Don Farrell (SA, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for the Centenary of ANZAC) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I seek to speak on a private member's bill in respect of defence—the Defence Legislation Amendment (Woomera Prohibited Area) Bill 2013. I suppose it is with some regret that I am in this chamber today to speak to the bill I had to move. The history of the bill is that there was a very exhaustive report called the Hawke report, which dealt with the issue of how to combine, in respect of the state of South Australia, the importance of the defence industry with other activities—in particular, mining activities.

As you would be aware, Acting Deputy President Whish-Wilson, the Woomera area in South Australia is approximately 120 square kilometres; that makes it almost twice the size of your own state of Tasmania. So we are talking about a massive geographical area and, because of the importance of the defence industry, this has been a protected area. The Hawke review looked at ways of freeing up some of this land for activities other than defence work. As a result of that review's report, a piece of legislation was drafted last year, was presented to the other place and passed with the support of the opposition, and then came to the Senate. I appreciate that that legislation came to the Senate reasonably late in the session, in June last year, but we were expecting that—because of its importance not only to Australia but, in particular, to South Australia—the legislation would be passed before the parliament was prorogued last year. Unfortunately what happened was that the then opposition, now the government, referred this matter off to a committee, and the opportunity for passing this legislation before the proroguing of the parliament did not occur.

As the now minister, then shadow minister, will know, I had some discussions, because of the importance of this issue to South Australia, with the minister about why it was that they were not proceeding with this legislation and why they were not proceeding with it post-haste. The indications that I was given, by the minister and other senators from South Australia who had an interest in this area, were: that although they were delaying it for that period of time it was not their intention to delay it, that it would be a priority issue in the new parliament if they were to win the election, and that not only would we see a piece of legislation pretty much identical with what I have put before the Senate presented to the parliament as an issue of priority but that legislation would in fact be passed by Christmas of last year.

When we came back, after the election, the opposition had won the election and were now in government, and the shadow minister with whom I had had the discussions was now the Minister for Defence and responsible for this area. What became very clear by the end of last year was that the government did not have a piece of legislation to proceed with; they were not going to proceed with the legislation and pass it, as I had been led to believe before Christmas. This legislation is of such importance to South Australia that I then said, 'We must proceed with it,' and we drafted a piece of legislation, I think it is fair to say, in almost exactly the same terms, other than where it was necessary to change the particular dates. So we drafted a piece of legislation. This piece of legislation that we are dealing with today builds on and reflects the Hawke report.

I do not think you can underestimate the significance of this piece of legislation to my home state of South Australia. We have had some bad news in recent times in terms of jobs being lost. The closure of Holden is obviously a very dramatic development for the north of South Australia and South Australia in general. Of course, earlier this week, we saw Toyota close down. Toyota operates in Victoria, but the impact on South Australia is quite significant because many of the component suppliers provide components for both Holden and Toyota. So we have had a hit with Holden, and the Toyota closure affects us as well.

So here is an opportunity for something to be done to create some jobs to replace those jobs that are going to be lost in manufacturing. I do not think you can underestimate the potential value and job creation potential of this bill to South Australia. One of the things that the opposition did was refer this matter to a committee before Christmas. One of the responses to that committee was from Geoscience Australia. I have a lot of time for Geoscience Australia. I was, for a very brief period of time, the science minister and I know the terrific job they do in providing valuable scientific information to the mining industry. They responded to the information that had been referred to the committee. I read from their response:

GA provided technical advice to the Review on the known and potential (undiscovered) mineral and energy resources in the WPA. The WPA has a diversity of mineral deposits and energy resources. The WPA contains four operating mines: Challenger, a mid-sized gold mine in the west; Cairn Hill, a small iron ore (magnetite)-copper-gold mine; Prominent Hill copper-gold mine in the south east; and the iron ore mine at Peculiar Knob (Southern Iron). There are some 150 known occurrences of minerals dominated by gold, iron ore, copper and opal but including uranium, silver, zinc, lead, diamonds, and heavy mineral sands. The potential for undiscovered deposits of the different mineral and energy commodities varies across the WPA and reflects the range of geological environments.

The WPA is one of the more prospective areas for mineral and energy resources in Australia and will continue to attract exploration activity. The proposed legislation provides a framework within which such exploration can occur.

So here our premier geological science body is pointing out just how geologically significant this particular area is. I think you can infer from its comments just how important it is for the exploration to continue.

I introduced this bill late last year. Even then, when the bill came before the committee, the indication that I was getting from the now government, and particularly the senators from South Australia, was that they did consider this a matter of some urgency and would bring forward their own bill. I do not know why they could not deal with the bill in the form I have proposed it, but they said, 'Look, this is a matter of urgency; we understand what you are saying and we are going to bring forward our own bill.' We are now almost halfway through February and we still have no bill from the government.

We see these future job losses in South Australia in the manufacturing area and we want something to replace them. We have our premier science organisation saying, 'Look, there is a heap of potential here; there is lots of potential for discoveries.' We can replace the jobs that have potentially been lost because of this government sitting on its hands when Holden and Toyota closed and when all of these other companies that supply those companies potentially close. Here we have a potential job replacement. You might have thought that on that basis the government would have taken this as a matter of some urgency, especially given their original indications and their indications late last year about how they viewed this issue. But, no, we have still not seen a piece of legislation.

Not only have we not seen a piece of legislation but we now discover—what I discovered this morning—that the government has undertaken a RIS, a regulatory impact statement. It is true that we did not do that because there was an urgency about this matter. We needed to get on with the job. This government claimed when they came into office that they were going to tear up red tape and make it easier for businesses and start-ups to get going and operate in this country, and all that sort of thing. What have they done? They have referred it off to have a regulatory impact statement done.

Maybe I am getting suspicious in my old age, but I am starting to think that the government are not fair dinkum about proceeding with this legislation. They did not do what they said they were going to do before Christmas. After Christmas, they have not done what they said they were going to do, which was to bring legislation before the parliament, and now they are talking about some other date in March, I think. What are they going to do then? They are going to have another inquiry into this legislation.

We have had the Hawke report. We have had the legislation go through the House of Representatives. We have had an inquiry referred by them last year. We have had another inquiry into this piece of legislation. When we eventually see this legislation, if we ever do, they are going to refer that off to another committee. Is the government serious about trying to do some job creation in South Australia? Because if they were, the minister would stand up in a couple of moments and say: 'Look, you're right, Senator: this is a matter of urgency. It is a matter of urgency for South Australia. We have got to create some jobs to replace those jobs that are leaving manufacturing. We are going to get behind your piece of legislation.' But, no, we have not seen the legislation that they are proposing to replace my legislation with. It may appear.

I said at the hearing that we had this morning—and I know you were present, Acting Deputy President Whish-Wilson—'Look, if you've got something substantially different than this then let us know.' I was told, 'Oh, no, it's not substantially different.' Well, if you have got some amendments that are reasonable amendments, I am very happy to give them consideration, because I understand the importance of this legislation to South Australia. I am disappointed that the senators from South Australia do not appreciate just how important this is to South Australia and the urgency of it. I have said to those senators opposite from South Australia, 'Look, if you have got some concerns, if there are some other issues that have been raised, I'm very happy to consider those amendments.' But, no, no amendments are going to come forward. It is like extracting teeth trying to find out what the nature of those amendments might be. I do not think they can be very significant because, if you look at all of the submissions that have come in on this report, basically people are in support of this proposal. Basically people want it to proceed. Certainly the mining industry want it to proceed and the government of South Australia want it to proceed. I think you can extrapolate that even the government of the Northern Territory want it to proceed. Why do they want it to proceed? Because it is good for South Australia, it is good for jobs and it is good for the country.

We now find ourselves in a situation where today we could vote on this piece of legislation, if we had the support of the government, and tomorrow, or soon thereafter, we could start on the process of opening up and exploring the Woomera protected area. That would create jobs. You create jobs in the exploration phase. We saw from the Geoscience report that 150 prospective areas out there have already been identified. So jobs would be created in exploration. We are talking about the Gawler Craton here, one of the most prospective mineralisations in the world. The mineralisation is deep down—you have got to go quite a long way to find the minerals, unfortunately; we are not like Western Australia, where you just scratch the surface and the minerals are there! You do have to go a long way down, but they are there. We know that from Olympic Dam.

Exploration, of course, creates jobs. So, if you are a young worker in the north of Adelaide and your prospect of getting a job in the manufacturing area has ceased, well here is an opportunity—you can drive a couple of hours north of Adelaide and you can get into exploration. Of course, if they do discover mineralisation then you have the construction phase where you are building these mines. As we all know, and as Senator Johnston would know from the Western Australian experience, that is the big job-creating phase. That is where there is lots of work concentrated over a period of time, but plenty of jobs. Then once the mine is built and operational you have got the ongoing jobs. If Geoscience Australia are right in the 150 prospective areas that they have discovered, then this has tremendous potential to replace the jobs that are leaving other sectors of the economy.

I have made it very clear that the opposition is only too happy to sit down with the government and work out what needs to be done to amend this legislation. I think we have got to give considerable credit to the two ministers in the former government who dealt with this, Minister Smith and Minister Ferguson. Both of them understood the significance of this for South Australia, both of them were committed to implementing this piece of legislation. They knew how important it was to South Australia. What I am concerned about is that the government does not understand just how important this is, does not understand the urgency to South Australia of getting this legislation through and does not understand just how important it is going to be to create jobs into the future, particularly for young South Australians—and other Australians, because we all know this industry has a lot of fly-in fly-out workers who come from other parts of the country.

I want this legislation to go through and go through quickly. I am concerned that the constant delay and the pushing back of dates by the government is a reflection that they are not fair dinkum about proceeding with this legislation. I got that impression when they delayed it last year. I was happy to be corrected and said, 'Look, okay, you've said you are going to delay it but introduce it after the election by Christmas.' I have again become suspicious that they are not fair dinkum about proceeding with this legislation and this legislation is absolutely vital. As I said at the outset, the Woomera protected area is twice the size of Tasmania. We are talking about an enormous area of land. For the sake of South Australia I plead with the minister: get behind my bill. Raise any amendments that you have got and we will sit down and discuss them right now, and we will get this legislation through today and we can start prospecting tomorrow.

