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

It is a delight to rise to speak on the Blayney Gold Mine Bill 2024, which is an important piece of legislation for this Senate to consider, given the abrogation of duty by this government when it comes to doing the right thing by the people of Australia—communities that need a government that serves in the national interest, gets the balance right and does the right thing by those who need them to. We are moving this bill because the government refuses to do the right thing.

Let's go back through the history of how this Labor government decided a goldmine should not be built near Blayney, in the central west of New South Wales—McPhillamys goldmine, which would create 800 jobs, generate $1 billion worth of economic activity through its construction phase and return hundreds of millions of dollars of royalty revenue to the state of New South Wales annually. Of course, royalty revenue is how we pay for hospitals, how we pay for schools and how we deal with the growing need for essential services in all our jurisdictions. But the opportunity to take that revenue has been denied to the state of New South Wales, and now they will be hundreds of millions of dollars worse off.

This mine and its tailings dam had full state and federal environmental approvals. For five years, this project and all associated with it went through the Independent Planning Commission in New South Wales. The project has complied with every requirement under state law. It has met every environmental standard and every planning requirement, and cultural heritage considerations were dealt with at that stage. So, the project got the big tick. The state of New South Wales, with its rigorous process, backed it in. And I'll come back to this a bit later, but New South Wales Labor Premier Chris Minns seems to be, as far as Labor premiers go, a pretty good one, calling out the federal government on making the wrong decision here.

The mine also had full federal environmental approval. The EPBC Act is known for its fraught nature. It is broken. It is out of date. This government have committed to fixing it, although they haven't yet and won't be during this term of parliament—a broken promise. But the fact that these laws had been complied with, that this project had met every standard required of it under the EPBC Act—including the tailings dam, which is the subject of contention here—was not enough for this government. There was full state and federal environmental approval and planning approval, and cultural heritage considerations were met and dealt with, but still here we are dealing with a situation where this Labor government has used another piece of legislation, the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Heritage Protection Act 1984, section 10, to stop this project from going ahead. It's a terrible outcome. It's a terrible situation for the people of Blayney and for Australia in particular.

The biggest concern, though, is not all of these matters related to the economy and to the fact that this met with full environmental and planning approval and had dealt with cultural heritage considerations in an appropriate way. It's the sovereign risk issue that now rears its head. It's the fact that investors overseas are looking at Australia and going, 'Even if you have full state and federal environmental, planning and other approvals, you might still have your project knocked on the head.' Regis Resources, the company behind the McPhillamys goldmine—the one that would have created 800 jobs, generated $1 billion of economic activity in the life of its construction and then generated all that royalty revenue—themselves said, 'Why would anyone look to come and invest here if you can comply with every law and then out of nowhere a decision can be made of this nature?'

We tried of course to convince this Senate to overturn this decision. We moved a disallowance in the last sitting week and, by one vote, sadly missed out on the opportunity to do so. We're still waiting for the minister to provide a statement of reasons, the one that's required under the act, to inform this Senate, the community and the proponents why she actually made the decision she did. We had a motion in this place to ask for that statement to be provided by Monday just gone. Instead we were given another document, not the one we asked for. But the interesting part of this is that even the government voted with us on that motion. The Australian Greens, however, decided to vote against it. Why they would not want the minister to comply with the law and provide a document that she is, by law, supposed to produce baffles me. What's to hide? Why cover it up? Where's the transparency here, particularly when it comes to a project that had met every federal and state approval and had dealt with all of the cultural heritage considerations?

Given we have not yet been able convince parties in this chamber to do the right thing by the people of New South Wales, by the people of this country and indeed by some of the groups I'm about to reference, we've introduced this bill. It's to give everyone another chance to tell Australians and the international investor community who they're backing in. Is it the inner-city voters, who tend to vote Green, in Sydney and Melbourne, or is it the people of Australia, who require employment, and the investors, who want certainty rather than sovereign risk? Let's see where people vote when ultimately we come to a vote on this bill. So why are we doing it? It is in the national interest for us to pursue this issue. The government has failed to do what's right, so the opposition has had to take this on. It is in our national interest that we have a thriving mining sector, one that complies with the law of the land, which this project did on so many levels. It's in our national interest, it's in our economic interest and it's in our social interest to have this project commence.

