards that are applied by the Commonwealth to the brickworks being built on the Perth airport site.