Press conference in Majura, Canberra with Minister for the Environment and Water Tanya Plibersek

SUBJECTS: Albanese Government gives environment approvals to Australia’s biggest renewable energy project ever; Headwaters and springs of Belubula River in Central West NSW protected. 

LUKE GOSLING, SPECIAL ENVOY FOR NORTHERN AUSTRALIA: Good morning everyone. It's wonderful to be out here on a beautiful Canberra day in Majura. My name's Luke Gosling, I'm the Federal Member that represents Darwin in the Northern Territory, but also the Special Envoy for Northern Australia.

It's a really exciting day for Territorians, but for the whole country, and also for our neighbours, the Sun Cable project is game changing, it's nation building, and it's going to allow us to have that green energy future that we all so much seek and desire.

It's wonderful to be here with our Minister, Tanya Plibersek, but also with Steve Blume, thanks for hosting us and all your work in the renewables sector, and of course Cameron Garnsworthy from Sun Cable. It's wonderful to be in partnership with Sun Cable.

For the Northern Territory, Sun Cable is an absolutely gold class partner. We're working together to produce the world's biggest precinct for renewable energy, and that is really exciting. It's a real milestone today, with the Federal environmental approvals thank you, Tanya that will allow us to move ahead.

The scale of this project is massive. I think about two thirds of the power staying domestically to power green industry, which is massive within itself, but also then to be able to cable Territory sunshine to our neighbours, Singapore, being a great opportunity for the future, but also it will have jobs associated with it through Indonesia. It was great to host the Indonesian President in the Parliament yesterday.

So in terms of scale, to give you an idea, this project you can see behind us, imagine 4,000 of those in the Northern Territory between Tenant Creek and Elliot, and then that Territory sunshine being converted through solar panels, 800 kilometres to Darwin, where we will power green industry in Darwin, but then by sub sea cable to our partners in the north.

So it's all extremely exciting for us in the Northern Territory, but for the country more broadly, so thanks again to Sun Cable for being such a great partner and for working through in a really diligent way all of the environmental approvals and working so closely with the First Nations of the Northern Territory, so that this is a win win for everyone, this massive nation building project. Thanks very much.

TANYA PLIBERSEK, MINISTER FOR THE ENVIRONMENT AND WATER: Thanks, Luke. Today we're here because the Sun Cable project has received Commonwealth environmental approvals. It shows that the energy transition is real, it's happening right now, and that in years to come Australia can be a renewable energy superpower generating cheaper, cleaner renewable energy for Australian households and Australian industries, creating jobs and bringing down prices in a way that's great for the environment.

This is a really exciting project, the scale of it is transformative for the Northern Territory and for Australia. But it's also being done in a way that protects the natural environment as well.

We've had a great relationship with the company that means that we'll be able to avoid impacts on threatened and vulnerable species in the Northern Territory. You can do these enormous transformative projects in way that is nature positive.

The contrast, of course, is Peter Dutton's nuclear energy fantasy. In fact this project would generate enough energy to power seven nuclear reactors, and the contrast could not be sharper.

Nuclear reactors will take decades to build, they'll be expensive, there's no realistic proposition of them happening any time soon, and instead we've got a project that's got its environmental approvals and now will go into a phase of securing its financial backing.

CAMERON GARNSWORTHY, MANAGING DIRECTOR OF SUNCABLE: Thank you, Minister Plibersek, and good morning everyone. Today's announcement is a really important milestone for the Sun Cable project, it really paves the way for our nation building Australia Asia Power Link project.

The project itself that was approved today covers the generation site located at Power Creek, a transmission line which will extend all the way up to Darwin to feed green industries in Darwin, and also a sub sea cable that extends out to the Australian Indonesian maritime border.

We're looking to supply up to four gigawatts of energy to Darwin based companies, industrial, green industrial companies on a 24/7 basis, and we're looking to supply a further two gigawatts to customers located in Singapore.

We're really excited to be part of this important economic opportunity for Australia, and we look forward to working with the Government through the development of the project.

This project has been through four years of consultation, consulting with many, many stakeholders, and that will continue as we move to finalise the commercial and engineering design of the project.

We look forward to the Australian Government's Future Made in Australia policy, we look forward to being part of that future.

STEVE BLUME, CHAIR OF SOLARSHARE: Thank you all for coming out, the Minister, and the member for Darwin coming along as well.

We are pleased to have you here because we feel as though we're actually almost the midwives of this new development in the Northern Territory. This is going to be a magnificent thing for Darwin, it's a good thing for Canberra. We've had a group of Canberra people on a little solar farm, but it's working and working well, and it's all through the hard work of the former Chair, Nick, who is here with us today.