David Johnston (WA, Liberal Party, Minister for Defence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to thank Senator Farrell for persisting on behalf of his state in what is a very important matter. I share his concerns. Indeed, may I say that I shared his concerns for some long time before the last election. I need to tell him—not in a castigating political way—that the Hawke review was completed in 2011. For two years my predecessor, the Labor Party's defence minister, sat on this file and did nothing. We were to have a hearing in a Senate committee and, Senator, the non-coalition members of that committee deferred the hearing prior to the last election. I hope that this bill will go through on the voices.

I was responsible for referring the legislation to the committee. The reasons I did that will shortly be obvious to the senator when I tell him that there are a number of South Australian potential and current land users on that very large area that are vitally affected by this legislation. Defence has, as you well know, a chequered history on consultation. Senator Fifield, on 12 December, indicated that the legislation was in the process of being prepared in an amended version for the autumn sittings of 2014. The government is taking account of consultation with stakeholders to finalise that legislation. The amended legislation is very close to completion and a number of points of particular concern to the South Australian and Northern Territory governments are being resolved. These are important concerns, Senator. Coming from Western Australia as I do, I want mining in South Australia in a big way. I am surprised and horrified that for generations parliamentarians—

Don Farrell (SA, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for the Centenary of ANZAC) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Vote for the bill.

David Johnston (WA, Liberal Party, Minister for Defence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Well the bill is wrong; the bill is not right, and we have got to fix it.

Don Farrell (SA, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for the Centenary of ANZAC) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Amend it. Come up with some amendments.

David Johnston (WA, Liberal Party, Minister for Defence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We have our own bill, which will do all of that and more. But the point is this: for generations South Australian politicians have sat on their hands, not even bothering to put their hands up to go to Defence and say, 'Hang on, you can't sterilise about one-sixth of our state.' Now, after two years, Senator Farrell, quite rightly, is agitated by the delay. I am agitated by the delay. But the delay started when the previous Labor government just dillydallied after they had the Hawke report—for two years! Let us be honest about this.

The interests of the Northern Territory government and Northern Territorians in Alice Springs and Darwin are very, very important. There is a vital rail link running right through the middle of this reserve. A waiver to the regulation impact statement was granted for the previous government. The bill's terms are substantially similar to the private member's bill under debate; you virtually copied the previous bill. That is fine; I accept that. I do not criticise you in any way because I have a lot of empathy for the role and position you are taking here. But there are important considerations that are not currently in this bill, as I anticipated there would not be when I assisted in referring it to a committee.

The regulation impact statement will inform any legislative or regulatory changes the government intends to make to the administration of the Woomera Prohibited Area. Bear in mind we are talking about one of the world's premier weapons-testing ranges. There is virtually zero electromagnetic interference on this range. It is a national asset of significant importance. Existing access arrangements to the Woomera Prohibited Area have been in place in their current form since 1989 and are administered under Defence Force Regulations 1952. The bill, as drafted, applies to new users seeking access to that area. New users are users who would not have access permission under the Defence Force Regulations at the time the bill comes into force. Those who have existing access permission under the Defence Force Regulations are referred to as 'existing users'. They include existing pastoralists, Indigenous groups—and I pause to say that South Australia has its own native title regime, which is a very important consideration in this that the previous legislation did not seek to address—the Tarcoola to Darwin railway owner and operators, and the four existing mines. These users will continue to access the protected area under their existing arrangements that include leases, deeds and other permissions provided under the Defence Force Regulations.

Indigenous groups and the railway owner and operators have all raised significant concerns, both with me and more generally, about their existing arrangements and their status under any new legislation. Now what we are talking about is a right for Defence to say that for a period of 70 days, and it is unclear as to whether that is consecutive days or groups of seven days or anything else, the railway line should not operate while testing is underway. That is an unsatisfactory circumstance. Alice Springs and Darwin depend—

Don Farrell (SA, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for the Centenary of ANZAC) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It's just an amendment.

David Johnston (WA, Liberal Party, Minister for Defence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Well there is consultation, Senator, with a vital piece of infrastructure like that.

Peter Whish-Wilson (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Johnston, please refer your comments through the chair.

David Johnston (WA, Liberal Party, Minister for Defence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Alice Springs and Darwin depend upon this railway line for their perishable and other durable goods. You cannot go forward with a piece of legislation like this unless all of the stakeholders are on the same page, and that is what we are seeking to do here. Defence is continuing to work closely with these existing users and respond to their concerns, which mainly consist of clarifying longstanding and existing working relationships and access arrangements and permission with Defence. The new users have not been prevented from accessing the area. As at 24 January there are 32 exploration deeds, four mining deeds, one petroleum deed, four extracting mineral deeds, one communication tower deed and 1,836 personnel have been authorised to access the area. That is since 24 January this year.

In terms of consultation, since July 2000 Defence has been continuing consultation with the different stakeholders, and they all have different interests and they all want different things. But, Senator, I want to see mining particularly start in this area as soon as possible in an orderly, orchestrated fashion. On 6 August Defence met with the rail companies to discuss range administration. Parties agreed that the rail is an existing user, inclusive of all associated infrastructure, and also agreed to develop a working level agreement covering consultation and notification arrangements. On 26 August the Rail Track Corporation wrote to confirm the understanding and stated that they can work with Defence to identify windows that minimise disruption to the rail operators' business. We need to formalise that in a way that all parties, including the Northern Territory government, can be confident about. On 5 September Defence met with the representatives of the South Australian Department for Manufacturing, Innovation, Trade, Resources and Energy and Defence South Australia to discuss matters including pastoral leases in the prohibited area and the consultation process.

On 3 December the advisory board met and held discussions in Woomera with the various stakeholders. The chair is Mr Stephen Loosley and the deputy chair is Mr Paul Holloway. The board includes senior ex-officio representatives from the Australian government departments of Defence, industry and Finance; from the South Australian Department for Manufacturing, Innovation, Trade, Resources and Energy; and from Defence South Australia. The board met with stakeholders including pastoralists, resource companies, and rail operators and owners. Pastoralists and resource companies indicated that coexistence with Defence is working well. The rail company have some concerns about potential future disruption but have a better understanding of how they can work with Defence, and Defence is continuing to work with them to develop communication protocols.

A further Woomera Prohibited Area Advisory Board meeting is scheduled for 18 February in Adelaide. The board is planning to meet with Indigenous groups, conservation WA and the South Australian Chamber of Minerals and Energy.

On 6 August Defence and South Australian representatives met in Adelaide with the owners and operators of the Tarcoola-Darwin rail link that bisects the prohibited area. They include the Australian Rail Track Corporation, Genesee & Wyoming Australia and the AustralAsia Railway Corporation. They agreed that the owners and operators of the railway are existing users and that the scope of their existing use includes the railway and all associated infrastructure, and they agreed to develop a working level agreement setting out the framework for consultation and notification arrangements between Defence and railway operators.

The Australian Rail Track Corporation has since written to Defence confirming that they can work with Defence to identify windows that will minimise disruption. The Northern Territory government has raised concerns about the potential for long disruptions to the railway and the impact of that on tourism and freight delivery to the Northern Territory. This is a very important concern. We need to get to the bottom of it and we need to resolve it before this legislation takes effect.

Current arrangements allow the minister to suspend permission to access the railway and Stuart Highway for safety and security for testing of war material at any time and with no limit specified. That is a blank cheque, and that concerns me. We need to know where we stand with these matters from a public policy point of view. These arrangements have existed in their current form since 1989. New arrangements allow for closures of a minimum of 70 days per year. Defence may not necessarily require this entire period every year. The 70 days are set in seven-day windows, in which Defence can plan specific test activities. The windows are forecast annually to allow non-Defence users of the prohibited area to do their own planning with this knowledge. Rail and road closures occur only for as long as is required to conduct the test and ensure safety and security. This will continue to be the case under the proposed new arrangements.

But all of the users need the security of formal documentation. For example, a recent long-range missile test required the suspension of rail traffic through the area for a period of three hours on three occasions over a 21-day period. This was done in close consultation with the operator and did not impact their schedule. By defining set exclusion periods, the proposed measures in the bill will provide greater certainty to non-Defence users for the periods in which closures may need to occur. Continuing positive engagement with the owners and operators of the railway, including the development of a working-level agreement, will minimise the effect that any testing activity may have on rail operations and schedules.

In October 2013 the South Australian government raised concerns about the potential unintended consequences of the legislation for their land management and economic objectives regarding pastoral leases in the area. So the South Australian government itself has raised important considerations with respect to this legislation. It noted that clause 72TB(3)(j) of the bill defines an existing non-Defence user who may continue to operate their current access arrangements as a person who:

(i) holds an existing pastoral lease; and

(ii) is in the Woomera Prohibited Area for purposes related to the lease …

Attaching rights to the person rather than to the lease, as this bill does, is an error. If they attach to the lease, they will run with the lease—they will run with the land—as opposed to the person.

Don Farrell (SA, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for the Centenary of ANZAC) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Well, come up with some amendments.

David Johnston (WA, Liberal Party, Minister for Defence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This is especially relevant to the area designated as the red zone. So the legislation that was put up previously is actually, Senator Farrell, with great respect, flawed, and we need to fix that. But we cannot just fix it unilaterally. We need to fix it in consultation with the land users. Consultation is a very important thing, which the previous government did not understand or do, and we are seeking to do it. This is especially relevant to the area of the red zone.

Don Farrell (SA, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for the Centenary of ANZAC) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You're not fair dinkum about proceeding with it.

David Johnston (WA, Liberal Party, Minister for Defence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Such an approach would effectively preclude the sale or transfer of pastoral leases in this zone—you do not want to do that, Senator, I am sure—to the detriment of both economic activity and the important land management services provided by pastoralists, including maintenance of access roads, water infrastructure, fences, weed control, culling of feral animals, monitoring and fighting of fires et cetera. The South Australian government required that Defence consider whether existing pastoral leases could be maintained under current arrangements as existing users, including in cases where a pastoral lease is acquired or extended. The government is considering that request. These are important issues, Senator, which, may I suggest, need to be ventilated such that the Senate can do its job well and properly and get the right answer in the legislation.

