Jonathon Duniam (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Environment, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Acting Deputy President, and allow me to change gears now to talk about a different matter, equally important! It's the matter of the state of Tasmania, a place of which I am very fond. Today I'm going to take us down to the beautiful West Coast of Tasmania, to a community called Rosebery. I know, Acting Deputy President, that you would be very familiar with that community and its history, and the proud mining history that it has. There are hundreds of Tasmanians employed in the Rosebery MMG mine. Senator Whish-Wilson will know that the mine is facing a difficult future. That's not because of a lack of mineral resources; the West Coast of Tasmania is a resource-rich part of our state. It's also beautiful; it has incredible natural beauty which we do need to protect.

Protecting natural beauty, protecting the environment, protecting our economy and making sure that people still have jobs to be able to pay the bills—that are going up, I might add—are critically important, and it's this balance that I want to highlight. At the moment, there are decisions before governments—and I say 'governments' plural; the Tasmanian government and the Australian government—around the approval of further waste management facilities, aka a tailings dam for this mine. The mine has operated for well in excess of a century, sustainably managed and with a bright future—if it has this in place.

The federal environment minister does have a question before her about how best to proceed with this. I'm hoping that my Tasmanian Labor colleagues—and I'm calling on them to make sure—do their bit for the hundreds of Tasmanians whose jobs are on the line with the future of this mine hanging in the balance. This tailings dam needs to go ahead. This government needs to work with that company, MMG, to find a way to make sure that there's a future for this mine. If they don't, those jobs will go and it will be on this government's head. So I look forward to working with my Tasmanian Labor colleagues to get the right outcome for this project.