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

I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

I seek leave to table an explanatory memorandum relating to the bill.

Leave granted.

I table an explanatory memorandum and I seek leave to have the second reading speech incorporated in Hansard.

Leave granted.

The speech read as follows—

The introduction of this bill is aimed at providing a sensible response to a nonsensical decision.

In short, it offers senators a practical opportunity to have their say on the disastrous actions taken on 13 August 2024 by the Federal Environment Minister.

That was the day on which Ms Plibersek decided for reasons known only to herself—literally—to uphold an Indigenous cultural heritage application. This claim was made against the tailings dam of Regis Resources' proposed McPhillamys gold project near Blayney, in central west New South Wales.

More to the point, the introduction of this bill provides an opportunity for Australia's Federal parliamentarians to try to reverse that dreadful decision.

The Blayney Gold Mine Bill 2024 actually very closely replicates the Hindmarsh Island Bridge Act 1997.

That's no accident.

It's very specifically because, when we first became aware within the Coalition of Ms Plibersek's decision on the McPhillamys tailings dam, our minds almost immediately flashed back to that famous case in South Australia of more than a quarter of a century ago now.

The cases are remarkably similar in nature.

In each one, a Labor Minister has been seduced by the stories of a small group of people claiming to be the custodians of highly secretive and sensitive cultural histories and ancestries.

All the while, Elders and other highly respected members of the respective local Indigenous communities have said that the tales by which each Minister has been captivated have actually been fabricated.

The echoes of the Hindmarsh Island case in the Blayney one have also been noted by journalists and by many members of the broader Australian public over recent weeks, too.

Indeed, it's especially worth reflecting on the words of Chris Kenny in this respect. Above, and as part of, a column in The Weekend Australian on 31 August, Mr Kenny said of the two cases that "three decades after the Hindmarsh Island fiction, another secret cultural claim is blocking a crucial project".

He also said that, "Plibersek has kicked a hornet's nest by ignoring the most appropriate heritage custodians and making judgments about cultural interpretations that at least are contested and, in the view of some Indigenous people, may have been fabricated".

Kenny, of course, had direct involvement in the Hindmarsh Island affair—as he worked closely with the very brave group of Aboriginal women who exposed that fraud.

He is now seeing very clear parallels in the Blayney case, too.

It's worth stressing that, by the time of Ms Plibersek's decision of 13 August, many important things about Regis Resources' Blayney project were already absolutely clear.

Among these were that it would have delivered profound benefits and opportunities not just to the people of Blayney but also to people in other communities in the surrounding region, the State of New South Wales, and our country as a whole.

Foremost among these were the approximately 800 local jobs and $1 billion in direct investment into Australia.

As a very important part of this, it was also poised to deliver a swathe of job opportunities to local Indigenous people—and significant social and economic empowerment to them in the process.

Not to mention that the company successfully passed an exhaustive set of compliance, consultation and regulation processes—over more than seven years—even to get there.

Regrettably, I am talking about each of those things in the past tense.

That's because, at least for now, the Environment Minister's actions have rendered the entire project unviable. As things stand after her decision, it can't realistically go ahead any more.

The company has made clear that it would take at least another five to ten years to develop an alternative tailings dam option. And, even then, who's to say that another Labor Minister wouldn't then intervene to stop the project again?

That we all find ourselves in this position is also attributable to the weakness of the Prime Minister. It has now emerged that, remarkably, from at least as long ago as the first week of June, he failed to even so much as reply to warnings he was given about what Ms Plibersek was contemplating, and the damage that she was about to inflict.

The whole situation is now an utter mess. One totally of the Albanese Government's own making.

To sabotage the very future of this mine—which is exactly what they have done, no matter how much they try to spin their way out of it, with weasel words—is the epitome of incompetence.

In such circumstances, it is entirely justified that a national outcry has greeted Ms Plibersek's decision to uphold the section 10 application.

A rejection of that section 10 claim would have signalled that the Albanese Government—at least occasionally—respects due process, and values the importance of mining to our country.

It would also have offered at least some hope that the Government recognises the phenomenal social and economic contribution that our resources sector makes to Australia.

Alas, this terrible government did the opposite and sent the completely wrong message. Yet again.

To return to the words of Chris Kenny about the result of the Hindmarsh Island case all those years ago, he says:

"I wonder now whether it was worth (it) because it seems the nation, or at least the Labor politicians, have learned nothing".

In their contributions on this bill, Labor senators will presumably fall in behind Ms Plibersek's lame excuses that Regis Resources could easily shift the tailings dam to another location; that former Minister Ley once did something similar; and that the potential risks at Blayney right now are akin to those at Juukan Gorge in 2020.

Given that all of those claims are false and have been totally discredited, this is their chance to do better. Including by rejecting the excruciating excuses and blame shifting of a Minister who has been hopelessly exposed and is completely out of her depth.

On Indigenous cultural heritage, genuine environmental protection and basic economics, in particular, their approach to this bill will not only demonstrate exactly how many of them are prepared to reverse course from Labor's past. It will also tell us exactly how willing—or unwilling—they are to disown a truly disgraceful recent decision as well.

I seek leave to continue my remarks later.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.