The other important aspect, of course, is the Indigenous people on the land, particularly on the western extremities of the range. Defence has continued consultation with those Indigenous groups. As identified as an existing user, the bill does not apply to Indigenous groups. I should pause to say that the South Australian native title regime grants freehold title to Aboriginal people. That is a very important consideration that must be respected and recognised in the bill. I would suggest to the learned senator that consultation over that is an important consideration. We must have a hearing so that they can express their attitudes and opinions with respect to this legislation. I think that is only fair and reasonable. Indigenous groups sought formal written confirmation of their existing access permission under the Defence Force Regulations 1952, and Defence have provided that confirmation.

In closing, I share the senator's concerns. I want mining in South Australia. I do not want to see one-sixth of the state sterilised by a Defence rocket range without proper protocols, rules and regulations. But the bill put up, after a two-year delay by the previous government, is a flawed bill. I want the Senate committee to discuss the bill to understand all of the parameters, and it will be greatly different to the bill that the senator has copied from the previous government. He is in error here. I share his concerns. I do not castigate him; I am with him 100 per cent on the urgency required here. But this is a complex piece of legislation with a number of land users whose opinions need to be consulted so that we can get the right answer in this legislation and we can go forward with confidence that we have done our job in the Senate properly.

Penny Wright (SA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I too rise to speak on the Defence Legislation Amendment (Woomera Prohibited Area) Bill 2013 and to highlight the fact that this bill is being rushed through the parliament without the necessary due diligence. This debate has been scheduled despite the fact that the relevant Senate inquiry by the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Legislation Committee, which was due to report on this bill on 11 February—and that report has been deferred until 4 March—has not yet reported. As a result, we are expected to have this debate without the benefit of the committee's consideration or findings. Further, and crucially for the Australian Greens, there has been a manifestly inadequate level of consultation with the traditional owners of the lands that this would affect deeply. These are key stakeholders.

Senator Farrell has cast doubt on whether the current government will actually proceed with the proposal for allowing mining to occur in this area and introduce their own promised amended legislation. On the other hand, we have heard the Minister for Defence, Senator Johnston, assure us that the government will proceed with legislation but on the basis of better and further consultation. I have no doubt that the current government will introduce legislation in relation to this area at some point. My feeling is that it is very likely that it is being affected by the timing of the South Australian state election in March because I think they would be anticipating, particularly with the lack of adequate consultation—and I will go on to discuss that a bit later—a significant public backlash about the proposals in this form of legislation or, indeed, any legislation to open up this area at the moment. They are not going to want to take that on before a state election in March and so they will delay that until after March.

I am hopeful, having heard from Senator Johnston, that there will in fact be adequate and meaningful consultation, particularly with the traditional owners, because so far it has been a lamentable process and there is significant concern that some of the people most affected by this proposal have not been properly listened to and had their concerns heard. The Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara—the APY people—the Maralinga Tjarutja people and the Kokatha Uwankara people have all raised concerns in relation to the proposals in this bill. They have raised these concerns over several years. Despite this, the level of consultation has been far from authentic. In fact, it has bordered on tokenism.

This bill operates to open up the Woomera Prohibited Area for mining and then sets conditions for access. The previous Labor government first introduced the bill in May 2013 in response to the Hawke review about what might be the best use of the Woomera Prohibited Area. That review was initiated in 2010 by the then Minister for Defence. The Woomera Prohibited Area is Australia's most significant military-testing range. The South Australian government asserts that over the next decade a valuable quantity of iron ore, gold and other minerals is potentially exploitable from the area. The Woomera Prohibited Area involves recognised traditional owners and significant Indigenous sites.

Public consultation in relation to the proposals in this bill allowed three working days for initial submissions. After the former defence minister, with the former resources minister, released the draft exposure legislation on 8 May 2013, stakeholders had only three working days to see it and to make a submission in relation to it. This was despite the deep impacts it would have on the communities who live there and whose futures will depend on the outcomes of any development in the area.

One public consultation workshop occurred in Adelaide on 10 May 2013. Given the location of the area and its traditional owners, and the factors that must be taken into account in order to do meaningful consultation with Aboriginal individuals, groups and representative bodies, it speaks for itself that this cannot be counted as real Indigenous consultation. The Australian Greens maintain that this is clearly not adequate.

On 24 May 2013 the South Australian government hosted a discussion between Defence officials and traditional owners of the Maralinga and APY Lands about the proposed legislation. But let us consider the three groups of Aboriginal people who will be most substantially affected by this legislation. Under South Australia's Maralinga Tjarutja Land Rights Act 1984, the Maralinga Tjarutja people have been managing all access and mining issues in relation to the 100,000 square kilometre Maralinga Lands since 1984 and in relation to the former nuclear test sites since 2010. The Maralinga Lands comprise over 100,000 square kilometres of land in the north-west of South Australia and cover approximately 40 per cent of the Woomera Prohibited Area.

In their submission to the inquiry about this bill, the traditional owners state that they had been denied access to their lands during the Maralinga nuclear test program from 1956 to 1963, and indeed until 1984. They emphasise that this caused enormous cultural and social dislocation for the traditional owners, who had been transferred to the Yalata Lutheran Mission in 1955. And in South Australia we are still seeing the flow-on effects of that cultural and social dislocation to this day. These are some of the most disadvantaged and impoverished peoples in South Australia. The South Australian land rights act redressed this by returning the traditional lands of the Maralinga traditional owners to a corporate body, Maralinga Tjarutja, established by the act to represent the traditional owners' interests.

The submission of the Maralinga and APY peoples to the inquiry on this bill was frank about the history of the consultations between the Department of Defence and the Hawke review in relation to this issue. The reading of that submission is telling. The efforts at consultation, in fact, have been very poor. The Hawke review was initiated in 2010. The Maralinga Tjarutja heard about it in May 2011 when the report was released. Lawyers representing the Maralinga people advised my colleague Australian Greens Senator Ludlam that, although they approached the former defence minister in 2011, it was not until that meeting on 24 May 2013 that these people had any form of input into the proposal. By this stage, not only had the Hawke review made its conclusions but the legislation in response to the report had been prepared.

There is a shameful backstory here, which I think it is very important we are aware of. The Maralinga Tjarutja people have endured the use of nuclear weapons and the resulting and ongoing health issues associated with their land being exposed to nuclear blasts, including the radioactive contamination of their traditional lands. They deserve the dignity of consultation about lands they have managed for 27 years and over which they have been the traditional custodians for many, many more. This is particularly so as the bill has the capacity to diminish their land rights and as their interests were not taken into account in the Hawke review. The APY people support the Maralinga people and each group, in jointly submitting to the inquiry, state they have suffered enough as a result of weapons testing on their lands.

Another Aboriginal group in the area, the Kokatha people, are dissatisfied that protocols being implemented in the area may disturb sensitive sites and that activities have taken place in the area without the relevant permission. There are already problems in how the Woomera area has been handled. Opening it up to mining could exacerbate those.

The Kokatha Uwankara native title claim group is currently the registered native title claimant in respect of vast areas encompassed within the Woomera Prohibited Area, including the Woomera township. The group submitted, in relation to the inquiry on this bill, that the occurrence of Aboriginal sites of significance to the Kokatha people is prolific. They occur within the township of Woomera and all over the pastoral leases situated within the Woomera Prohibited Area. They submitted that many of these sites have been recorded by members of their group and many of the sites are known to the Kokatha people but have not been recorded on the relevant South Australian government register. They say, indeed, that the location of many sites is confidential according to the traditional laws and governance and customs of the Kokatha and that divulgence of information to persons who are not entitled to know that location may be a contravention of Aboriginal tradition under South Australian law.

Their submission is unequivocal: that the proposal to open the Woomera Protected Area to mining and exploration is of great concern to the Kokatha people. Indeed, they submitted that the Commonwealth government should ensure no exploration licences, mining tenements or permissions to access are granted over the areas. They state this is because the native title claimants and traditional owners will not permit any damage to sites of significance.

It is clear that parts of the mining sector have been consulted in relation to this bill. Our mineral resources are owned by all of us, and they are finite—once they are mined, they are gone forever. It is for this reason that the Australian Greens have long advocated that the wealth we generate from exploiting those resources must be shared appropriately among the whole community while they last, while we still have them. The Australian Greens are adamant that there must be fairness in how we distribute the wealth generated by mining. It will not last forever and it must be distributed fairly, for the benefit for all those most directly affected and for the broader community.

This bill, and the inadequate consultation exercise that has occurred in relation to the Aboriginal people who live on the land, is a very tangible example of a lack of fairness. The Indigenous consultation in relation to this legislation has not been adequate. Because of this, the underlying premises of the bill about the best use of the land and the best conditions to set on that use—which has been deduced to be mining—cannot be relied upon and we cannot support this bill.

The Australian Greens are not opposed outright to mineral exploration in the Woomera Prohibited Area. We are, however, resolutely opposed to this occurring without authentic negotiations with the traditional owners. We also believe that this bill, with its significant implications and consequences, should be subject—as with most legislation with similar consequences—to a thorough and complete Senate inquiry. The Australian Greens will seek to ensure that the environment in the area is not degraded and that the rights of the Aboriginal people affected are respected and upheld. Thank you.

Alex Gallacher (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am very pleased to make some remarks in respect to the Defence Legislation Amendment (Woomera Prohibited Area) Bill 2013 now that I have had the benefit of hearing a number of other speakers. My remarks are in no particular order, but I want to address some of the issues raised by Senator Wright.

I actually had the absolute honour and privilege of opening a trade training centre in the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara Lands on behalf of Minister Garrett. There was a contribution there from an Aboriginal leader, a woman, who stood up and said, 'This is good: we want real jobs—real jobs for our young people.' It made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up, as it should for everybody, because there was a fair dinkum senior Aboriginal person saying: 'This is a great investment—a trade training centre for our young people, and we want jobs.'

You might ask: where are the jobs? Sure, there are some jobs at Uluru—there are some hospitality and chef jobs. But, increasingly, there has been employment at Prominent Hill, which is very close to Woomera. So, for me, this is all about getting our objectives of Closing the Gap to reality. Any research you do on this bill will lead you to submissions. And there have been submissions from Indigenous groups. There have been submissions, obviously, from the resource sector—but, importantly, the resource sector and the Indigenous groups are at one on this issue. The Antakirinja Matu-Yankunytjatjara Aboriginal Corporation highlight the in-principle financial and wider community benefits of royalties stemming from resource based projects.