I want to go to some of the things that have been said by those closer to the process. I might start with the CEO of Regis Resources, Mr Jim Beyer, who wrote to a number of members of this place on 4 September. I'd like to quote from some of his letter. It was a letter that I understand also went to the minister for environment, Minister Plibersek. He says;

This decision has ceased progress of the Project indefinitely and caused uncertainty within the community and the wider mining sector about the viability of investment in Australian mining.

This puts paid to the claim made by the minister that 'they can just go back through the assessment process. They can just find another location for their tailings dam. This doesn't cause sovereign risk'. The reality is that it does. This is someone who knows a thing or two about what it takes to invest in these projects. I might add $192 million was written down in relation to this project, including the purchase, the cost of complying with all the approvals they did get and the cost of going through the section 10 process, which has ultimately killed this project. It isn't just a tailings job they've blocked; it is the entire mine. If anyone in this place can find me a mine without a tailings dam, I'd love to know about it. The proponents of the mine seem to think you need a tailings dam, or else this mine won't work.

Mr Beyer goes on to say:

As part of the application process—

that is, the section 10 application under the ATSIHP Act—

over a number of years, more than 1,700 pages of expert reports, legal summaries, representations were submitted by Regis Resources, including 15 expert specialist heritage reports. Regis also engaged six separate expert archaeologists and anthropologists through the assessment process as part of the section 10 application.

That goes again to the point around Regis having complied with every federal and state requirement: environmental, planning and cultural heritage. All of it was complied with based on expert advice, science and fact. I'll go on:

… since 2016, Regis actively engaged and consulted with 13 registered Aboriginal parties, including the section 10 applicant.

The application that was made at the beginning of this process in 2020 and the ultimate application that was decided upon were very, very different. Mr Beyer goes on to say, 'As a result of this process, it culminated in a situation where the final decision made by Minister Plibersek was made on claimed cultural significance that bears no resemblance to the original claims made on the initial section 10 application.' How could things shift so markedly in that time? How could a claim made with such certainty in 2020, about cultural heritage considerations, be completely different to the one a decision was made on? Is it not fact? I would love to know how, and this is why we've been asking for the statement of reasons. Mr Beyer also said:

Additionally, as part of the section 10 process, the Orange Local Aboriginal Land Council submission clearly indicated that there was an absence of reasonable basis to assert particular Aboriginal cultural significance of the Belubula River, it's headwaters and springs.

That is, of course, the local land council recognised at law as the authority able to speak on behalf of country.

The minister also made a claim that mining companies want to go for the cheapest, easiest and most convenient option, implying that Regis Resources was cutting corners and wasn't seeking to comply with the law. Mr Beyer puts paid to that. He says,

Minimum cost was not the primary selection criteria at any time. The construction methodology chosen for the site is downstream and is one of the most expensive, and also one of the safest.

He goes on to say, 'Given the minister said, "You can't build your tailings dam here," for reasons we still don't understand because she hasn't given us the statement of reasons, to find an alternative site for the TSF'—that is, the tailings facility—'could take anywhere from five to 10 years.' Alarmingly, he also points out:

Should the minister have harboured other environmental concerns in relation to the project—

as she has cited in some of her commentary in relation to this project—

such as downstream water quality or destroying the river, one might question why the minister had already herself approved the project on environmental grounds through the EPBC decision—

as well as rigorous environmental approvals through the New South Wales government process. I'll tell you what: that is alarming reading for someone who is making decisions about the future of investment in Australia.

There are other views in relation to this which need to be taken into account. Let's listen to the Orange Local Aboriginal Land Council, because this is, of course, in relation to Indigenous cultural heritage. They say the proposed development 'would not impact any known sites or artefacts of high significance'. They go on to say that it's a matter of concern to the council:

… that a range of claims have been made on this issue, by people and organisations lacking the experience, expertise and authority to hold themselves out as authorities on Aboriginal Cultural Heritage … We question the motives of people and organisations who participate in promoting unsubstantiated claims and seek to hijack Aboriginal Cultural Heritage in order to push other agendas.

This is the Orange Local Aboriginal Land Council saying this. That is incredibly concerning and, of course, the applicants were supported by Labor's taxpayer funded Environmental Defenders Office too, which is worth noting in this debate.