This is a great start for Australia, just here in Canberra.  That Northern Territory scale is what's going to make the difference in clean energy, so thank you again for coming. It's a pleasure for us to be able to show you around and we look forward to being invited to the opening in Darwin.  

MINISTER PLIBERSEK: So with this approval, the Albanese Labor Government has now approved enough renewable energy to power almost 7 million homes. That's an incredible achievement in just two years. Any questions?  

JOURNALIST: Just one on the Sun Cable approval, could I just get a bit more detail, and I'm not sure who to ask it to here, but a bit more detail in terms of this split of the energy produced? How much is that going to homes, you said it would go to businesses as well in Darwin, so what's the energy produced there, where will it go basically?

MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Well, I'll just say it's the equivalent energy that you would need to power 3 million homes, but this energy is designed to be used for industrial purposes. So that means the company will be looking at opportunities like green metals production, the very large data centres that are so energy hungry and a variety of industrial uses in Darwin.

That's really important because those green metals, green industrial chemical processes, large data centres, green hydrogen, all of them are very energy intense. If we can get cheaper, cleaner renewable energy into those products they become, firstly, more cost effective to produce in Australia, but they also become much more attractive to international buyers. Did you want to add something?

GARNSWORTHY: Yeah, look, we're looking to supply energy to green industrial customers, so forward facing future industries is our target market, and what we're looking to do is really bottle the Northern Territory's fantastic solar resources, and at scale to provide economically cheap electricity to those customers to help enable those industries, and that's one of the major opportunities we see.

JOURNALIST: Minister, related somewhat to this in a way, environmental approvals

MINISTER PLIBERSEK: I'm looking forward to the segue. Go on.

JOURNALIST: I'm trying to find something. At the same time last week we've had the section 10 decision with McPhillamys site. So the significance of that site is disputed within the Indigenous community there itself. Can you go into what specific evidence you received that led to you issuing section 10, and was it a verbal briefing, is it in a document, or    

MINISTER PLIBERSEK: I can go in to that. There's about 2,500 pages of documents of evidence that I considered, and I think it's not exactly fair to say that the issue is disputed between local Indigenous groups. The Wiradyuri Traditional Owners Central West Aboriginal Corporation are absolutely opposed to any disturbance of the whole project footprint, that's 2,500 hectares.

The Orange Local Aboriginal Land Council were originally opposed to the mine but have changed their position to neutral. There's not anyone in the local area saying that Aboriginal people are saying that the mine should go ahead, full steam ahead.

On the issues that I considered, I took evidence from a range of Traditional Owners, not just one as some journalists have tried to suggest, but a number of Traditional Owners. And the Wiradyuri Traditional Owners Central West Aboriginal Corporation is exactly the same group that Sussan Ley agreed, well I agreed to listen to when she made a section 10 determination not to proceed with some construction works on the top of Mount Panorama a few years earlier.

So these two sites are about 50 kilometres apart. I took advice from exactly the same group of people who gave the very similar evidence about the importance of these two sites. There's been quite a bit of commentary from Traditional Owners explaining that this is an area where pre initiation gatherings were held, it's an area that has great significance attached to the Belubula River itself.

Crucially, I have only put a section 10 declaration on 16 per cent of the whole project footprint, and that 16 per cent is on the headwaters and the springs of the Belubula River.

The company itself has said that they have examined more than four locations for the tailings dam and around 30 differentdesign options for the tailings dam.

They've also said that there's about $7 billion worth of gold in this mine. I have not prevented the building of the mine. I've asked the company to relocate the tailings dam so that a dump is not built on the headwaters and springs of a river that is culturally very important to local Wiradjuri people.

I have taken advice from the same group that the previous government took advice from when they made their section 10 declaration.

I note that the Senate is currently discussing whether they will disallow the decision I have made. This will be in effect [inaudible] voting to destroy Juukan Gorge.

We all said when Juukan Gorge was destroyed that we should never allow this type of destruction of Aboriginal cultural heritage again. Labor said it, the Liberals said it, the Nationals said it, the independents said it, and if we want to protect thousands of years of rich culture and heritage we have in Australia, then occasionally we need to ask that big projects like this amend their designs, amend their designs to protect cultural heritage.

I have to say again, this is not an order for the mine not to go ahead. The mine can go ahead. What I'm asking is that a dump not be built on the headwaters and springs of a river that’s important to the Wiradjuri people. Can I also say that there is a lot of disagreement in the local community   it's not just Wiradyuri people saying they don't want to see this river destroyed, there's a lot of local farmers who are very concerned about what happens to the water quality, if a tailings dam is built on the headwaters of the river.