There was an Indigenous group that raised concerns that the 2007 Woomera Prohibited Area Indigenous Heritage Management Plan had largely been ignored by Defence when they were conducting activities in the WPA. However, there have been extensive consultations. I absolutely reject Senator Wright's position with respect to this. I think there is a growing awareness in Indigenous communities. Increasingly, there are facilities to train young people. And there are young people, and not-so-young people, already engaged in these mining activities. An increase in mining activities in this area can only benefit the Indigenous community there and will go a long way to providing some of the objectives which have been sought by the parliament with respect to closing the gap.

There is an interesting comment that is largely ignored by Defence in conducting activities on the WPA. I had the benefit of hearing Senator Johnston's contribution and I have done a little bit of reading in respect of this bill. There is a really interesting use of language. I am sure even Senator Brandis would like this sentence:

IMX Resources Ltd stressed the need for more responsive communication from Defence in relation to its decision making processes so as to achieve more commercially acceptable response times.

That is a great gathering of sentiments in one very eloquent sentence. This really goes to the heart of the matter. Quite properly the minister has been captured by the Department of Defence. I suppose Defence priorities are overriding what I think are more critical priorities. It would appear that Defence has a history of not conducting its communication in a responsive and commercially acceptable manner.

Senator Johnston also raised the 70-day rail closure. It would shut down Alice Springs and shut down Darwin! There would be no food, no fruit, no veggies! The question that was occurring to me—hopefully I will get someone to research this—was: what is the history of rail closures? Senator Johnston did say that there had been a three-hour interruption. That is the history. There have been minimal interruptions to the rail. I suppose—dare I say it?—that Defence, in their drafting of, or looking at, any legislation would be thinking about what their job is and what is the worst-case scenario.

I suppose that if the country were under threat we could probably cop the rail being shut down for 70 days. I think that history says that Douglas MacArthur landed at a place up in the top of Australia after coming by DC3, or whatever it was, from the Philippines. He got on a train and ended up at Quorn or thereabouts. So at a time when we were under extreme threat, the rail was running 24 hours a day.

Don Farrell (SA, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for the Centenary of ANZAC) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Terowie was where he stopped.

Alex Gallacher (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Terowie was where it was. I think it was stretching a very long bow to say that Defence requirements would be for 70 days of closure, when the history is that they have shut it down, or had an interruption, of three hours.

The rail is a critical piece of national infrastructure. It was built by the Howard government after 100 years of agitation. It was finally built, and the only thing that is going to make that rail pay—I do know a little bit about transport—is mining. We would need spur lines and bulk cartage of iron ore, or whatever minerals are commercially viable in that area, and get it directly to an export port.

I know that the Minister for Mineral Resources and Energy in South Australia is a very vigorous, at times very controversial, character. I share his urgency about this. I share Senator Farrell's urgency about this. I hope Senator Fawcett is going to get up and have a go as well, because South Australia's fiscal position is not great. I had the awful experience of having 'horizontal fiscal equalisation' explained to me and I heard the term 'mendicant state' used with respect to Tasmania and South Australia. That is not a very good experience because that term refers to begging. We do not want South Australia to be the begging-bowl state. We want it to be a state that is growing, adding to the prosperity of citizens in South Australia and adding to the prosperity of Australia in full.

This is very important legislation and, I think—just from listening to his contribution—that Senator Johnston has been captured by the Department of Defence. He is the defence minister so that is probably entirely logical.

It is critically important to South Australia that we open this area up to exploration. I will give you a couple of examples of some of the things that the Labor government have done in this area. We have opened facilities in the electorate of Grey, directly in the vicinity of this area. I will give you some distances a bit later on. At Caritas College we spent $1.4 million on a trades training centre. At Umuwa, in the APY Lands, we spent $7.3 million on a trades training centre. At Streaky Bay we spent $2.1 million on a trades training centre. We spent $9.9 million on Eyre and Western Multi Trade Training Centre. At the Pichi Richi Trade Training Centre we spent $6.5 million.

What we have is a geographical area which is rich in resources. As Senator Farrell has said Geoscience Australia has identified an area with huge potential. We have surrounding communities which are not always doing it as well, economically, as they could. We have infrastructure which is capable of training people up to mine standards. In Whyalla they do a huge amount of the training for workers at Olympic Dam. They have highly technical training courses and they have entry courses. We even have courses where long-term unemployed people go in there for 12 weeks. They must meet hard-hat, safety-vest and other mine induction safety policies—no alcohol, no drugs; they are drug tested for 12 weeks. They are work hardened, they get experience and skills and they are promoted into the mining industry. The more opportunity we can create in the mining industry, in the electorate of Grey in particular, the more it will be vastly beneficial not only to South Australia and regional Australia but also to Australia as a whole.

In this environment, we have had delay. I dare say Senator Johnston's comments about the delay under the previous Labor government were shared by me, Senator Farrell, Minister Koutsantonis and others in the South Australian government, because we are impatient about this. We want to get this done. But I am getting the feeling that Senator Johnston's contribution was that Defence is probably running the argument and holds greater sway.

We also know that there have been other Defence areas in South Australia which have had problems consulting with the community around Whyalla. There have been court cases about land users and their rights. So we know it is a touchy issue, but that should not stop any South Australian on any side of this house pushing to open up this window of opportunity to make our state a more productive, better place to live and to provide more opportunity.

I will give you an example of what this sort of activity might mean. Woomera is 8.6 kays from Pimba. Pimba has always been a rail town; there are not a lot of people there, but it was quite a functional very small town, providing employment predominantly on the railways. Woomera is 79 kilometres from Roxby Downs. For those who know Roxby Downs, there are over 4,000 people there. There are 600 kids at school there. I had the absolute honour of officiating at a couple of functions there for BER, one at the Catholic school and one at the public school. There is a refreshing community, a young community, a new and vibrant community, and it is 79 kays from the Woomera area. The Woomera area, as we know, is 120,000 square kilometres, so there may well be a lot of additional travel. There is Andamooka. Andamooka is fast growing out of being a little village of isolated opal miners. They are providing accommodation and a workforce for Olympic Dam for those who choose not to fly-in fly-out.

Woomera is 181 kilometres from Port Augusta. Port Augusta is becoming an increasingly vibrant city. It has a lot of workers who do not fly-in fly-out; they drive-in drive-out. Woomera is 220 kilometres from Quorn. Woomera is 252 kays from Whyalla—and, if you visit Whyalla, book ahead, because the place is always busy. Fortunately, the predictions of the former opposition, now the government, that Whyalla would be wiped off the map were totally wrong. You cannot get a bed there.

George Brandis (Queensland, Liberal Party, Attorney-General) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It's because we're repealing the carbon tax.

Alex Gallacher (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You cannot get a bed there, Senator Brandis, when you go to Whyalla. You have to book a couple of days in advance to get a motel room. You will not get a hotel room; they will be all booked out. But Whyalla is still there, it is functioning and it has a very good, strong, mining oriented workforce.

There is Port Pirie, which is 271.7 kilometres from the Woomera zone. Once again, they have their issues with Nyrstar, but Nyrstar is hopefully going to get its new smelter going. It is a good sized town, capable of providing a workforce for this area.

Woomera is 374 kays from Wallaroo. Wallaroo has been a recipient of the drive-in drive out workforce because there are very nice accommodations, very nice waterfront shacks—as they are sometimes called in South Australia, but they are very far from that. There are very nice developments in Wallaroo. A lot of people drive into and drive out from Olympic Dam. They will drive up for their fortnight there and then they will drive back. It is probably a little bit more civilised than flying in and out of Hobart, Perth or wherever. A five- or six-hour drive to work at the beginning of the fortnight and then back after each fortnight is something that South Australians are quite capable of doing and quite happy to do. Predominantly, people do like to live on the coast, so the close proximity of Wallaroo, Moonta, Port Augusta, Whyalla and the like is very useful. You can even go down to Port Lincoln; it is only half a thousand, 517, kilometres away!

The point I am making is that there is already a lot of expertise, there is already a lot of infrastructure, there are trade-training centres, there is a workforce and there is a need to get our state moving. This opportunity should not be delayed anymore, and I really do not care who the delay is caused by. I would like to see Senator Farrell's bill supported so we can actually get on and do the job, which is opening this area up for exploration, managing the Defence expectations and managing the Indigenous people's expectations—fulfilling our obligations in that, if we train kids in an Indigenous community, we really need to have somewhere for them to go. This may well be one of those generational opportunities which will see Indigenous kids trained, given an opportunity and claiming the right as Australians to get a decent job, earn decent money and take that back to their families.

The reality, though—and I will make a political point—is that, despite all of this investment in the electorate of Grey, the trade training centres and our other attempts to open up the area, it is a blue-ribbon Liberal seat. So we are not playing politics here. We are not saying that we only want to look after the people who may be displaced out of manufacturing in Adelaide. We are saying we want look after the whole state.

It is vitally important that Defence, as a significant contributor to the South Australian economy, is supported too. But it is critically important that, with the demise of car manufacturing in South Australia, another opportunity opens up and that we do have a coherent plan. The coherent plan would be: let us get, as Senator Farrell says, into a construction phase in mining. That will give some hope to those people in business or in jobs in Adelaide who are facing a pretty grim outlook. Those who know Adelaide well would know that the north side of the city has traditionally had horrendous levels of youth unemployment. We cannot break that cycle without proper training programs into real jobs. We cannot break that cycle without it. This is one opportunity.

As I said earlier, I share Senator Farrell's and Mr Koutsantonis's sense of urgency about this legislation. I was extremely upset when this bill was referred to a committee, because we thought it was self-evident that this was the way to go. We can manage the Indigenous issues. We can manage the defence issues. Complaints by resource companies and Indigenous companies about the way that Defence communicates is, I think, something that Senator Johnston should take up. He should take that up. To come in and say that the bill is flawed because we could have a 70-day shutdown and no-one in Alice Springs or Darwin would get a loaf of bread, a pint of milk, an apple or an orange is, I think, probably drawing an extremely long bow.