I want to conclude by reflecting on another Indigenous leader, Wiradjuri elder Roy Ah-See, who had the courage to come to Orange and speak to the community there about Ms Plibersek's decision. The minister decided not to come to that bush summit. She was invited and would've been made very welcome if she had come to explain her decision. Mr Ah-See wrote to Minister Plibersek around the same time as Mr Beyer. His letter says:

You and your advisors completely rejected their evidence—

relating to his community—

and have disrespected these highly regard Wiradjuri elders. Your advisers never even spoke with them. This is disgraceful. It's obvious your minds were made up.

You and your advisors have refused to accept the OLALC authority to promote and protect Aboriginal Culture and Heritage under Section 52(4) of the Aboriginal Land Rights Act. Your recent interview on ABC morning news, you stated that you and your advisors, spoke to—

in the minister's words—

the MOST APPROPRIATE GROUP in this matter, therefore, you have systematically made the 121 Local Aboriginal Land Councils which make up the Land Rights Network irrelevant.

It points to concerns now of the undermining of a structure and a regime that was in place to empower traditional owners around what happens on country. That's been undermined. Mr Ah-See says it himself. He says:

You have created a category and given authority of a group of people outside of Native Title. Recently one of these people was engaged by a local farmer and was caught dropping artefacts on a proposed wind farm area. These same people in a recent event in Bathurst stated that all land is Aboriginal land regardless of freehold title and they will be claiming it back. Your comments and decision has paved the way for all environmental groups to stop any economic development on land handed back any LALC within the network.

There are a range of concerns about this process. How can a project which had full environmental planning and cultural heritage approval at state and federal level be knocked on the head like this based on claims made by a group that Indigenous leaders, Wiradjuri elders, are saying have no authority to do so? This Senate needs to do the right thing, and it should support this bill to do it.

Nita Green (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The mover of this bill, the Blayney Gold Mine Bill 2024, is the shadow minister for the environment. Up until the point when this bill was introduced, I had always thought that he had a position and that the Liberal and National parties had a position that we should apply the law, that the law should be upheld and that the rule of law was an important thing. But what this private senator's bill indicates to us is that, if the mover of this bill were ultimately the minister for the environment under a Mr Peter Dutton led government, the law would not be upheld and actually it would be overturned when it suited the minister. That's not what this parliament should do by considering this bill, and it's not what the Australian people would want.

I think it is really important to get the facts on the table when it comes to this piece of legislation and the minister's decision. There have been a number of pieces of misinformation out there, particularly by the mover of this bill but also by others who have been talking about this decision, so it is really important to get the facts on the table and to reiterate from the very beginning that applying the law is something that, on this side of the chamber, we think is the appropriate thing to do. Those opposite seem to think that you can pick and choose the laws that you apply. The Liberals and Nationals rightly know that our government is required to make environmental decisions in accordance with the facts and in accordance with the law. It's what happens in every single case. It's what's happened here. It's what happened under the previous government.

It's not appropriate to comment on the detail of the specific approvals before the minister, because we know there are processes involved with a decision like this. But I can say that the government understands that the company wants the cheapest and easiest option for this project. That's their prerogative. That's their job to do. The company wanted the government to tick off on this project exactly how they had planned it, and others wanted the project to stop altogether. But that's not what the minister decided. The minister did neither of those things. The minister, in making this section 10 decision under the law, protected a small area so that a waste dump can't be built on the headwaters of a springs of a river that's significant to local Aboriginal people. Protecting heritage and development is not mutually exclusive; we can do both. The government hasn't blocked the mine completely. But the minister's decision protects around 400 hectares of a 2,500-hectare site. It's about 16 per cent of the site that's being considered.

The company has an opportunity to find a more appropriate site for their waste that avoids cultural heritage, and I welcome the news that they are working with the New South Wales government to do just that. I note that both the CEO and the chair of the board have bought tens of thousands of shares in the company since the minister made this decision, and the share price is up 20 per cent. So these doom-and-gloom predictions for this project are not accurate; they are misinformation, and they don't reiterate the facts of this case. Clearly, the company and shareholders think that there is a way through, looking at this project and other places to put this tails dam.

