Senators under pressure to undo bee dreaming ban

Senators from NSW are under pressure to undo Tanya Plibersek’s Blayney goldmine ban after doubt on the authenticity of the bee dreaming story that underpinned intervention.

Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek says the Blayney mine tailings dam needs to be redesigned. Picture: NewsWire / Gaye Gerard

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Senators from NSW are under pressure to support the opposition’s latest attempt at undoing Tanya Plibersek’s ban on the Blayney goldmine after new information cast serious doubt on the authenticity of the blue-banded bee dreaming story that underpinned her decision to intervene.

Ms Plibersek dug in on Thursday after The Australian revealed that Wiradjuri authority Neil Ingram told her he had never heard of the bee dreaming story. Mr Ingram, the custodian of the Wiradjuri’s Three Brothers dreaming, is adamant the bee dreaming is not real.

The Australian also revealed that consultant anthropologist Philip Clarke – whose research helped debunk claims of secret women’s business at the Hindmarsh Island royal commission – considers the blue-banded bee dreaming story “highly unlikely”.

Asked on Thursday whether she had been duped by a dissident group, Ms Plibersek said: “Not at all.”

Though she acknowledges in her published reasons that the mine cannot proceed as it was previously approved now that she has made a protection order over what would have been the tailings dam, she said on Sky News on Thursday: “I think we’re fairly confident that there’s a way forward ... the project can go ahead. They just need to redesign the tailings dam”.

Regis says this would take five to 10 years.

On Thursday, opposition environment spokesman Jonno Duniam, a Liberal senator from Tasmania, was pressing ahead with a private senator’s bill to reverse Ms Plibersek’s decision.

The Australian has been told that NSW senators are being lobbied to consider the best interests of their state and the position of NSW Premier Christopher Minns, who has made it clear he wants the commonwealth to rethink the goldmine decision.

“My private senator’s bill would overturn Ms Plibersek’s senseless decision that killed this $1bn gold mine, destroyed 800 jobs and took away $200m from the state of NSW,” Senator Duniam said.

“Though my disallowance motion to overturn the minister’s decision went down by a vote in the Senate, this bill gives senators another chance to right this wrong.

“Since the vote, we have found out that the minister based her decision on a supposed song line that Wiradjuri elders and the Orange Local Aboriginal Land Council say does not exist and on paintings and murals that only have recently been drawn.”

“The flaws in Minister Plibersek’s reasonings to block the mine are all there for everyone to see.

“It was a reckless decision that did not have the interests of the local community nor the legitimate views of the Indigenous community at heart.

“I would urge my fellow senators to look at the facts of this case and reconsider their voting positions. No senator can seriously consider themselves pro-jobs and in support of Indigenous empowerment if they vote against this bill.

“Tanya Plibersek’s official Statement of Reasons document for rejecting the project further demonstrates the need to overturn this shocking decision. The minister knew that her decision would make the mine unviable but still dismissed the approvals of the NSW government, her own department and the legislated Indigenous representatives in the area.”

The Orange Local Aboriginal Land Council says the proposed mine site is not a significant site and is outraged Ms Plibersek has discounted its knowledge and expertise as the elected Indigenous body for the area.

It has questioned why the dissident group – the Bathurst-based Wiradjuri Traditional Owners Central West Aboriginal Corporation – did not mention the blue-banded bee dreaming when it was participating in years of consultations about the mine.

Mr Ingram, one of five Wiradjuri people who spoke for the Orange land council at the eleventh-hour investigation that Ms Plibersek convened last December, claims the dissident group is attributing the blue-banded bee dreaming story to an elder who died in 2022.

“(He) is deceased and can’t be questioned to validate the Bathurst groups claims,” Mr Ingram told Ms Plibersek.

At the request of mine proponent Regis Resources, anthropologist and historian Dr Clarke wrote three reports in three years about Wiradjuri culture and tradition based on an audit of the public records.

Dr Clarke turned up proof of the Wiradjuri belief in supreme beings and evidence of ceremonial cycles but nothing about the blue-banded bee and nothing that is specific to the catchment area of the Belubula River where the tailings dam was approved.

Writing in The Australian on Friday, Dr Clarke describes his shock at Ms Plibersek’s decision to declare “a significant Indigenous area requiring cultural protection and preservation” on farmland where the mine would have been built.

Ms Plibersek’s published reasons for her mine veto refer to a bee mural at the Bathurst post office as “support (for) the validity of the Dreaming as an Aboriginal tradition”.

This appears to suggest the existence of the mural was offered to Ms Plibersek as corroboration of the bee dreaming story from the dissident group.

However, The Australian has established the artist was a member of the dissident group at the time he painted the mural. In an interview with a local newspaper, he said he was painting the bee mural “in close consultation” with members of that dissident group and named five of them.