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

The document I was taking note of is the McPhillamys gold mine Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Heritage Protection (Kings Plains) Declaration 2024. It was an order the Senate agreed to some time ago—I think it was 12 September, as a matter of fact. The documents that we were seeking as a Senate, and that the Senate voted for as a majority, weren't provided to us. We had a letter telling us more time was needed.

In taking note of the documents before the Senate, as flimsy as they are, I will make a couple of points. Those documents point to the flimsy process the government went through in making the decision it did in relation to the McPhillamys gold mine. I want to remind the Senate and anyone who happens to be unfortunate enough to be listening this afternoon that the McPhillamys gold mine, which would have created over 800 jobs in a small community in regional New South Wales, just outside of Orange, in Blayney, had received full state and federal environmental approval. There aren't many projects that manage to jump those hurdles and clear those hoops like this project did over nearly five years of hard work. The proponents of the mine, Regis Resources, in getting the project to this point, spent $192 million complying with every request, every regulation, every rule and every law, state and federal, and they got the big green tick from the New South Wales Labor government, the Minns government, who were fully supportive of this mine, and they even got EPBC Act approval too.

So what went wrong? We still don't know why it went wrong, but let me tell you what actually went wrong. Despite having full environmental and planning approval—

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

You would think, as Senator Cadell says, that they must be building it by now. Well, no—sadly not. You would expect the story would flow on from full environmental approval mine construction and jobs being created on the ground, but the case is very different, sadly. The mine isn't being built, and the company that spent $192 million is not getting anything back from it. The community relying on those 800 jobs that were going to be created has nothing to show for the work that's been undertaken.

What we were asking for here was to understand exactly what detail the minister relied upon in making her decision to say no to this project, and we still don't know. We do know that there is a small group of Wiradjuri people in and around Blayney who formed a small charitable organisation to campaign on matters Indigenous. We also know that there is the Orange Local Aboriginal Land Council, the organisation recognised under law as the land council to speak on behalf of country for that area. Interestingly, that group, the Orange Local Aboriginal Land Council, the group of Indigenous Australians recognised under law to speak on behalf of country, was happy for the mine to go ahead. Indeed, the proponents of the mine had worked through a process with that organisation to comply with every cultural heritage request. I understand something like seven changes were made. Regis Resources worked with 13 registered Aboriginal parties. There were 1,700 pages of reports done by consultants, relating specifically to Indigenous cultural heritage. Yet somehow a group managed to convince the minister—and I wonder whether the minister is relying solely on this group's information and advice—to block this project, which would have created 800 jobs, a billion dollars of economic activity and an ongoing return to the state of New South Wales in the hundreds of millions of dollars when it comes to royalty revenue.

We don't know. We have no clarity. Despite the months of waiting we've had, the huge media interest and the community outcry over this terrible decision, the minister has yet to provide us with what she's required to by law, the statement of reasons under the ATSIHP Act. We don't have any clarity on the correspondence with the various entities the minister communicated with. At least we know publicly that the New South Wales Labor minister, who is on the right side of the ledger on this one, said that it was the wrong call that Minister Plibersek made. We know that the planning commission got it right. We know that the advice of the hand-picked expert on this matter under the action the minister took did not recommend that she knock this mine on the head. So why was it stopped, and why won't the minister give us the detail we are seeking to ensure that we can overturn this terrible decision?

I seek leave to continue my remarks later.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.