The minister has ticked off on more than 40 mining projects, and we don't assess projects without knowing the details or applying the law. We don't do what those opposite are promising to do, or what this legislation promises to do, and ignore the law completely. What should be deeply concerning to the Australian people and to those in the Senate is that the opposition leader has said that he would approve projects without knowing the details or applying the law. This is deeply concerning. It's proof that the Leader of the Opposition would plunge Australia back into the type of chaos we saw under Scott Morrison. Nobody in Australia forgets the situation where we had multiple ministers in multiple ministries because the previous Prime Minister didn't like the decision that was being made on PEP-11, so he decided to become the minister for resources, the Treasurer, the health minister and a couple of others, and go beyond what the scope of the decision would ever be. It is really important that we don't go back to that type of lawlessness. We need transparency and accountability because those who oppose the decisions and those that agree with them need the facts in front of them. We don't want to go back to a process where, like under Scott Morrison, the Leader of the Opposition is showing he's prepared to ignore the law, cut corners and play favourites.

Clearly, the opposition want a system where getting projects approved depends on whether they like you or not or whether you're mates with them rather than whether you comply with the law. That's no way to run a government. We would go back to the world of sports rorts, car park rorts and robodebt all over again if the government started behaving in that way. It's a dangerous way to operate—a recipe for uncertainty that will scare off investment and kill jobs and that won't increase the amount of renewable energy projects we need to transition to net zero.

The Leader of the Opposition must immediately explain whether there are other projects that he'll approve or axe without knowing the details or applying the law. The Liberals have said they'll halve environmental approval times, but they haven't said how they'll get there. We know that environmental approval times blew out under the previous government because they failed to fund the environment department properly. We know what Peter Dutton really means when he talks about quick approvals; it means Peter Dutton will waive through approvals on his pet projects without any consideration of their environmental impacts. Not even the previous government were prepared to do that—and we've talked a lot in this chamber about the decisions made under the previous environment minister, including a section 10 decision. It is extraordinary that we're now in a situation where the Liberal and National parties would go against that type of decision and say, 'There is no place for a decision like that under the law, so we need to change the law itself.'

I understand why the Liberals and Nationals are sensitive about the environment and economic development and projects, because under their government they had 22 energy policies and landed none. We saw them abolish climate laws and laugh about sea levels rising in the Pacific and we saw renewable energy investment scared off. It was a world in which there was no further economic development, because nothing was getting done, and the environment was being destroyed at the same time. Their response to this process has been to say that a decision like this shouldn't have been made under the law, and we don't agree with that. But it does make me concerned about what would happen if the Liberals and Nationals were in government. What would happen to the environment and cultural heritage if that were the case? Would they propose to abolish the ability to protect cultural heritage under section 10? That is essentially what's being proposed in this legislation today. A decision was made by their current deputy leader, Sussan Ley, under section 10, and a decision was made by our minister, under section 10, to protect cultural heritage. What they're essentially saying today is that they would abolish that protection.

We have seen what happens in this country when cultural heritage isn't protected. We saw the damage to Juukan Gorge. We saw the irreversible destruction of cultural heritage, which is a shame on this nation and should never happen again. There should never be another Juukan Gorge. So it is incredibly important that we have laws in place to protect Aboriginal cultural heritage, and it is really important that rulings are applied according to the law, not with the minister being given an opportunity, like those opposite are proposing, to overturn decisions and overturn these laws.

The bill also makes me incredibly concerned about what the Liberal and National parties have in store for other types of environmental laws. We know they don't support changes to the EPBC legislation. We know they don't support nature positive laws. We know they don't want to protect the environment. It makes me really concerned about the other types of legislation they'll overturn on day one in office. It is really concerning when we hear from those opposite that there are things that are more important than cultural heritage and environmental protection. We need to have laws that protect the right to develop projects but also ensure that we protect our environment.

We've heard from those opposite, from time to time, their intention to repeal water quality legislation that protects the Great Barrier Reef by ensuring that we have better water quality. We know there's a lot of work to do in that space. Would they rip up those laws if they had the chance? I think so. Would they rip up laws that regulate the amount of land clearing that can happen and the regulations involved in that? Would they abolish cultural heritage legislation altogether, so that there is no system to protect our ancient cultural heritage.

