Rachel Siewert (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answer given by the Minister for the Environment and Heritage (Senator Ian Campbell) to a question without notice asked by Senator Eggleston today relating to the Burrup Peninsula, Western Australia.

Today we had yet another embarrassing display from the Minister for the Environment and Heritage, who is better known as the minister for development. Yet again we had the minister talking about the need to develop the Burrup Peninsula rather than actually articulating what action he was going to be taking to protect the peninsula’s heritage. Given that he is the Minister for the Environment and Heritage, I would have thought he would be taking responsibility for the peninsula’s heritage rather than acting to facilitate the Burrup’s development. I am quite horrified that the minister for heritage thinks that it is okay to trade off national heritage and what many of us believe is world heritage to develop a gas plant. He claims that it is okay to trash our national heritage because we will be producing gas, which will help with climate change. We have trashed the planet through climate change, so now we will trash our heritage to address our mistakes on climate change!

The Burrup meets the criteria for listing on the National Heritage List. The minister has clearly been told this by the Australian Heritage Council in their submission on the nomination of Burrup to the National Heritage List. The minister, as I have articulated on numerous occasions in this place, has decided not to list the area yet and to go into further consultations so he can find a way to allow development to occur on the Burrup before he heritage lists it.

As I have also articulated in this place on numerous occasions, it does not have to be a trade of one for the other; you can have a win-win situation. The Woodside development proposed for sites A and B—the Pluto development—could easily fit on the North West Shelf joint venturers’ site. In fact, I wrote to the joint venture partners and received replies from all of them saying they were prepared to negotiate to collocate the Woodside development on that site. Therefore the developers would not have to clear petroglyphs and clear our natural heritage; we could have both.

I take offence at the minister implying that the Australian Greens are trying to stop development on the Burrup in favour of the petroglyphs. We want to protect the petroglyphs but we are earnestly trying to find an alternative. The minister could be a hero in this situation by actually facilitating negotiations between the joint venturers and Woodside to have a win-win situation: save the petroglyphs—save the rock art—while also having development.

We heard recently that in fact Woodside were starting to move the petroglyphs from site A on the Burrup, thereby compromising their heritage values. Today Dr Carmen Lawrence, Mr Peter Andren and I emergency listed the Burrup. That requires the minister to make a decision in 10 days time about whether to list the Burrup on the National Heritage List. It is time that he stopped wasting time. The minister is trying to buy time so that development can go ahead before he needs to make any decisions. It is time that he moved on. It is time that he moved the development to a more appropriate site, being (a) the North West Shelf joint venturers’ site, (b) the Onslow site, or (c) what I understand is the least favoured site, the maintenance site. He has got choices.

It is shameful that he tries to imply that if he lists the Burrup Peninsula that will curtail development on it. It will not. Woodside have also indicated that they are happy to move to the joint venturers’ site if they can find a way forward. Surely the minister, if he were truly carrying out his duties as the minister for heritage, would be facilitating these negotiations. If the minister had already facilitated these negotiations, we would not have had to emergency list the Burrup. We did not take that decision lightly, because we believed that the normal process should be allowed to take place. But given the immediate threat of destruction posed by moving the petroglyphs—once you move them you take away their cultural relevance and cultural heritage values—we believed that we needed to move immediately to emergency list the site. The site was under the immediate threat being posed by the development of the Burrup. It is time that the minister got a grip on his portfolio, got a grip on his responsibilities under the act and moved to protect the Burrup through National Heritage listing. (Time expired)

Question agreed to.