I accept that the legislation must be correct—and no doubt Senator Brandis will be crossing the i's and dotting the t's on this legislation. You cannot have legislation that you can drive a truck through, so it all does need to be signed off. But I repeat: this is a very urgent matter. I do not really care who you want to attribute the delay to, whether you want to attribute it to us or to the previous minister; I just want it fixed. I think we have to get on with it. It is vital to South Australia's future, it is vital to the prosperity of South Australian electors and citizens and it will add value to the whole of Australia. So let's do it.

David Fawcett (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I cannot agree more with my erstwhile colleague on the other side of the Senate chamber that the Defence Legislation Amendment (Woomera Prohibited Area) Bill 2013 is vitally important to South Australia from two aspects. I come to this debate with two hats, if you like, or two parts to my background—and one is a defence background. In fact, as the former commanding officer of the Aircraft Research and Development Unit, Woomera was a critical piece of infrastructure to the work that we did in testing air weapons and in supporting test and development science and technology—whether it be things like scramjet engines, space re-entry vehicles or military equipment from other nations.

It is a critical piece of infrastructure. It is critically important not only to Australia's national defence and the interests of our allies but also to South Australia's defence industry, which, as Senator Gallacher would know, is actually a key employer of South Australians. In fact, we in South Australia have more than 25 per cent of the defence spend on defence materiel. Having said that, I am also conscious—having seen the incredible and immediate impact of BHP's decision not to proceed with their mine development in South Australia on confidence and how it flowed onto contracts, onto jobs and onto an economic downturn in economic activity in South Australia—of the urgency of making sure that we do in fact open up the assets that are there in Woomera for mining, for the benefit of the Australian economy and particularly for the South Australian economy, including not only the major miners but the SMEs who support them and, as Senator Gallacher pointed out, the employment opportunities that come for Indigenous people.

So there is absolutely no doubt from the perspective of the coalition and particularly of those of us from South Australia that we see this as something that we need to do and do quickly, but we also need to do it correctly. If there is one lesson that I have learnt through my career as an experimental test pilot it is that, no matter the urgency, you must get things right because unintended consequences will cause harm. We only have to look at the last period of Australia's governance to see that there were a number of well-intended programs that were rolled out quickly, bypassing some of the normal due diligence processes, and that had horrific unintended consequences, causing economic or indeed, in some cases, personal harm. So it is important that we do get it right.

From the defence perspective, this 124,000 square kilometres of Australian territory is used not only for training but also for an air weapons test range. Land use issues have traditionally been something that Defence has managed well, albeit often on a very ad hoc or informal basis in terms of agreements with landholders on land use. But we do see examples where those arrangements have not worked out. Serious capabilities that Australia has decided to invest in, such as stand-off weapons, have been delayed because the final end-to-end testing with high-explosive warheads has been delayed because of land use and land access issues and the inability to find a suitably safe template for testing that weapon, given the existence of land users.

So, from the defence perspective, this exercise around clarifying existing and future uses and the rules under which all parties will cooperate is actually quite important to being able to maintain a predictable and effective capability development system for our air weapons. Contrary to some of the comments that perhaps the government has been captured by Defence and that we are looking to delay because of Defence's interests, it is actually in Defence's interests to make sure that the rules and arrangements around access are in place and agreed so that when we have an important program, whether it be ours, industry's or one of our allies', we have the confidence to know that that program can continue and can be implemented in accordance with an agreed set of rules.

From the perspective of the South Australian economy, it is estimated that there is some $35 billion worth of resource in the Gawler Craton region ready to be tapped, which will generate all of the activity that I spoke about before. The four mines that are currently there—Challenger, the goldmine; Prominent Hill, with copper and gold; Cairn Hill, which has a range of iron ore, magnetite, copper and gold; and Peculiar Knob, with iron ore—are examples of the fact that the mining industry and Defence can coexist on the Woomera Prohibited Area. As Geoscience have said in their submission to the inquiry, the potential is significant to expand that investment and those employment opportunities in the WPA. That will have a flow-on effect to the rest of South Australia, which is important. Again, as Senator Gallacher highlighted, if you start talking to some of our ratings agencies, South Australia, disappointingly in the view of some, is not only on par with Tasmania but is in fact rated worse than Tasmania from an economic perspective. That is a dreadful state of affairs for both of our states but particularly for South Australia given that we have so much potential that is sitting there ready to be developed and to develop our young people.

Unfortunately the politics gets in the way of this, and I want to address the politics briefly before moving to more of the substance of the bill. There have been a lot of comments this morning and a number of accusations that this government is unnecessarily delaying the bill. I would like to put a little bit of the history of this legislation onto the Hansard record to address some of those concerns. As the minister stated, the Hawke review was conducted. It started in 2010 and reported in 2011. It was clear from the recommendations of the Hawke review, in terms of how the author intended that to be dealt with by the government—the classification of legislation in terms of urgency—that his clear expectation was that the government would have dealt with that in the calendar year 2011. It was a long two years before we finally saw the legislation, and the draft exposure bill was only available for a week for stakeholders to look at. Given what I have just canvassed previously about the importance to national security and to the South Australian economy, to give stakeholders a week—in effect, five days—to read, understand, consider and make comment on such an important piece of legislation is negligent.

The opposition has made the comment numerous times this morning that the government just flicked it off as though it was purely our role. Can I remind them that the Selection of Bills Committee, the committee that considers and approves whether legislation that has come through the lower house goes to a committee, was actually chaired by a South Australian Labor senator. That committee signed off and approved it, and it came to this chamber for approval. This chamber, which at that time had a majority of ALP and Greens members, who controlled the vote, approved that report of the Selection of Bills Committee and referred it to the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Legislation Committee. That committee, at the time chaired by you, Madam Deputy President Stephens, looked at it and said, 'Yes, it is reasonable that we proceed.' But we understood and agreed that there was an urgency around that, so we agreed that we would set a time for a hearing so that we could have that hearing even if the election was called and then progress this legislation.

When the election was called the coalition members on the committee said we would like to continue with the hearing, which was only a matter of days away from the meeting. We said we would like to have that meeting in Adelaide, we would like to continue the hearing so that we could report. But unfortunately the then government members said no, the election was a priority. So that was canned.

Unfortunately Senator Farrell has been accusing the defence minister of going back on his word. I refer to the media release that the Minister for Defence sent out. What he said was:

The Coalition has agreed to complete the Senate Inquiry prior to the September 14 election and is committed to progressing the legislation so that broader access to the WPA lands will commence before Christmas 2013 .

Clearly if the members of the committee voted to not go ahead with the hearing, which was the precursor to getting it done by Christmas, then it is somewhat emotional and irrational and, you must therefore suspect, purely political for Senator Farrell to say that it is the coalition who are delaying this. That hearing did not go ahead not because of our wishes but because other members decided that the election was the priority. That being the case it then became impossible to actually continue the development of that legislation prior to Christmas.

Senator Farrell talked about the urgency and why it is important to get things right. On ABC 639 in South Australia, the Minister for Mineral Resources and Energy in the South Australia government, Minister Koutsantonis, came out very critically about the fact that this had been referred to a committee. He clearly did not understand the processes within the Senate whereby bills that come from the lower house go through the process that I have just described. It is an example of where accusations can be made and false assumptions can be made when people have not done the homework to understand why due processes are in place. It is important from both a national defence perspective and an economic perspective that we get this bill right.

One of the themes that is worth talking about is just understanding the framework that has been put forward in terms of the principles of coexistence, understanding why there are some issues that need to be resolved. The principle of coexistence that the Hawke review drew on was that there is significant scope to increase the national value of the Woomera Prohibited Area, to have a coexistence of economic interests with national security. It recognised that Defence should remain the primary user of the WPA and that, under regulation 34 of the Defence Force Regulations 1952, it has the authority to control access.

But the idea was to put in place a framework whereby Defence agreed with other parties how that access would be made. One of the ways they came up with to mitigate the risk and maximise access was the concept of exclusion periods and exclusion zones. They looked at the concept of three zones: the red zone, where there is frequent Defence use and where no new users that are not Defence users would be admitted; the amber zone, where there is periodic Defence use and where there will therefore be some restrictions around the amount of infrastructure that people can build and the amount of access they can have to it, because at times that area will be subject to potentially damaging war materials being tested; and the green zone, where there is infrequent Defence use, but which Defence still needs to maintain within the WPA for the purposes of the probabilistic determination of safety templates. Clearly the smaller the area, the higher the probability of impact, while in a larger area you could have areas with a very low probability of impact and still allow people to use them.

An example of the sorts of problems you have when you start going through the Hawke review, the information paper and then the draft legislation is recommendation 24 of the Hawke review. It says:

The Defence Minister should have discretion to suspend all non-Defence access to the WPA when there is an urgent national Defence requirement.

That flows through to the information paper which, at paragraph 49, says:

In addition to suspension due to the accumulation of demerit points—

that is if other parties have done the wrong thing—

it is proposed that the Minister for Defence would have the discretion to suspend all non-Defence access to the WPA for the defence of Australia.

A few definitional issues arise here. How do you define 'the defence of Australia'? Is it purely somebody coming over our northern borders? Is it when our forces are deployed somewhere? Is it a decision of the National Security Committee of cabinet? There are a range of definitional things there that create uncertainty for both parties. How long can they suspend it for? Is that something there are limits on? Particularly if we are not talking about hordes coming over our northern borders and it is some sort of offshore activity, how long is it reasonable for Defence to have that exclusive use? If Defence decides that it needs exclusive use then, given the investment that mining companies may have made in infrastructure and employing staff, what compensation will there be? One of the main concerns that miners have raised with me in talking about this is: 'If Defence chooses to enact this, what compensation is there for us?' That becomes almost an unlimited liability, in turn affecting their ability to attract capital to make their investment.

So there are some definitional things here, particularly when you look at the exposure draft and you look at the limits on the amounts of compensation. In part 8, paragraph 61(1) it says:

For the purposes of section 72TL of the Act, the amount payable by the Commonwealth in respect of a claim by a person against the Commonwealth for loss or damage suffered in the Woomera Prohibited Area is limited to $2 million.

There is no indication there whether that is purely loss due to physical harm, as in munitions exploding and damage being done, or whether that is loss due to exclusion from the range.