I come to this debate and this decision from a point of view of wanting to protect our environment and our cultural heritage but understanding that we also need to have a systematic way in which to approve the construction of projects across the country. I don't deny that the balance is difficult, but it's something we must grapple with. Those opposite are saying that there's no need for a balance because there's no need to protect cultural heritage and the environment. The problem with that is that, once we lose cultural heritage and special protected places, things like the Great Barrier Reef, they are gone forever. You can't get them back. You absolutely cannot get them back.

If the Liberals-Nationals are proposing to abolish laws that protect cultural heritage and protect our environmental assets, like the Great Barrier Reef and other World Heritage listed assets, they should say that. If that is their plan, they should tell the Australian people that, because once we lose those very important environmental and economic assets, like the World Heritage listed places they are talking about, we will never get them back. I don't seek to speak for the traditional owners in this country on Aboriginal cultural heritage. I'm very grateful for the time with them and the way I've learnt from them. But cultural heritage is a gift to this country that we should protect. It is recognised by people around the world as something unique and important to our country, and we should have laws in place to protect it.

That is the view of our government: that when there are laws in place to protect cultural heritage they should be applied, and decisions should be made with the full raft of evidence available. Cultural heritage is a gift, and once it's gone you cannot get it back; it is gone forever. What an incredible loss, if we see those opposite, given the opportunity, destroy the environment, destroy cultural heritage and slow down environmental approvals by defunding the environment department. That is what we would see under the Liberals-Nationals. That is why we are not supporting this legislation. It's an outrageous stunt from the Liberals-Nationals. It is a complete degradation of their responsibility in wanting to be an alternative government. They should be ashamed of themselves for even putting this forward. (Time expired)

Dorinda Cox (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to contribute to the debate on the Blayney Gold Mine Bill 2024 proposed by the opposition. I first want to go back to what section 10 of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Protection Act represents: cultural heritage. Having a cultural heritage linkage in this country is about identity. It is about existence. It tells a story of where people came from, where people lived, where they camped, the place they have a connection to in that country. Section 9, section 10 and section 12 of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Protection Act are all important elements of that. They give us the right to contest decisions, the right to alert the government of the day, the minister of the day, that ancestral remains exist in a place, that there are sacred places that may not be recorded, and stories—the intangible and tangible cultural heritage that may exist and that may have never been recorded because people have not had the opportunity to do that or may not be aware of the processes by which they're able to do it.

We know that in this country there are many native title determinations that are still coming down the pipeline. I'm not a native title lawyer, but my claim group have been through the native title determination process twice in the High Court, and the thing I did was pay attention. I paid attention to the amazing amount of archaeological material and stories from my ancestors, from my old people, gathered during that time, recorded by anthropologists and held in trust by lawyers through our claim group. All of these stories allowed us to prove to the High Court that we had a linkage through our cultural connection in Noongar country to one of the largest cultural blocks in this country, an amazing part of the south-west area of Western Australia. Now, within that, we had the opportunity to have a conversation about what should be protected and what land came back. There's a settlement process, settlement of the native title, a determination—and there is even a recognition act in the Western Australian parliament that recognises Noongar people—that said 'always was, always will be'. It's that conversation.

There's a conversation that is batted around in this place and even outside, in the media, that we should stop having those conversations. We should stop acknowledging that this land belongs to First Nations people. It's never going to stop. We're going to keep acknowledging that that's what happened—that sovereignty was never ceded in this country, because it was not. It has not been. And, if you paid attention to any of the things during last year's referendum and read the Uluru Statement from the Heart, you'd understand that sovereignty is a spiritual notion. It is about the way we care for country. It is about the way we care for everything in the environment and the unique biodiversity that this country has and always has had in relation to that.

Before I came to this place one of the things I did was work as a policy officer. I thought to myself, 'We're going to keep having this conversation in this place because the opposition are absolutely on a one-way ticket for this election to keep bandying this issue around, to keep dividing the nation, to keep baiting people in a conversation to divide and to tell us that we are not important.' They think that they proved that we shouldn't have progress in this country after last year's referendum result. Okay, the Voice was won. Well done! Great campaign! But we're moving on. How about truth-telling? How about agreement making so that we can resolve the unfinished business of this country? How about that?