JOURNALIST: Minister, could you comment on the environmental approval process for Sun Cable? Happy, smooth, long, unhappy? What's your experience?

MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Thanks Chris. It's an enormous project, and it took I think four years.

GARNSWORTHY: Four years through the process.

MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Four years, so it is a big and complex approvals process but what is fantastic about it is that the company has designed the project now to avoid any negative impact on those critical species that we're trying to protect. The Ghost Bats is a really good example. Ghost Bats are endangered, and the company has diverted their cable so that it's the biggest Ghost Bat colony in Australia

GARNSWORTHY: I think it is, yep.

MINISTER PLIBERSEK: will be avoided, there'll be an 8 kilometre buffer between the Ghost Bat colony and the transmission line, and there are other really important species along the route of the cable and impacted by the project area, like the Greater Bilby and the Red Goshawek and others, and the company have gone out of their way to avoid or mitigate impacts on those critical species.

It shows that these large developments can be done in a way that doesn't destroy nature, that in fact takes into account the natural values that we're trying to protect. It shows that jobs and the environment are in a position that we can have both, but the earlier in the process these kinds of the decisions are made to reduce impacts on nature the better, better for eveeryone, better for the company, better for us as the government.

What would be even better is if we had some movement now in the Senate to support the next phase of our environmental law reform.

Our environmental law reform would establish an Environment Protection Agency which would of course be very helpful with decisions like this, and would establish Environment Information Australia which would mean that all of the data that a large project proponent needs would be more readily available, so that in the project design phase they can design projects that avoid or mitigate negative impacts on nature.

JOURNALIST: So what are the prospects in the Senate right now then?

MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Well, that's really a question for Senators. I introduced legislation in the House of Representatives in May, that legislation has passed through the House of Representatives, but the Teals on the crossbench were, you know, amongst the group of people saying they want to see Stage 3 quickly, they'd like to see more, but they had the sensible position of voting for this step forward knowing that the faster Stage 2 goes through the Parliament, the faster we can get on with Stage 3.

Instead in the Senate we've seen a long Senate Inquiry that has still not tabled its report. On the one hand, I have Senators saying we want to see Stage 3 more quickly, on the other hand, we've seen, frankly a too slow dealing of Stage 2. We can't get to Stage 3 until Stage 2 is completed.

JOURNALIST: Minister, will that advice that you took, which led to the s10, will that be released publicly?

MINISTER PLIBERSEK: No, it's not traditional to release all of the advice publicly, that is absolutely standard with any of these decisions. Some of that advice is provided confidentially, and that includes information that is commercial in confidence for the project proponents, and it includes information from various local people about their views on the project itself.

JOURNALIST: But you did use Indigenous heritage laws, and you did tell the AFR that it was culturally sensitive, the information received, so    

MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Yes, some of it is. And some of it's commercial in confidence, and people talk to the people writing the reports, in some cases say that they are providing information in confidence, that's absolutely standard in this process, it often happens in Parliamentary Inquiries where people give information in camera.

But there's actually a lot of information already on the public record about the importance of rivers in Wiradjuri culture, there's academic articles written about it, there's experts who are happy to talk about it, and then the Traditional Owners have also spoke publicly about this place being important traditionally for pre initiation ceremonies, that it's important in Wiradjuri culture more generally where rivers and waterways are important, particularly for men, it's associated with passing stories from father to son.

And I say again, the former Environment Minister Sussan Ley gave reasons for refusing work on top of Mount Panorama that talked about culture, tradition, songlines, and very similar evidence was presented to me about this decision.

It is surprising to have the Coalition agree when they were in government that this is a significant area, with significant cultural value, and now that they're in Opposition completely changing their mind about the significance of it.

JOURNALIST: You mentioned and I know you've been asked questions similar to this over the last few days, but some of the claims from the Coalition is basically about that the Land Council said they are unopposed, as you said, or neutral to the project, whereas the advice has been taken from a smaller group of Wiradjuri Traditional Owners group. They're sort of accusing you of shopping around for a reason to say no to this project. What would your response be?

MINISTER PLIBERSEK: It's just nonsense, and I would say to you again, I'm not saying no to the project. The gold mine can go ahead. The proponents need to find a different site for the tailings dam.

If this river is destroyed, it's destroyed forever. So the project life is about 15 years, but the destruction to the river is forever. The Coalition said when Juukan Gorge was destroyed that we should never allow another Juukan Gorge. What they're proposing now is to allow another Juukan Gorge.

On the choice of listening to the Wiradjuri Traditional Owners Central West Aboriginal Corporation, this is the same group that previously the Liberal Government said is the appropriate group to listen to in making these decisions. They can't say it's the right group a few years ago and it's the wrong group now.