Time to review Watt’s wrong with NSW gold mine ban, Opposition and land council urge
The Opposition and local Aboriginal land council have demanded Anthony Albanese’s new environment minister immediately review the controversial decision to slap a ban on part of a $1 billion Blayney gold mine.
NSW
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Anthony Albanese’s new environment minister should immediately review the controversial decision to slap a ban on part of a $1 billion gold mine, the Opposition and the local Aboriginal land council have demanded.
The appointment of Murray Watt to the environment portfolio could breathe new life into the proposed mine at Blayney, which remains scuppered after former environment minister Tanya Plibersek issued a section 10 ban on Indigenous heritage grounds on part of the site last year.
The reasoning for the section 10 ban has been picked apart since the decision – with Ms Plibersek backing a local Indigenous group’s assertions the area is important to the Blue Banded Bee dreaming story, something disputed by the local Indigenous figures and studies undertaken by the proponent.
Roy Ah-See, an adviser of the Orange Local Aboriginal Land Council, said questions over the Blue Banded Bee dreaming story warranted a review of the ban.
“It needs fresh eyes to look at it. The decision needs to be based on the new evidence … that previous information has to be interrogated,” he said.
And in some of her first comments since being appointed the Coalition’s environment spokeswoman on Wednesday, Angie Bell also urged Mr Watt not to hobble jobs with “green tape”.
“I urge the Environment Minister Murray Watt to revisit Labor’s decision on the McPhillamys Gold Mine,” she said.
“We must find a balance that protects the environment while not wrapping industries in unnecessary green tape.
“Industry and business need certainty so that they can invest in Australia with confidence, creating jobs and boosting our economy.”
Regis Resources, the company behind the mine proposal, is set to challenge the decision in the federal court in December after lodging an application for a judicial review.
But Mr Ah-See wanted action before then.
“It needs to be looked at ASAP,” he said.
Mr Watt, who this week approved an extension allowing the country’s biggest gas project in Western Australia to run until 2070, was asked whether he stood by Ms Plibersek’s section 10 decision, and whether he would review the information which led to the ban.
“As there are legal proceedings on foot in the Federal Court, it would not be appropriate to comment at this time,” a government spokesman responded.
The decision to slap a ban on the part of the site, which covers the site of a proposed tailings dam, has been criticised previously by the Australian Workers’ Union, who said blocking the project would cost 600 jobs, and NSW Finance Minister Courtney Houssos.
The Blue Banded Bee dreaming story, which Ms Plibersek cited as a key reason for blocking the project’s dam, did not appear in any of the six ethnographic studies commissioned by mine owner Regis Resources.
A submission from Wiradjuri authority Uncle Neil Ingram last year to Ms Plibersek also stated he had never seen any evidence for the story.
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Originally published as Time to review Watt’s wrong with NSW gold mine ban, Opposition and land council urge
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