Cultural heritage is right at the heart of that. I know of plenty of section 10s that are on the minister's desk, still awaiting approval. But in this instance, for Kings Plains and the declaration attached to that section 10, Minister Plibersek has taken the opportunity to protect that area, as did—you heard from Senator Green's contribution—the previous minister for the environment, Ms Ley, in the other place. In her duty as the minister she chose to, under section 10, protect this area. It's consistency, right? When we make laws in this place, we should think about their durability, not that they're just going to last one government. If you're the alternative government, either side of this chamber, and you're going to keep that game up, then you're actually going to have to think about how this is going to be applied when you're not the minister or in power.

I went back through, as I said, some of the policy that exists. This bill is talking about the section 10 protection of our cultural heritage against a tailings dam, a tailings dam that's attached to a goldmine. So the project will still go ahead; they just need to find an alternative place because of the cultural heritage that exists at those headwaters. But I thought I would go back and have a look at the leading practice policy for tailings management on DISR's website, and guess what? It comes from September 2016 and is still current, which means that this government never updated it. Lo and behold, if I go to page viii of the introduction, guess who signed off on it? Matt Canavan. Senator Canavan, when he was the Minister for Resources and Northern Australia, signed off on this Leading Practice Sustainable Development Program for the mining industry.I see Senator Canavan will come on later in the speaking list.

But what's interesting is that section 5.1 of this document actually talks about 'land tenure and use, including cultural heritage areas'. Wow! So this is the opposition's policy, followed by the government. They are following the law and the policy around tailings management and consideration of—lo and behold!—heritage areas. Section 5.1 also talks about 'social, recreational, commercial and heritage values that may be affected by the TSF'. So the area in which the minister has made a determination is based on the 'social, recreational, commercial and heritage values'. Well, imagine that! Imagine the government and the opposition having the same policy and following that legislation and it being consistent. That's the determination she's made, which makes this whole bill ineffective. They are seeking to overturn something that's been made by one of their own, Senator Canavan, when he was the Minister for Resources and Northern Australia.

But let's get to the really important part that Senator Duniam mentioned: sovereign risk and how foreign investment and economic development in this country are at risk because investors don't want to come here. Well, guess what? Here's the newsflash: 86 per cent of the mining companies in this country are already foreign owned. So don't come in here and talk about 'made in Australia' and all this sovereign wealth for Australia. No, that's a myth, and you need to cut that out. That's ridiculous. You are talking about attracting foreign investment here. You're supposed to be here to represent Australians.

Then you want to talk about how cultural heritage should be destroyed—'Let's just get rid of it.' We've been down this track. As Senator Green said, the A way forward report about Juukan Gorge was an international news story—46,000 years of history, culture and connection for the PKK people, who had their rock shelters blown up by a mining company in this country, who had no remorse, having already been told that they shouldn't be within the perimeter to do blasting in the first place. But what's happening is the sheer ignorance because of the power of the resources companies in this country.

You come in here and talk about the red tape, the green tape and now, as Senator Hanson mentioned yesterday, the black tape. Guess what? Here's a reality check. We are not going anywhere. We are not going to stop fighting to protect our country. We are not going to stop fighting to protect our identity. It is about time we settled the unfinished business of this nation, and that's what the A way forward report recommends. The recommendations when I sat on the northern Australia committee were very clear: it is time for truth-telling and time to fix the gag clauses of these mining agreements. Just recently we heard about another one, the BMIEA on the Burrup Peninsula, where Woodside want to make sure they can extract gas until 2070, ruin the wonderful rock art of the Murujuga area and make sure that those traditional owners never have a say and are unable to protect their cultural heritage. So we are seeing Juukan Gorge 2.0, and, if this bill gets up today, that's exactly what's going to happen.

The speakers that will come in here after me today will talk about land councils, so I want to go to the point Senator Duniam made about land councils, because I think that's just unbelievable. My colleague Senator Shoebridge, a senator for New South Wales, spoke about this last time this was up, in relation to the OPD that the opposition tried to get up last week. On the New South Wales Aboriginal Land Council, anyone can be a member. If you're an Aboriginal person, you can be a member of the land council. The Aboriginal Land Rights Act in New South Wales empowers the land council to do the following: to administer the New South Wales ALC account and mining royalties account. Well, well, well; these are the people at the top of the tree. These are the people that, in fact, members of the opposition and those from the crossbench were criticising in here while they were chatting away during the division yesterday. These are the people who are at fault or responsible for all the things that they want to talk about, but they want to back them in when it suits them. When it suits their narrative, they're happy to back those people in—and we will see that right here on the chamber floor today, so keep watching, folks. They are also granted funds for payment of administrative costs and expenses for the local Aboriginal land councils.

