ABC News Breakfast interview with Minister for the Environment and Water Tanya Plibersek

SUBJECTS: McPhillamys Gold Mine, Death of Tamil asylum seeker.

BRIDGET BRENNAN, HOST: But first, let's get the latest on the situation with the proposed Blayney Gold Mine in NSW. I'm joined now from Sydney by Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek. Well, Minister, there's been a lot of debate about this issue, and you've said there's been some misinformation about your decision over cultural heritage on this project. What did you mean by that?

TANYA PLIBERSEK, MINISTER FOR THE ENVIRONMENT AND WATER: Well, just starting with the basics. You know, Australia has 65,000 years of continuous culture and heritage that we should be protecting and learning from, and we just haven't really done a particularly good job of that in the past. The most extreme example of that is the destruction of Juukan Gorge. But if we want to protect cultural heritage, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultural heritage here in Australia, then occasionally decisions like this to protect important places have to be made. There's a line in some of the papers that this will prevent the McPhillamys gold mine going ahead, that's not actually the case. This is a 2500-hectare site and I've protected 400 hectares of that. The 400 hectares I've protected are the headwaters and springs of the Belubula River, which are significant to local Wiradjuri traditional owners. They've been significant for many thousands of years. Once this river is destroyed, it's destroyed forever.

So, I've taken a decision to protect the headwaters and the springs of the river where the gold mining company planned to build a tailings dam. The gold mining company themselves have said they investigated four different sites for the tailings dam. Of course, they've gone for the cheapest and most convenient. That's their job. They've got shareholders to keep happy. But my job as the Environment Minister is to protect Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultural heritage, and that's what I'm doing.

BRENNAN: So, what's your response to the company when it says it could take five to ten years to redevelop the plan for this project and also that there could be job losses? It sounds like you're not quite buying that.

MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Oh, it's just nonsense. I have doubled on-time project approvals since Labor has come to government. I recently approved a wind farm in just nine weeks because it was located in the right place. They'd avoided threatened species and, you know, they'd avoided a significant negative impact on nature. So, I was able to give that the tick in nine weeks.

So, this idea that it would take five to ten years is just nonsense. It depends on the company, finding a suitable location that doesn't impact cultural heritage and is suitable environmentally. Of the two and a half thousand-hectare site, they've still got 2,100 hectares to have a look at on the land that they already own. I've already said that the rest of the site is not impacted by my cultural heritage decision. I think it's in the company's interest to have a look at alternate sites. They are saying publicly that there's up to $7 billion worth of gold in the ground. If that's the case, then it's in their interests to have a look around at alternate sites.

I'd also note that, look, the last time I checked, their share price was up by 9 per cent since I'd made my decision to protect the headwaters and springs of the Belubula River. So, I mean, I take from that, that their shareholders imagine that there is a way forward.

BRENNAN: This is being characterised as an eleventh-hour decision by some media outlets. How long did the company know that there were significant cultural heritage concerns and how long did you and your department know? Was this a decision that was made at the last minute?

MINISTER PLIBERSEK: In fact, the applications to protect cultural heritage were put in around 2020. So, to characterise this as some last-minute surprise is, again, nonsense. And, in fact, given that the company has been aware of the cultural heritage concerns since around 2020, it probably would have made sense to be looking at a plan b, you know, in the meanwhile as well.

BRENNAN: Evidently there was a diversity of views even within Wiradjuri mob. Different groups like the local Aboriginal Orange Local Land Council and then other representative groups of Wiradjuri people. I mean, this is something we've seen across a lot of projects. How do you balance the diversity of views when you've got some Aboriginal people saying, “well, we appreciate that there might be cultural heritage concerns, but we want this to go ahead. We don't think they’re significant enough to stymie projects.” And then you've got others saying, “we would be devastated if we lost this piece of environment.” How have you balanced it in this case?

MINISTER PLIBERSEK: It's a really important question and a couple of things I'd say. The Wiradjuri Traditional Owners Central West Aboriginal Corporation is the group that I've acted to. They have asked me to act to protect this area as culturally significant and I've taken their advice so that it is culturally significant for them. This is the same group of people that the previous Environment Minister, Sussan Ley, listened to and acted on the advice of when she protected an area about 50 kilometres away on the top of Mount Panorama in Bathurst.

So, same group of people, same advice from them about the cultural significance of a location. Same action from the Minister based on the same laws for the same reasons. The Orange Local Aboriginal Land Council, of course, I've also listened to them. I think it's important to note that the Orange Local Aboriginal Land council was originally opposed to this proposal as well. They've shifted their position to neutral. There's a sort of story gaining hold in some media organisations that they're somehow supportive. I think that's an overstatement of their position. There are other Aboriginal groups in the area who also oppose the development and have been supportive of the Section Ten, as incidentally have a lot of non-Indigenous people, because they're worried that once the river's destroyed, it's destroyed forever. And that would have an impact downstream, potentially, on their farming, their goat, sheep and honey businesses. So, I've made the decision on the basis of advice from the Wiradjuri Traditional Owners Central West Aboriginal Corporation. The advice to me from my Department are they are the appropriate people to speak for country in this instance. But I would say this is an area where we do need to do further reform. It would be much simpler for project proponents to get advice much earlier in their project design processes about who it is that they should be speaking to, to do proper consultation with First Nations people. And that's something that we're working on through our Cultural Heritage Law reforms.

BRENNAN: Minister, if you wouldn't mind just going to a separate issue now. The death of a Tamil asylum seeker, Mano Yogalingam in Melbourne, has really devastated the Tamil community and really sent shockwaves, really, across the country. He took his own life. The Tamil Refugee Council believes the amount of time he had spent on a bridging visa to be a contributing factor. How can it be that we can leave people for more than a decade on a bridging visa? And does this demonstrate that it's having real harm to some members of the community?

MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Well, the first thing I'd say is that my deepest sympathies go to his friends and family. This is a particularly devastating way to lose someone. I'm not going to comment on the individual case because, of course, I don't know all of the details. It's something that I'm sure the Immigration Minister will be looking at very closely and I'll leave it for him to make further, more detailed comments when the time is right.

BRENNAN: And we had Simon Birmingham on the program earlier. He's in Ukraine at the moment. He says the government should move quickly to reopen our Australian Embassy in Kyiv, that it would be a strong show of support to the Ukrainian Government. Is that something we're looking to do? Why has Australia decided not to do that when other nations have reopened in Ukraine?

MINISTER PLIBERSEK: We always think first and foremost of the safety of our staff and our citizens. We are giving a lot of support to the government of Ukraine, including through technical support and other types of military support. We've been one of the most generous donors to Ukraine in its efforts to defend itself and certainly I think we're one of the most generous outside of Europe and we'll continue that support. We know that it's essential to the defence of democracy globally that we say it's not okay for a bigger country with superior military resources just to invade its neighbour in the way that Russia has done with Ukraine.

BRENNAN: Tanya Plibersek, thanks very much for your time this morning.

MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Bridget, before you go, can I say, I know a lot of people will miss Lisa Millar but congratulations. I know you will make a wonderful replacement.

BRENNAN: Thanks very much, Tanya that's very kind of you. Talk soon. Thanks.