So there are some critical issues that need to be explored. It is notable that the South Australian government raised concerns in October that have been addressed, as have the Northern Territory and other bodies. Well after the period that the previous government was hoping to have this legislation passed, concerns were still being raised, and that is why it is important not only that we do have an inquiry but that that inquiry informs the bill. Certainly the expectation that members of the committee had last year was that this debate would not occur until after we had held the inquiry, submissions had come in and the committee had considered those submissions and reported.

The coalition is committed to moving this forward. The coalition is committed to getting an outcome that works for the South Australian economy and that works for the national defence of Australia. But to rush it through without due diligence is not actually helping either of those parties that we wish to help. The mere fact that both parties are exposed to costs around this issue of delays and compensation— and that has not been clearly resolved—is something that needs further discussion and needs a head of power in the legislation. The very nature of testing is that things will go wrong, which will delay programs. Weather events can delay test activities. So the only option Defence has is either to book unrealistically large blocks of time, which then disadvantages the mining sector, or, when they have people and equipment that have come from all around the world and there is a large cost involved and perhaps weather delays mean that they need to just extend by one more day to complete the test, where is the mechanism, where is the head of power to allow a mechanism, whereby both parties can efficiently and effectively manage this arrangement in the best interests of the nation and of South Australia?

The coalition is committed to this. We made that point last year when we were in opposition. We made that point through the committee process. We have made that point this year in the Senate by explaining, through the Manager of Government Business, that the government was bringing forward legislation to table. I am disappointed that we are here debating this today when, in a matter of weeks, we will have government legislation, informed by an inquiry, that can bring a more holistic, fully researched and understood solution that will benefit the people of South Australia and assure our national interests. The coalition remains committed to achieving the intent of the Hawke review, which is more economic and appropriate utilisation of the national resource represented by the WPA.

Nick Xenophon (SA, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to make some remarks based on Senator Fawcett's contribution. At the outset I want to be clear that I will reserve my final position on Defence Legislation Amendment (Woomera Prohibited Area) Bill until the Senate Foreign Affair, Defence and Trade Committee has completed its report. However, I do have some concerns with respect to this bill, particularly in relation to the traditional owners of the land in question. But, having said that, I think what Senator Farrell has done by bringing this bill forward is a very worthy thing. This is an issue that needs to be resolved. I can understand Senator Farrell's frustration at the delays in appropriately dealing with this bill through the committee process. I do not want to get into the claims and the counterclaims with respect to that, but I do congratulate Senator Farrell for bringing this bill forward because it is an issue that must be resolved. I believe that Senator Farrell's bill, with appropriate amendments, ought to be passed.

I noticed that Senator Fawcett referred to Minister Tom Koutsantonis in South Australia. I think it is fair to say that Minister Koutsantonis is a passionate advocate of the mining industry in South Australia. He has done a lot of good work in respect of that and infrastructure. No-one could accuse Minister Koutsantonis of being in any way dilatory in his duties by trying to expand mining in the state of South Australia. He sees the benefits of a strong, sustainable mining industry, and I congratulate him on that. I, too, support the mining industry, but of course subject to the big caveat of the environmental impact and also the impact on water tables, particularly with hydraulic fracking. That is another issue.

Let us go to the bill that Senator Farrell has presented to us and the important issues it raises. When this bill was introduced by the former government, I was approached by representatives of the Maralinga and Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara people, who shared with me their long history of fighting to regain rights to their traditional lands. Those traditional owners had been removed from their lands and transferred to the Yalata Lutheran Mission in 1955 and continued to be denied access to those lands until 1984. That is a period of 29 years that they were denied access to their homes, to their lands. This obviously caused huge cultural and social dislocation for the traditional owners, and that is shameful.

In an attempt to redress this, the South Australian government handed back the traditional lands to the Maralinga Tjarutja corporate body, or MT, in 1984. The act, in part, allows the Maralinga Tjarutja to act in accordance with the wishes and opinions of the traditional owners in relation to the management, use and control of the lands and to negotiate with persons seeking access to or use of the lands.

Currently, the Woomera Prohibited Area covers about 40 per cent of the Maralinga lands, including Section 400, where the British nuclear tests took place. After years of negotiation, the Commonwealth, South Australia and MT agreed on an appropriate clean-up and rehabilitation of this area, which occurred between 1993 and 2001. Better late than never, I guess. As a result, all but 200 square kilometres of Section 400 are now fit for permanent Aboriginal habitation. These 200 square kilometres are contaminated with plutonium and contain buried debris from the nuclear tests. In many cases, no-one knows exactly what these burial areas contain.

After this rehabilitation was completed, Section 400 was handed back to the traditional owners in 2009. Part of this hand-back included the formation of the Maralinga land management plan, which makes the MT responsible for controlling access to Maralinga Village and the former test sites. MT currently uses a permit system, locked gates on the only public road entrance and a security officer and caretaker at Maralinga Village to ensure the area is secure. MT has also established guided tours of the site and Maralinga Village, which generate an important revenue stream. Both MT and APY are supportive of mining and petroleum explorations on their land and have negotiated successfully with companies to facilitate exploration.

I note that the basis for this bill is the recommendations from the Hawke review of the Woomera Prohibited Area, which was released in May 2011. MT expressed their concerns about the consultation process during this review. Their submission to the Senate Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade References Committee states:

It—

that is, the final report—

differed markedly from the Interim Report in that it no longer included “indigenous freehold land” in the Terms and Definitions, and almost all of the many references to indigenous people, usually regarding the cultural and spiritual significance of the land, had been excluded from the final report.

That is, in part, what the submission says. They are very salient and important points.

Despite the fact that MT wrote to the minister after the report was released requesting urgent consultation, they were never consulted. In fact, the Department of Defence did not consult with MT until the draft of this bill was released by the former government. That is really not good enough when you look at the history of that land. This was used as a nuclear testing site. It took decades to rehabilitate it. These people were dislocated and displaced for decades. I think that was completely unsatisfactory.

MT believes that Section 400 should be fully removed from the Woomera Prohibited Area. Almost all of Section 400 has been rehabilitated and is now fit for human habitation. The result of the five-year consultations before Section 400 was handed back to the traditional owners was that the access to the land is strictly controlled by those owners. MT has built an income stream from tourism based on its ownership and control of those lands. Further, the risks of mining and other exploration in Section 400 were considered so great, due to buried waste, that it is exempt from South Australia's Mining Act. It is MT's view—and I agree—that the time, effort and money that has gone into rehabilitating Section 400, as well as the potential risks, mean that no Defence activities or weapons testing should take place on it. I think they have had enough of being a testing ground for weapons, particularly after what occurred in the 1950s. Removing Section 400 from the Woomera Prohibited Area and allowing its traditional owners to have full control over the land will be an important step in recognising the social and cultural dislocation these people have suffered.

It is also important to note that APY, some of whose traditional owners also suffered as a result of the British nuclear tests, also fully supports the removal of the Woomera Prohibited Area from the whole of Section 400. To not have consulted appropriately with them only adds insult to very real injury.

As I indicated at the outset, I will reserve my position on this bill until the committee inquiry is complete. But I share Senator Farrell's frustration about the delays in respect of that. I also think that what Senator Farrell is doing by bringing this bill forward is a very worthy thing. This is an issue that must be addressed. This is an issue that can and ought to be explored, subject to appropriate environmental safeguards. I will support this bill's second reading and flag that, if it proceeds, I will be moving amendments to ensure that Section 400 is exempt. I believe that this is the only option to ensure that Maralinga's traditional owners and their cultural links to the land are properly acknowledged. Given what they have been through, it is the very least we ought to do.

Ursula Stephens (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to make a contribution to the debate on the Defence Legislation Amendment (Woomera Prohibited Area) Bill 2013. I thank Senator Xenophon for his contribution. Almost everyone who has spoken this morning, other than the minister, has been a South Australian senator, so they have a very intimate knowledge of the geography and the complexity of the relationships in South Australia in relation to this bill.

I was in the chamber listening to the very calm and persuasive contribution from Senator Fawcett. I was a bit nonplussed by his suggestion that politics are being played here. In his speech he made a comment that I need to correct quite specifically. I was the chair of the committee that was considering this bill in the last parliament. The issue that led us to decide not to continue with the public hearings was that the committee never put a caveat on or discussed arrangements for the hearings to continue even if the election were called. That was never a point of discussion. It is a practice in many of the committees that I have served on in this place that, as a matter of course, when the writs are issued for an election—when the election is called and parliament is prorogued—the committee does not continue. That is the decision that was taken at the time. It had nothing to do with being political about the bill or about the hearings.

Senator Farrell is absolutely right: in those discussions there was a commitment by the then opposition spokesman, now the Minister for Defence, that he would bring the bill to the parliament and that it would be resolved by Christmas. I share Senator Farrell's frustration. It is absolutely within his political right to bring forward a private member's bill when he can see that there is such inaction on the issue. Senator Farrell is to be congratulated for his persistence in ensuring that this debate actually gets to the chamber to be debated. We know from Senator Farrell's contributions and from the discussion that has already been had that this is substantially the same bill that lapsed in the previous parliament. Senator Farrell has included some amendments to the bill to address concerns that were raised with us by some of the stakeholders prior to the proroguing of parliament.

If you have heard only the contribution from Senator Xenophon, you might think that this bill is just about the Maralinga lands. This bill is more broadly about authorising the defence minister to make Woomera Prohibited Area rules that, amongst other things, define zones that are able to be demarcated within that area and create a permit system for access to and use by non-defence users of the Woomera Prohibited Area. The bill introduces offences and penalties for entering the Woomera Prohibited Area without permission and for failing to comply with a condition of a permit—as we have heard from Senator Xenophon, the permits are managed by the Maralinga trust—and provides for compensation for acquisition of property from a person otherwise than on just terms that results from the operation of new part VIB of the Defence Act 1903.

We have heard this morning a lot of argy-bargy about the fact that the previous version of the bill was introduced into the last parliament. It was introduced on 30 May in the House of Representatives. It then came to the Senate and was referred on 18 June to the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Legislation Committee. Senator Fawcett drew a fairly long bow by suggesting that Senator McEwen, the chair of the Scrutiny of Bills Committee and a South Australian, had a peculiar and particular parochial interest in this referral. In fact, the reason the Scrutiny of Bills Committee referred this was, as stated in Alert Digest No. 6 of 2013:

While the explanatory memorandum does provide information about the rationale, the committee is not persuaded that strict liability will significantly enhance the enforcement of the regime. Perhaps the appropriateness of strict liability may depend on the nature of the conditions; however the explanatory memorandum does not address these issues. The committee therefore seeks a more detailed justification from the Minister as to the possible scope of any conditions and the appropriateness of the use of strict liability.