I know people that have moved—Murri people from Queensland, other Koori people from other areas. In fact, people from my home state of Western Australia moved to New South Wales. They had a phone call from the Aboriginal land council saying: 'Would you like to become a member? You're a landholder who bought a house here.' That goes against the whole principle of cultural heritage and your connection to that country. There are stories, as I said. There are identifiable sites, connection and identity that exist.

You can't just, because you're a blackfella, go and live in somebody else's area and start claiming that you can sell it off because you want mining royalties—you absolutely cannot, and you should not. The opposition come in here and argue that they absolutely should, for Regis Resources—that Regis Resources should just bulldoze their way through and set up a tailings dam, even though we learnt our lessons with Ranger and Jabiluka about the danger of the waste from these areas. Tailings dams are not properly regulated, and this piece of policy that lies around on the DISR website is not up to scratch; it's not fit for purpose. The Minister for Resources in the Labor government should look at that, because right now we are continuing to see the toxic waste from these mining projects seep into the water. On top of that, the opposition are ignoring the farmers who are worried about 60 per cent of their water being taken by this mine. So here's the hypocrisy right here today.

Jacinta Nampijinpa Price (NT, Country Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Indigenous Australians) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Despite the confected outrage you hear in this chamber quite often, there are a number of reasons behind the coalition's introduction of this private senator's bill, the Blayney Gold Mine Bill 2024. Most of all, we hope a sufficient number of senators might see common sense and join us to overturn an utterly disgraceful decision made by the environment minister, Tanya Plibersek, on 13 August 2024. That decision, which was to unilaterally uphold an Indigenous cultural heritage application under section 10 of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Heritage Protection Act, has now stopped all progress, as we know, on Regis Resources McPhillamys goldmine. I had the opportunity to visit Blayney, in New South Wales, the other week, and I can tell you that locals are very concerned with the current decision that has been made.

The bill provides an opportunity to reverse the effect of the declaration made by Ms Plibersek, and it goes further than that; it exempts the entirety of the more-than-2,000-hectare mine site from any similar declaration in the future. To date, Ms Plibersek has provided little to no information regarding the events that led to her decision being made or even the considerations she made in deciding to enforce a section 10 ruling over the tailings dam for the Regis McPhillamys goldmine. By the time Ms Plibersek's decision of 13 August was made, many aspects of Regis Resources' Blayney project were already underway and a significant investment of around $200 million had been made.

The mine would have delivered profound benefits and opportunities to the people of Blayney and the communities in the surrounding region, the state of New South Wales and, of course, our country as a whole. Over $200 million in royalties would have been collected for the New South Wales government to build and maintain hospitals, schools, roads and other public facilities. These are projects that the Greens seem to think just—poof!—come out of the air like magic. The project would have delivered around a thousand local jobs—again, they don't just come out of nowhere—and $1 billion in direct investment into Australia. It would also have delivered a number of job opportunities to local Indigenous people—but the Greens aren't interested in that either, and neither is this government apparently—resulting in social and economic empowerment of their communities. There's no interest in that coming from the government or their allies in the Greens.

The actions of the Minister for the Environment and Water have rendered the entire project unviable. Regis Resources have said that they do not currently have any viable alternative options, and the project will now cease indefinitely. The company has made it clear that it would take at least another five to 10 years to even develop an alternative tailings dam option. Those opposite would have you think that you can pluck another place out of the air just like that—it's simple! In any case, after that, another Labor environment minister could simply impose another section 10 decision on the alternative site.

The Prime Minister has shown extraordinary weakness on this matter too. Regis Resources wrote to him back in June this year, warning him that the project would have to be stopped if Ms Plibersek upheld the section 10 declaration. He failed to even respond to their concerns. Instead, he allowed his environment minister to go on her merry way and proceed with her detrimental decision.

