27 August 2024
Topics: Plibersek’s chilling decision to block the Regis goldmine in regional NSW, student caps
E&OE
Tom Connell:
Joining me now, Shadow Environment Minister Jonathon Duniam, thank you for your time. Your reaction to this decision from the Minister?
Senator Duniam:
Well, I think it is consistent with both Premier Minns and also David Littleproud and most importantly, the community of Blayney who now are 800 jobs worse off. I mean, the fact that this company had gone through five years of federal and state environmental and planning approvals, jumped through every hoop and got the project across the line only to be stopped at the eleventh hour under this piece of legislation, the ATSIC Act, I think is a travesty and frankly, the fact that we still don’t have full details from the Minister on the reasons for blocking it, all the details haven’t been provided to the proponent even, I think that is terrible process and to boot a terrible economic outcome. And so, I would hope that she can revisit on this or else we’re all going to be worse off.
Tom Connell:
So the report so far, I’m a little bit like you, I’m sort of sifting through the partial entrails I suppose as it was to do with relying on an Indigenous elder. And I suppose this goes to the complication of this, because other landowners, their traditional owners are saying we want this to go ahead. If that’s the case, it can be complicated, can’t it? There are often multiple claimants or indeed multiple traditional owners of land in Australia.
Senator Duniam:
Yeah. And look, the Orange Aboriginal Land Council, the ones recognised at law, obviously have raised issues with the project, all of which had been managed through the independent planning process in NSW. I think there were seven changes made to what the proponents of the mine had put forward. And so they engaged fruitfully and got an outcome that was good for them and good for the community and good for the country’s economy. Whereas this crowd have gone and engaged in a confidential process outside of all the other processes available to them and have killed this proposal off. And it’s not just blocking a tailings dam. Technically, sure, that’s what the decision related to but I’m still yet to find a mine anywhere in the world that doesn’t rely on a tailings dam to be effective and efficient.
Tom Connell:
Does it still speak to a complexity? I mean you said ‘this crowd’, you clearly don’t agree with their position, but how do you sort of rate one section or one group of traditional owners against another? They both have a view, they both have importance that’s going to be complex no matter the laws and the process isn’t it?
Senator Duniam:
Well, we have to draw the line somewhere. So firstly, with the Orange Aboriginal Land Council being recognised at law as the authority on country to speak on behalf of traditional owners is the starting point. But the Aboriginal Torres Strait Islander Heritage Protection Act, which is a forty-year-old piece of legislation, section 10 in particular, which is the section the Minister’s relying on is extremely open-ended. There is no limit to whom could be covered by this piece of legislation if they identified as an Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander that needs tightening up…
Tom Connell:
When you say tightening up, what could that involve? And obviously this, as I said, it’s complex but what, each part of Australia has a group, a land council that has a submission and a view on each project, and you’d attempt to simplify it that much. Would that be possible?
Senator Duniam:
Well look, I think we’d need to work through what a good process that gives us clarity and certainty to proponents of projects, communities that are hoping for the economic boon that comes with these projects, but also traditional owners as well. I mean, we need to be able to provide them with some certainty. I expect, as surprised as everyone else was when this decision came down, were members of the Orange Aboriginal Land Council who had worked through their issues on this project previously to then have another group come forward and say, well, no, we don’t like it. So how we manage that, we need to work through properly and of course we talked about this, with Jacinta Nampijinpa Price the other day, but it can’t remain the way it is today or else we’ll have more decisions like this.
Tom Connell:
Government announcing broad caps on numbers, so reduction in international student numbers. What have you made of that today, that announcement?
Senator Duniam:
Well, the detail remains a little murky for me in terms of how it will go per university. I only met with my local university, the University of Tasmania, yesterday and they are having extreme difficulty planning for the 2025 academic year. I mean, we’re nearly in the fourth quarter of the calendar year and they’ve got to offer courses to students. They’ve got to plan their budget. They’ve got to plan logistics and make sure they can cover all of these courses and that’s without the detail around how many students they’ll be able to offer places too from overseas. So the fact that we’re so late in the piece of these numbers I think is alarming and the fact that universities haven’t been taken on the journey in probably a way they should is something that the government needs to clean up on. I know Sarah Henderson will be out shortly to speak on the detail here, but process is our friend here and the fact the process has been bad is not good for our unis.
Tom Connell:
Yeah. Well, look, you’re not the minister. Fair enough. But that conversation to Tasmanian universities, given the Coalition’s pledge to cut immigration by much more than Labor, you say they’re having trouble planning, they’ll have more trouble under you. There’ll be fewer students, won’t there?
Senator Duniam:
Well, I think the one thing that universities could be assured of is that there wouldn’t be an immediate turn around and say, sorry, you’re operating under this regime today, we’re going to change it overnight and you’re just going to have to fit in with it. I mean, we will take…
Tom Connell:
Maybe not overnight, but it’ll be fewer students under the Coalition allowed compared to Labor. That’s just unavoidable given the amount you want to reduce immigration by.
Senator Duniam:
Well, I’ll certainly allow Sarah Henderson, our Shadow Minister, to talk to the detail on exactly what we will do and when we’re going to announce every element of our response. But the point is process is key here. Universities are in charge of educating the next generation and if they can’t plan for how many people they’re going to be offering courses to, whether a course is viable or not what their budget’s going to be, because this is a part of their income stream, then that is an alarming development and the University of Tasmania is our only tertiary institution here and so they should have worked with them a bit better.
Tom Connell:
Jonathon Duniam, appreciate your time. Thank you.
Senator Duniam:
Thanks Tom.