21 August 2024
Subjects: Plibersek’s chilling decision to block the Regis goldmine in regional NSW, Coalition disallowance motion seeking to overturn the decision
EO&E
Bill McDonald:
Yesterday, the Coalition introduced a disallowance motion in the Senate to overturn the Government’s decision. The motion will be debated today in the Senate but is unlikely to succeed. Joining us now is Opposition Environment spokesperson, Jonno Duniam. Jonno, good morning.
Senator Duniam:
Good morning, Bill. Thanks for having me.
Bill McDonald:
Good to talk again. Why are you against this? There’s a lot to work out that’s been thrown away by this decision. How do we make sense of it?
Senator Duniam:
Well, if you could make sense of this, I reckon you’d be the highest paid person in Australia. This is just utter madness. The proponents of the mine have gone through years and years of the process that we inflict on anyone that wants to get a project like this up. They had every state environmental approval, they had every federal environmental approval, and your listeners would know there are several projects out there that don’t pass muster and don’t get to this stage. But they had all of that in the bag. And based on, as you said before, a private conversations which we will never know the detail of, the Minister has made a decision to scrap this multi-year process, meaning we won’t get a billion dollars worth of economic activity out of this mine. 800 jobs are going to go begging all off the back of a private conversation and she can sign a bit of paper now and knock this project on the head. It doesn’t make sense. And for a Minister who’s part of a government that say they want a future made in Australia, well, how are we going to make anything here if we’re going to knock on the head things like mines that provide materials and jobs that are important for a thriving economy. It is madness.
Bill McDonald:
We saw this, it’s similar but different, up here with Toondah Harbour, our development in Redlands up here. Almost ten years of work had gone into it. All of the hurdles that the developers, Walker Corporation, had to go through; millions and millions of dollars, and it was knocked on the head at the last minute. But on this one, so we’re now hearing that it’s a group of 18 Indigenous people from whatever they’ve formed. Then they’ve got their Christian names basically on the Charter of their organisation and they’ve been responsible for changing her mind on this. That’s quite alarming really.
Senator Duniam:
How can a proponent of a project who’s probably spent millions and millions of dollars on consultants, that that actually know what they’re talking about; marine biologists, hydrologists, soil scientists, you name it, engineers, they’d all be in these reports that have been provided to government, which of course gave them the environmental approvals. But these people, who the local Aboriginal Land Council, the Orange Aboriginal Land Council, say they question the authenticity of, have been able to jag this project, really, absolutely knock it on the head. How they have enabled this to occur and how the laws frankly give such discretion to the Minister to make a decision of this nature, does beg the question why we haven’t fixed it. So that’s something we will address if elected. We’ll be looking at this Act and making sure that we tighten that one up. But, this is why we’ve lodged the disallowance. You cannot be sending messages like this to the investment community. There are people who are making choices about whether they invest a billion dollars in Australia or go somewhere else, like Papua New Guinea or somewhere in South America where the laws are far more relaxed, the environmental outcomes are far worse, and that means for us in Australia that we don’t have the jobs. We don’t have the royalties that the government needs to pay for hospitals and schools, all because the Minister wants to harvest Green votes in downtown, built up areas and feel good about herself for making this decision. There is no science behind it, this is a bad call, which is why we’re seeking to overturn it.
Bill McDonald:
And at a time when they’ve set ridiculously unachievable emissions targets and targets to meet. And we need to dig precious metals and minerals out of the ground. At a time like this, to stop these sorts of things, it doesn’t make a lot of sense either.
Senator Duniam:
No, no, it definitely doesn’t. I mean, we need these minerals out of the ground for a range of purposes. And if we’re not digging it up here, the markets still going to demand the things we’ll be extracted from the earth. It’ll just come from, as I say, countries that have no regard for the environment, so globally it is a worse outcome. The other thing I might point out to your listeners, Bill, is our friends in the Wiradjuri groups that have subjected to this and succeeded in convincing a Federal Minister that they’re right based on what sounds like private conversations alone, was supported by our good friends of the Environmental Defenders Office. And we can’t forget who gives them money. The Australian Government hands over millions of dollars every year to the Environmental Defenders Office to support groups like this to knock on the head projects that we need like this one. So, it’s a bit of a circular motion going on here. The government is in cahoots with groups knocking on the head projects that we need to create jobs and economic activity. It is vandalism at its worst, and how the PM can stand by and allow this to happen? How QLD Senators like Murray Watt can allow this to happen? They say they’re the friend of the worker, well they’re not doing much to help workers through decisions like this.
Bill McDonald:
I look at it and they’ve, you know, they’ve stuffed up, they’ve royally stuffed up, the Voice referendum that cost $450 million. It’s almost like a get square for that. Well we got that wrong, but we’ll make good somewhere down the track and I just don’t get it. I really don’t.