Our resources sector makes an enormous social and economic contribution to Australia, and the government puts our country's best interests in jeopardy when they heighten our sovereign risk with decisions like this one. In this debate, Labor senators will presumably fall in behind Ms Plibersek's pathetic excuses that Regis Resources could easily shift the tailings dam to another location—we've heard that repeatedly—that former minister Ley once did something similar and that the potential risks of Blayney right now are akin to those at Juukan Gorge in 2020. Again, there is confected outrage.

These claims are false and have been discredited. Regis Resources have made it very clear that there are currently no viable alternative locations for their tailings dam. Ms Ley, when environment minister, did not personally scuttle a $1 billion project or cause $192 million in financial writedowns, nor did she cost a community nearly a thousand jobs. And, of course, it's ludicrous to compare what has been painstakingly considered and planned at Blayney with what happened at Juukan Gorge, but you'll hear those cries of confected outrage from those opposite.

Ms Plibersek's declaration needs to be reversed and the project needs to be reinstated to ensure the local community and close to a thousand prospective employees are not left behind during what are already difficult times in a Labor induced cost-of-living crisis. Tanya Plibersek's disastrous blocking—

Helen Polley (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Excuse me, Senator. Can you please refer to people in the other place with their titles. It's 'Minister'.

Jacinta Nampijinpa Price (NT, Country Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Indigenous Australians) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Minister Tanya Plibersek's disastrous blocking of the Regis Resources proposed goldmine at Blayney—in short, she is of the belief that the construction of a tailings dam for the project would violate Indigenous cultural heritage in the area. That has now been made an unviable project. Accordingly, it will, along with the actions of Robert Tickner in the 1990s, in the infamous Hindmarsh Island bridge case, go down as one of the worst cultural heritage decisions ever made by a federal minister in Australia's history. It's an embarrassment, to be quite honest. As the shadow minister for Indigenous Australians, I find it utterly embarrassing when Indigenous Australians are used as poor excuses for blocking such projects in such a manner.

It's of course important to note that Minister Plibersek's decision flew in the face of over seven years of compliance by the company, with a multitude of environmental and cultural heritage processes and obligations. Seven years! Just like that, with the stroke of a pen, it's brought crashing down. As part of this, Regis commissioned 15 separate extensive cultural heritage surveys. They also engaged in exhaustive and detailed consultations with at least 13 registered Aboriginal parties. But it only takes one to pull the linchpin and make everything come crashing down During that long, arduous and onerous journey, Regis successfully cleared every state and federal environmental requirement they were forced to meet—despite the confected outrage. They also satisfied, yes, the Orange Local Aboriginal Land Council, the body with local Indigenous authority under New South Wales law. The Orange land council reached the very clear conclusion that the construction of the tailings dam and the broader mine would not adversely impact any significant Aboriginal sites or artefacts. What's the point of having them there if they're not even going to be listened to?

Regis's proposal also has the full backing of the New South Wales Labor government, led by Premier Chris Minns. Perhaps Minister Plibersek should listen to her own colleagues and to the Premier, Chris Minns, himself, because he clearly could see the opportunity this would produce for the local community and Australia more broadly. Among many other recent comments that have portrayed his disappointment and frustration with Ms Plibersek's actions, Premier Minns, on 28 August, said that the state's Independent Planning Commission's decision to allow the McPhillamys goldmine project to proceed was comprehensive and that it was also based, significantly, on the advice of the Orange Local Aboriginal Land Council. He said, 'And, under those circumstances, I think the correct judgement was made.' If he is suggesting that the correct judgement was made then evidently Minister Plibersek's judgement was completely off. But for reasons known only to her—like, literally—Minister Plibersek thought she knew better than all of this, including the Premier of New South Wales. Seven years after the project was first conceived, and nearly four years after the Indigenous cultural heritage application was lodged, the minister swept in, at the equivalent of five minutes to midnight, to say that the proposed site for Regis's tailings dam was too culturally sensitive to be used.

If we don't sort this out now, this issue will raise its head over and over again. This bill must be supported so that we can continue to allow projects that will ensure jobs are available to communities, including Indigenous members of those communities. Minister Plibersek chose to bypass—

Jess Walsh (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Senator Nampijinpa Price. The time for this debate has expired. We move now to attendance by the Minister representing the Minister for Defence.