21 August 2024
Topics: Plibersek’s chilling decision to block the Regis goldmine in regional NSW, Coalition disallowance motion seeking to overturn the decision, babies born alive Senate vote, Facebook censoring pro-nuclear content, live sheep export ban and PM’s poor response
E&OE
Peta Credlin:
My panel, Shadow Environment Minister Jonathon Duniam, senior fellow at the Menzies Research Centre, Nick Cater. Gents, I want to start with an update on Tanya Plibersek’s decision to block the $1 billion Regis Gold mine with revelations today that a dissident Aboriginal corporation, just eighteen registered members, played a key role in the minister’s decision. Now we know the nuts and bolts of that decision she’s decided to keep secret. Senator Price has slammed the move as utterly disgraceful and pointed out that the Orange Land Council, that’s the local indigenous authority, hasn’t raised any concerns at all with the project. So concerned are the Coalition about this decision they’re trying to move a disallowance motion in the Senate to kill it off. Well, Jonno, that’s where you are in your day job, what do we know about this dissident group? Give us a sense of where you’re up to with this motion.
Senator Duniam:
Yeah so this dissident group, eighteen people of which we don’t know anything on the official web page about the group, I understand that in some cases only christian names are outlined, we don’t know whether complaints have been raised about this group. We asked about that in the Senate today and guess what? The Minister couldn’t and didn’t answer questions about it. We know that they’re aided by everyone’s friends at the taxpayer-funded Environmental Defenders Office and of course we also know that they have a track record of fabricating evidence and coaching witnesses. So all we do know is that the Minister, a) that funds the EDO and b) who ticked off on the environmental approvals, has now used this eleventh hour move to kill off this billion dollar project, has got all her priorities wrong and I’m quietly confident we might get this disallowance up because it is the right thing for Australia and anyone who votes against us doesn’t have their priorities right.
Peta Credlin:
I mean this is 800 jobs. When they export the gold, that’s money to the bottom line to pay for all the things like the NDIS and you know, new defence ships that we want and need. I mean if this goes down after it had all the approvals, all the ducks lined up, who the heck’s going to want to invest in Australia anyway?
Nick Cater:
Well exactly, Peta. I mean, there’s plenty of other places around the world where you can find gold and indeed iron ore, you know, uranium for that matter. People come here because we usually have a stable political context and, you know, laws don’t change between governments. You don’t get irrational decisions like the one we’ve just had, and they come here because we do it cheaply and easily. Now we’re making it really, really hard. So inevitably this will mean that Australia will lose mining to other countries, lose the mining royalties, most importantly because as you know, once the mine is approved and it’s producing royalties, it’s benefiting Australians for generations to come. So it’s an appalling decision and the way this has been made and the fact that there seems to be sort of Aboriginal Land Council shopping going on, I would like to see but like to know that’s not the case, which I’d like to see that, that that opened up because it needs to be totally transparent and Jacinta price is somebody who obviously, her suspicions are raised. We’ve got to get to the bottom of this one.
Peta Credlin:
Jonno yesterday and I’ve spoken about this at the top of the show, there was a motion in the Senate to ensure that babies born alive after a failed abortion received medical care. It was voted down in the Senate. Now this was not a motion about abortion. It was not about women’s reproductive rights. It was an attempt to ensure that we have national laws, it’s not the case in every state that this happened, but it was an attempt to ensure we would have a national law that says a baby born alive after an attempted abortion would get the care that every one of us get as a basic human right. Now, Labor and the Greens oppose the motion, they voted against it as, as did four of your colleagues Senators Birmingham, Bragg, Hume and Kovacic. You voted for it, though, you vote to support the motion. Explain why.
Senator Duniam:
Well, firstly, I believe life is a gift from God and to take that away from someone else is frankly a sin. But as you rightly point out, this was not about reproductive health, this motion, it wasn’t about denying women the right to a medical or surgical abortion. And to sit there and listen to the speeches from those who contributed to it, the heartrending stories of children who, after a failed abortion, are literally left in a petri dish or a kidney dish or in a stainless steel table in a backroom of a hospital to die alone, no love, you know that that is not something I could ever bring myself to condone and allow to continue and to hear Labor and Greens Senators shouting words like ‘disgusting’ every time someone would raise one of these concerns. Sorry, to allow this to happen in a modern world where as you say, if you were sick and requiring medical care, you get it. These babies are born alive and should be protected and afforded care. That’s what decent human beings would offer in that situation. I can’t believe it is not the law that that must happen.
Peta Credlin:
I hope you keep pursuing it and my phone is lit up like a Christmas tree. I know a lot of Australians didn’t actually know that was going on. Nick, are you concerned about reports that Facebook’s been censoring political content? This is pro-nuclear content. It’s been removed, we’re told, because it’s been, quote, ‘misleading’. The Supporters for Nuclear for Australia, they’ve reached out to the lobby group, they said stuff that we wanted to send around a supporting nuclear power has been taken down. META says well, you know, there’s no censorship here, it was a technical error. Come on, we had plenty of technical errors hit the No campaign in the Voice. Not many that hit the Yes campaign. We don’t believe this furphy, do we?
Nick Cater:
I don’t believe it for one second, Peta, because they’ve got form on this as you point out, they did exactly the same with the Voice. You know, they decided that Jacinta Price should not have a voice on Facebook, which seemed rather contradictory. But this is this is alarming, I mean, thankfully, fewer and fewer Australians, I believe, are going to Facebook for news and any sort of comment like that because it’s unreliable. But this from a company of course which is based in Silicon Valley, which doesn’t pay taxes here as far as I know or not much and doesn’t even pay for the news it steals basically from companies like News Corp and Fairfax and the other ones. And they have to cheek to want to buy into our political debates? I think it’s outrageous and I think they should be shown… the best thing to do here, is to point out the people what’s going on so that people will realise that they can’t trust what’s happening on Facebook. It’s a very it’s a very poor source of news. Go somewhere reliable like this channel for instance.
Peta Credlin:
Now no surprises here. My sister and my brother in law have got a big dairy farm. They’re on the land, but farmers across the country, according to a new survey from the NFF, show that 70 per cent of them believe Labor’s harming the industry. Their top concerns are biosecurity, climate change policies and live sheep export bans, but what about the fallout today from a really poor joke that the Prime Minister made last night at a regional womens awards dinner in Canberra. Have a listen.
Anthony Albanese:
When we had dinner, beautiful Australian beef, not the live export kind. We’ve made sure it was dead.
Peta Credlin:
I’m told that it went down like a lead balloon, Jonno.
Senator Duniam:
Yeah, that that’s the feedback I’ve received too. But I mean to make a joke off the back of having ended the livelihoods of scores of farmers and businesses with the live sheep trade, to then make a joke of that nature when there is a high degree of anxiety as you’ve already pointed out, amongst the agricultural communities, it just proves how tone deaf this man is. How out of touch he is. He gets paid every fortnight, no matter how much he runs this country into the ground and to stand up there in black tie, joke about the future of this industry in that way proves he is not fit to govern this country, and farmers know it, and they’ve not got a friend in him. So you’d expect better from him but sadly we were proven wrong again.
Peta Credlin:
Yes, 70 per cent is a pretty comprehensive poll I have to say. Thank you, gentlemen.