Senator Duniam:
Well, and can I say too, I mean the Minister makes claims saying, ‘oh, you know, I didn’t kill the mine. I just told them they couldn’t build their tailings dam on this location’. Anyone who knows a thing or two about mines, knows that if you want to manage the environmental impact, you got to have a tailings dam. Her suggestion that all she was doing was blocking part of the mine and they could have done something else, and because as you said, they couldn’t put the tailings down anywhere else, they would have done that, otherwise… Is like someone saying, ‘I didn’t kill that individual. I just severed their legs and let them bleed to death’. Well, I’m sorry. What she has done has killed this mine and, you know, when they’re making decisions like this, although funnily enough, in the same week, she’s happy to announce approval for and support for the largest solar project in the country, the Mike Cannon-Brookes Project in the Northern Territory there. That’s going to have serious impacts and they’ll be, you know, thousands of kilometres of transmission lines attached to that with impacts on the environment, but funnily enough, no opposition from any Indigenous group anywhere, as far as I can tell, and so it gets the big green light. But this mine worth a billion dollars, no go. It is a square up. I’m very worried about it.
Bill McDonald:
And it might keep the Greens happy that one as well. Look, you said you’re hopeful of getting it overturned in the Senate today. How hopeful?
Senator Duniam:
Well, look, it’s finely balanced thing, really. I mean, I look to Senators who stand up in this place and say that they support jobs. They support the regions, they support Australian sovereign capability and want to grow the economy. But if they’re not voting for this motion, how they can stand by everything you’ve explained to your listeners about this decision making process and how it doesn’t make sense how they can justify that and back it in by voting against our motion, I think it does not pass any pub test anywhere in the country. So, you know, Lidia Thorpe says she supports the rights for Indigenous Australians to have a say over these things. Well, ok then, how can you support this decision by Tanya Plibersek, which overrides the local legislatively recognised Orange Aboriginal Land Council, the people who have authority to speak on behalf of country, how can you override their rights? How could Senator Jacqui Lambie or her former colleague, Senator Tammy Tyrrell, vote against this motion when they say they’re there for the people out in the regions who need jobs. You know, how could Pauline Hanson and Malcolm Roberts vote against it? I reckon they’ll vote with us on this one because they seem pretty angry about it. But you know that there is no way that logically anyone can vote against our motion and say that they are pro-Australian. But it is like an autoimmune disease backing in decisions like this. It harms our country, it harms our economy, no one does well out of it at all.
Bill McDonald:
Sounds like she’s sitting with 18 other people who may be opposed to it. Is it like things relating to Indigenous groups or Indigenous issues are being weaponised a bit here to justify decisions that are being made by the Environment Minister at the moment? Because she seems out of step with the majority of the Indigenous leaders in these groups that we’re talking about?
Senator Duniam:
Yeah, well, that that’s exactly what’s happening here. So, you’ve got an Indigenous group that one, that said before, recognised at law as the legitimate voice in these processes; the Orange Aboriginal Land Council, then others, have rightly pointed out, and it was earlier this week, remarked in the media, that Indigenous groups are weaponising the section 10 of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Heritage Islander Protection Act. Now, that piece of legislation, which enables anyone anywhere in the country who claims to have Indigenous background to lodge a claim about a project and it can be written or oral, which I found interesting as well. So, this piece of legislation people are saying is being weaponised. You’ve got companies who spend tens, if not hundreds of millions of dollars getting to the point that Regis Resources did in the mine we’re talking about here and then you get someone or 18 people come together, have a private conversation with the federal government minister….
Bill McDonald:
…Could be just a phone call. Could be one phone call for one person.
Senator Duniam:
….We don’t even know if there is written records of this meeting and what was said, and we will never know. The Minister has said, ‘no, I will not break their trust’. Well, you’re breaking trust with the rest of Australia by going down this path, won’t it?
Bill McDonald:
It’s not a decision that is in the best interest of all Australians.
Senator Duniam:
No, it definitely is not. How we can block this mine and say it’s a good outcome to this country? Beggars’ belief. When the Orange Aboriginal Land Council said harm to the environment and cultural heritage can be managed how she goes against that and then sides with this tiny group of people, we don’t know what they said or even who they are, whether their claims are legitimate, beggars’ belief. It is un-Australian and frankly, the Minister should be revisiting it. But she won’t. This is why we’re forced to do what we’re doing in the Senate today.
Bill McDonald:
All the best with it. I think a lot of people would be right behind you and hope you have some success. Thanks for your time.
Senator Duniam:
Bill, thanks for having me.
Bill McDonald:
Opposition Environment spokesperson Jonathon Duniam joining us this morning.