This is a very technical reference that the Scrutiny of Bills Committee identified. The committee often refers bills because an explanatory memorandum has perhaps not been fully prepared or has been prepared in haste, because some of the regulations have perhaps been poorly or hastily drafted, because some of the definitions are not clear or because there is a lack of consistency. As someone who has been the chair of the Scrutiny of Bills Committee and of other committees where we have had to deal with these things, I understand that that committee is doing its job to ensure that the quality of the legislation's drafting passes a benchmark that allows it to be tested fairly in other jurisdictional courts. That was the reason for the referral in the first place.

Once the committee received the reference, there was quite considerable debate among the committee members, which coincidently and for no particular reason is heavily weighted with South Australian senators. That committee has many South Australian senators on it, so a very testy kind of discussion went on. There were issues raised about the concerns of some members of that committee about whether or not the land should be opened to non-Defence users because of its integrity as an unencumbered testing area for Defence flight paths, exercises and things.

This became the way in which the discussion on this bill started to proceed. We kind of lost sight a little bit about the reason for the referral. However, it was absolutely the conviction of Senator Farrell, as a member of that committee with a specific interest, and of other members of the government, the opposition and the Greens that the bill stood on its merits more generally and should proceed as quickly as possible. Even the coalition at the time supported the bill in the House of Representatives and the shadow minister for defence science and personnel, Mr Robert, stressed that Defence's use of the Woomera Prohibited Area must remain 'of the primacy'. He said at the time:

The fact that there will now be, to use the government's term, a 'coexistence scheme' which will allow other non-Defence users to access the Woomera Prohibited Area may be acceptable if the appropriate steps are taken to ensure the area remains available and suitable for testing of defence capability. This is a unique capability that we possess and it is of the highest priority that we retain that capability. At this point, it is important to note that the bill will not alter the current arrangements as they apply to Indigenous landholders or pastoralists with an established presence or to existing mining operations. The provisions of the bill and new coexistence scheme will apply to new users—a line in the sand, if you will. Existing users will have the option of voluntarily joining the coexistence scheme established by these measures.

So there was general and overarching unanimous agreement; we were all furiously in agreement about the range of the bill. We have received now 12 substantial submissions to the inquiry, including one from the South Australian government, and every one has substantially supported the bill. Mr Robert also said at the time:

Given the Woomera Prohibited Area contains recognised traditional owners and significant Indigenous sites, it is appropriate the bill regulate how non-Defence users who gain access to it treat and protect those sites and comply with all relevant native title and Aboriginal heritage laws. The coalition is very comfortable with that. The bill ensures that Indigenous groups with current statutory and access rights expressly retain these rights and will not need to re-apply for permission under the bill. We support that; it is sensible.

That was the opposition spokesman at the time speaking to the legislation.

Earlier this week, as we know, Labor supported the motion by Senator Eggleston to extend the reporting time of the bill on the basis that the government was seeking more time to prepare the regulatory impact statement that they believed needed to be provided, even though they knew that this legislation had been listed for debate this morning. There was a certain sense of churlishness from some of the previous speakers that Senator Farrell had proceeded to list his private member's bill for debate this morning, as if somehow that was an inappropriate thing to do. Of course, it is the prerogative of every member of this Senate to pursue a private member's bill. This period of time on Thursday mornings is allocated to the debate of private member's bills. So Senator Farrell was doing nothing untoward in seeking to have this bill listed—out of frustration because it was first referred to our committee in June last year. He has obviously been frustrated by the fact that there has been no action taken.

Given the situation for the South Australian government, the job losses that have occurred there and the concern about trying to diversify the economic base of that state to continue to provide services for the people of South Australia, Senator Farrell has every right to bring the bill forward. The South Australian government has assessed that over the next decade there is potentially about $35 billion worth of iron ore, gold and other minerals available for mining from within the Woomera Prohibited Area. I think it is fair to say, given the current economic circumstances in South Australia, that the government is actively seeking ways to generate new economic activity and new revenue streams into that state—more power to their arm for doing so.

While the South Australian government has a financial interest in seeing the legislation go ahead, the other side of the coin is the other submissions that we have received to the inquiry which concern the desperate need to provide certainty for investors and the resource industry. The submissions to the inquiry indicate that there is general support for the legislation, including a strong submission from the Association of Mining and Exploration Companies as the peak national industry representative body for mineral exploration and mining companies within Australia—some of which are the small and emerging companies that are being nurtured through projects in South Australia. The AMEC strongly supports the proposed legislation which gives effect to the recommendations made in the final report of the review into the WPA, which were accepted by the previous government in 2011.

Senator Fawcett also had a bit of a go about the expectations of Dr Hawke, the author of the report, that there would be legislation drafted within a very short time frame to enact the recommendations of his report. I think it was a little disingenuous of Senator Fawcett to refer to a 15-month time frame for drafting a complex bill and negotiating with a myriad of stakeholders—including with the traditional owners about the very sensitive issue of the Maralinga lands following the five years of consultation that has already taken place—and to any expectation by Dr Hawke or by the parliament that the legislation could be drafted in haste. The idea that that was an unreasonable time frame is, as I say, pretty disingenuous.

The AMEC raised some concerns. I was really pleased to see that the combined government response to the inquiry quite seriously took on board many of the concerns that had been raised in the submissions. Additional changes, modifications and proposals to the draft rules reflect the consultation and the concerns that were raised. I want to briefly quote from the submission of the South Australian Chamber of Mines and Energy. That organisation represents over 340 members in the resources and energy sector in South Australia. The submission makes the point:

The Defence Legislation Amendment (Woomera Prohibited Area) Bill 2013 currently before the Senate is the final step in delivering a co-existence model for Resources, other stakeholders, and Defence industries to operate in this well regarded test range and highly prospective area. The Bill enables the Defence and Resources Ministers to develop a set of rules to allow permitted access to the Woomera Prohibited Area for a variety of new stakeholders.

It is SACOME’s opinion and that of the wider industry that the legislative framework as written is sufficient in outlining the detail for a permitting system to exist and for access arrangements to be organised through the Woomera Prohibited Area Rules 2013.

A further SACOME submission states:

The current draft as tabled by Senator Farrell contains amendments to the 2013 Bill that are acceptable and within the scope of the Hawke Review especially as it relates to the principles of co-existence. SACOME recommended in a previous submission on the bill that there be no amendments to section 72TP. The amendment to include the Resources Minister in creating Rules for the WPA is welcomed. Furthermore the refining of the definitions of Indigenous land owners is acceptable, and provides surety for these important land owners.

In our committee discussions this morning we had a robust to-and-fro debate again. The Chair, Senator Eggleston, indicated that the government was not going to support this bill and was going to bring forward its own bill. We had a robust discussion about whether the bill was going to be substantially different. We got some varied indications but were told that it was going to be substantially the same. I am interested that Senator Xenophon is looking to move some amendments to this bill, because the suggestion this morning was that the way forward would be for the government to introduce amendments to the bill that reflected its concerns and issues, be what they may. We are very unsure of what they are. That suggestion was rejected again, adding to Senator Farrell's frustration, and I cannot blame him.

One of the contributions to the discussions this morning was about the lack of consultation. I would refer everyone to the joint submission by the Department of Defence and the Department of Industry, which addresses that issue.

Since July 2013—

after the bill was referred to us—

Defence has been continuing consultation with different stakeholders of the WPA.

Indigenous groups

Defence has continued consultations with Indigenous groups around the proposed new arrangements. Indigenous groups sought formal written confirmation of their existing access permissions under the Defence Force Regulations, including confirmation that any entitlement to compensation would be on ‘just terms’. This has been provided by Defence.

Some Indigenous groups have also sought agreements to formalise working level consultation and communication as part of range administration. Defence is working with them on the shape and detail of these arrangements.

That submission goes on to address issues that have been raised in submissions by railway owners and operators, the Northern Territory government, the South Australian government and the WPA Advisory Board, and it addresses future activities. It concludes with a section on amendments made to the bill after stakeholder consultation.

I recommend that everyone take a deep breath, read the submission carefully and acknowledge that, for everyone in South Australia, as part of its economic development, this is a critical issue. We are furiously in agreement about how important it is to bring this bill forward. I encourage those who are trying to play the party politics of replacing this bill with substantially the same bill, but a government bill, to reconsider the option of bringing forward their own amendments in the second reading debate.

Sean Edwards (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak on the Defence Legislation Amendment (Woomera Prohibited Area) Bill 2013. I have not been in the chamber all morning to hear all the contributions, but I do agree with the last comment made by Senator Stephens that there is furious agreement on this issue. I find somewhat confected all the sabre rattling that I heard this morning from Senator Farrell about how miffed he is that this matter is taking the shape that it is.

Mr Acting Deputy President Bernardi, as a South Australian you would know that the coalition government is hell-bent on ensuring that states are freed up to pursue their economic objectives. As a South Australian, I know that South Australia not only has objectives but also has imperatives. The outrage that I heard this morning about the government taking this bill into further consideration with the defence minister's own legislation on the cusp of being tabled in here is somewhat confected. I would probably be cynical enough to say that it might even be political. For all of those taking note of this contribution this morning, I would point out that South Australia faces a state election on 15 March.

The economy has surely come into the frame in this discussion of South Australia. That is effectively because the government in South Australia lacks vision and now it is relying on the contribution of federal South Australian parliamentarians, especially Senator Farrell, to carry the can for its delinquency over the 12 years that it has been in power there. Why is it that the Hawke report, which was tabled in 2011 and which recommended urgent legislation, was left idle, gathering cobwebs? The silverfish got into it. In June, perhaps with Senator Farrell reading the tea leaves or studying the polls—and I do not profess to know how this place works entirely; there was probably a nod and a wink to the then defence minister—this legislation got up. There was also the worst kept secret of all political time that we would be facing an election, but the only wild card was when the newly installed Prime Minister would call that election. Lo and behold, we had an election on 7 September.

