By ignoring the views of the Orange Local Aboriginal Land Council and siding with green activists when deciding to veto a $1bn goldmine in central-west NSW, federal Environment and Water Minister Tanya Plibersek has cast aside the job prospects and economic wellbeing of local Indigenous people and Australia’s reputation among investors. Last Friday, Ms Plibersek announced she would use the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Heritage Protection Act to protect the land on which a tailings dam for the Regis Resources mine, near Blayney, had already been approved by the NSW and federal governments. “Because I accept that the headwaters of the Belubula River are of particular significance to the Wiradjuri/Wiradyuri people in accordance with their tradition, I have decided to protect them,” she said. But senior Wiradjuri leader and former NSW Aboriginal Land Council chair Roy Ah-See said Ms Plibersek was wrong to prefer the views of opponents over the written advice of the Orange Local Aboriginal Land Council. The council’s heritage committee found the proposed development “would not impact any known sites or artefacts of high significance”.
Ms Plibersek’s decision is “a perfect example of Indigenous Australians wanting to develop their land and utilise all that it has to offer, but the Albanese government explicitly stopping them from doing so”, as opposition Indigenous Australians spokeswoman Jacinta Nampijinpa Price said. Neither is it the first time green activists have used lawfare to stymie the interests of Indigenous people and the national economic interest. In January, Federal Court judge Natalie Charlesworth found environmentalists lied to traditional owners from the Tiwi Islands, 80km north of Darwin, and distorted and manipulated Indigenous instructions, as they tried to stop a gas pipeline being built by Santos. Justice Charlesworth’s decision gave the green light for the company to resume work on the 262km pipeline from the Barossa field northwest of Darwin, to Santos’s Darwin LNG plant.
Similar hokey logic to what appears to have swayed Ms Plibersek about the goldmine was rampant in Queensland 15 years ago when the Bligh government imposed restrictive Wild Rivers legislation over three rivers on Cape York in 2009. Indigenous groups argued that Labor undertook the Wild Rivers plan to win green preferences in city seats it needed to retain power. After staunch opposition led by Noel Pearson, who argued that lawfare deprived his people of economic opportunities, the Federal Court declared the Wild Rivers legislation invalid in June 2014.
The Regis gold project has been stymied, reportedly, on the basis of a submission from a group of 17 people. It is one of several major resource projects under challenge through section 10 of the Indigenous Heritage Act. The resources sector has warned that Ms Plibersek’s intervention overturning federal and state approvals sets a bad precedent. Business Council of Australia chief Bran Black said he constantly heard “from CEOs that Australia is missing out on major investments because our planning and regulation systems are difficult to navigate, duplicative and cumbersome”.
On Monday, Regis Resources chief executive and managing director Jim Beyer said Ms Plibersek’s decision, after an assessment process of almost four years, threatened future developments. Association of Mining and Exploration Companies chief executive Warren Pearce warned the decision set a terrible precedent for investment risk: “This is the definition of sovereign risk.” Disadvantaged Indigenous people and the economy, hampered by poor productivity, can ill afford it, especially when Indigenous representatives judge the project would not affect significant sites. If Ms Plibersek were seeking to make a mark in her portfolio she has done so – in the wrong way.