I now sit on the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee and have been to two meetings; I have come to understand that the coalition members of that committee were prepared to sit the week after the election was called to have a public inquiry and continue with the agenda. But the then government members of that committee—now the opposition members, the ones who are somewhat shrill on this issue—said they were busy with the election. Now, all of a sudden, this is the biggest announcement. Is this something that Senator Farrell planned when he was planning to take over the Labor Party in South Australia? We know that he finishes his contribution here on 30 June this year, and that is because Prime Minister Gillard asked him to step down from the No. 1 position on the Senate ballot in favour of Senator Wong. That proved disastrous for him personally, because he failed to get elected. Now, in an effort to ingratiate himself during his remaining time here, we have this confected outrage about this bill not proceeding. When we got hold of it, we were urged to ensure it had had the appropriate consultation, due diligence and regulatory rigours applied to it before it came to this place for passage.

I fear this is political and that it was intended to be a headline for the Labor Party in South Australia—'Look what we have done.' We have heard this morning that 'We have opened an area twice the size of Tasmania for mining.' Quite rarely do I see a minister come into this chamber and talk so passionately to try to get someone on the other side to see reason. We in government will apply the appropriate rigours that we hold ourselves accountable to—not the rigours of legislation that those opposite hold themselves to. As we know, Senator Farrell was lined up to take over the state seat of Napier. That was the deal that was done—we all know that he is the godfather of the Labor Party in South Australia. What we are seeing now is a funny, cute attempt to use Woomera as an issue the Labor Party can talk about or that they can leverage against the federal government over the next four weeks.

I do not think that the good burghers of South Australia have any confidence that those on the other side ever got anything right in enhancing business, industry or anything else that they touched. Under their watch we saw a diminution of employment; we saw the highest youth unemployment rate in Australia in the northern suburbs. While we are on the northern suburbs of Adelaide, I saw that the member for Wakefield, Mr Champion, yesterday gave up on his seat when he declared that he needed a minister for the northern suburbs. Senator Bernardi, I am sure you caught the dispatches on that. I stood there and gasped. I thought: 'He has given up on his job. We should have a by-election in the seat of Wakefield because those people in Wakefield have just heard that he wants a minister for the northern suburbs.' That is an admission that he cannot do his job. Do you know that he is a mate of Senator Farrell's? They got to where they got because Don anointed them.

Cory Bernardi (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order, Senator Edwards, you should refer to senators by their proper title.

Sean Edwards (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Farrell. I would like to point out that we now have a situation where the member for Wakefield is bereft of vision. He expects Senator Farrell to do the heavy lifting again for the Labor Party in South Australia and get these things done. It is a little bit too little too late. We, however, are on the job.

Remain calm: the Minister for Defence, minister Johnston, has clearly articulated the reasons we are doing what we are doing. He pointed out very eloquently the flaws in this legislation. In South Australia we have native title acts which have to be addressed, and, as far as I can see, his office has found that they have not properly been addressed in this bill. I heard part of Senator Wright's contribution in which she was rightly concerned about the Indigenous communities which will be affected by this bill. We need to take into account and cannot ride roughshod over the legislation of the states, or we risk incurring their wrath—no matter what their political persuasion. We have to be careful of states' rights.

I suspect that this legislation will not go far beyond March. We hear from Senator Xenophon—who is always trying to find a middle, popular path—that we need some amendments to it. After today, the legislation will probably be on the floor anyway. Senator Johnston stated that the amended version of the bill will include a number of points of particular concern to both South Australian and Northern Territory governments. These amendments are a clarification of existing uses, including those of pastoralists, railways and Indigenous groups.

A waiver to the regulation impact statement requirement was enforced for the previous government's bill on the Woomera Prohibited Area, the terms of which are substantially similar to the private senator's bill under debate today. So this is the second time out for such legislation, yet this one has been granted a regulatory impact statement exemption. But this grant does not agree with our plan. A regulation impact statement on the proposed changes to Defence's administration of the Woomera Prohibited Area has now been finalised. The statement will inform any legislative or regulatory changes the government intends to make to the administration of the Woomera Prohibited Area. Existing access arrangements for the Woomera Prohibited Area have been in place in their current form since 1989 and are administered under the Defence Force regulations.

The Woomera Prohibited Area is a very important asset on the national stage. The minister outlined why it is so important—and it is, fundamentally, a Defence Force asset. The Australian Defence Force have opened their minds to how we can better utilise the country's assets. We know that they are going to have to continue to use the Woomera Prohibited Area. We know that protecting research and development of all the things which we deploy to protect our country is very important—it is priority No. 1. Then we have to get the regulation right, and in order to do so we have to consult. Judging by the last 12 years of Labor government in South Australia, consultation is new down there. The government in South Australia is an announce-and-defend government. We do not want to be like them; we want to take into account the pastoralists, the people who operate the railways and the Aboriginal people—and we are doing so.

I do not think we need another inquiry; I think that all the sabre rattling that has gone on here today indicates that we are in furious agreement. This bill is political: through it the Labor Party means to enhance its chances of electoral success on 15 March in South Australia. Unfortunately for them, they probably will not be able to trick the South Australian public again. Senator Stephens said in her contribution that she saw some churlishness in here, but I think that what is churlish is that now, 10 minutes after the Labor Party has been thrown out of office, a bill on the Woomera Prohibited Area is an immediate priority. You on the other side are quite right: it is a priority. But you sat on the question of the Woomera Prohibited Area for years and did not do anything about it until the eve of the election. Only then, on reading the tea leaves, you introduced this bill, and the inquiry into the Woomera Prohibited Area was stalled.

I know that there has been a bit of toing and froing about what was said and what we were going to do. I have never questioned Senator Farrell's endeavour. He is quite clearly an ardent protector of South Australia; it is just that he does not have many friends left in the South Australian Labor Party. That is sad—I do not think he deserves it—but, as a last gasp and trying to get something through, he is trying to put this bill on the record. I cannot blame him for that.

As we have heard from the minister, the situation with the Woomera Prohibited Area is under control. We will apply our tests in introducing legislation on it, and such legislation will go through the rigors necessary to satisfy my minister's high standards for regulations he wants to bring in. As drafted, the bill applies to new users seeking access to the Woomera Prohibited Area. The definition of 'new users' is that they are users who would not have access permission under the current Defence Force regulations. This definition goes back to 1952, which is when the law on the Woomera Prohibited Area came into force. Those who have existing access permission under the Defence Force Regulations 1952 act are referred to as 'existing users'.

There has been a great deal of discussion about who 'existing users' are and about who qualifies for access. But we are sorting all that out. 'Existing users' include extant pastoralists, Indigenous groups, the Tarcoola-to-Darwin railway owner and operators, and the four existing mines. These users will continue to access the Woomera Prohibited Area under the existing arrangements that include leases, deeds and other permissions provided under the Defence Force Regulations Act 1952.

Defence is continuing to work closely with all these users to respond to their concerns, which mainly consist of clarifying longstanding existing working relationships and access arrangements and permissions with Defence. We do not want to be embroiled in litigation. We do not want our Defence Forces do something that has unintended consequences. This has to suffer the rigours that this place, quite rightly, puts in place to ensure that we do not get things wrong. We do not want a series of unintended consequences for the Indigenous people of South Australia. And we want good economic outcomes. We do not want people saying, 'This is a restriction of our use.' We do not want people saying, 'This was not in the deal that we did under a previous regime.' We do not want people racing to their lawyers. We want to get this right—and we are only weeks away.

You heard this from the minister. He could not have been in more agreement with any of the sentiment behind Senator Farrell's private senator's bill here. But he is the minister and he has the call. You can say whatever you like about this place but, when you are elected, you are elected to run it as you see it is to be run.

I want to talk a little bit before I finish about consultation. Defence has undertaken consultation with a range of relevant stakeholders regarding this prohibited area, including the rail companies; the South Australia Department of Manufacturing, Innovation, Trade, Resources and Energy; and Defence SA. Not everything had been addressed and they have addressed those issues that have arisen in those discussions in this soon-to-be-tabled legislation.

The Woomera Prohibited Area Advisory Board has consulted widely with pastoralists, the resource companies and the rail owners and operators. They have another meeting in Adelaide on 18 February, which is not far away. And those talks will take in, very importantly, Indigenous groups. Also at that meeting will be Conservation SA and the South Australian Chamber of Mines and Energy. These are not repeat meetings; these are meetings to cover off the issue. I urge members and senators— (Time expired)

Mark Bishop (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Let me respond to some of the comments that Senator Edwards made in his contribution to the debate on the Defence Legislation Amendment (Woomera Prohibited Area) Bill 2013. First is the issue of consultation by the previous government on the issues that are raised by the bill before the chair.

It is fair to say, and it is on the record, that there was extensive consultation undertaken during the review process and that the legislation before the chair today implements the recommendations put forward in the review. Submissions were received in that consultation process from interested stakeholders, including the resources industry, a range of Indigenous groups, pastoralists and environmental groups. That consultation process included the release of an information paper on the proposed legislative framework for the Woomera Prohibited Area and that paper provided a general overview of the proposed policy framework for the implementation of the then proposed legislative package.

An exposure draft was released in May 2013 with a request for stakeholder feedback and the South Australian government hosted a consultation workshop in Adelaide in May 2013, chaired by the Woomera Prohibited Area Coordination Office, to discuss the then proposed bill. And again in late May the South Australian government hosted discussions between Defence officials and the traditional owners of the lands affected by the then proposed bill. So one cannot conclude other than that there was anything else but extensive and detailed consultation over an extended period of time with a range of the interest groups who were and continue to be affected by the proposed legislation.

As we go forward, I understand that this bill will be referred to a Senate committee. The government intends to bring forward its own bill. That will again be referred to a Senate committee and then the government's bill will be brought into the chamber. What that means, of course, is that there are going to be deliberate and extensive delays in the passage of either this bill or the government's bill—because they are identical in substance—and that is a shame. Really, I wonder why that is occurring. In some sense it reminds me quite eerily of the process that occurred in the Defence Trade Controls Bill, brought in over the last two years, where there was continuing delay because some of the consultation engaged in by the relevant department was found to be inadequate—

Alan Ferguson (SA, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Senator Bishop. The time for this debate has expired. You are automatically in continuation at the resumption of the debate.