Thanks everyone for joining us today. Unfortunately this is a call that we have hair very disappointing day for us. For those who don't know, my name is Jim Birol.
It's been a bad few weeks for Jim Bayer, the CEO of Australia's third largest gold miner, Regius Resources. He's had to tell investors that a billion dollar project could be dead and millions of dollars wasted.
And we're here to provide a briefing on the surprising and disappointing Section ten declaration made by the Federal Minister for Environment and Water, Tania plibask on Friday morning in relation to mcphillamy's.
The plans for a gold mine in New South Wales had been through all the approvals and the boxes had been tecked, but then came the decision from the Environment Minister, Tania Plibisek to intervene on the behalf of a group of traditional owners.
Have called us and they've informed us another.
Sessions and that we're part of the Vlari songline, which is a love your life.
Headwaters is now protected under second Sex.
The industry, the coalition and parts of the media are all furious. Some even suggesting that cultural heritage laws are being hijacked by green groups. So is that true? From Schwartz Media, I'm Ruby Jones. This is seven AM today, National correspondent for the Saturday Paper. Mike Second Montanya Plivsek the gold mine and who gets a say when it comes to mining projects. It's Thursday, August twenty nine, So Mike, let's start with this planned one billion dollar gold wine.
Tell me about the project and who's behind it?
Right, Well, actually it's more than a one billion dollar project. That that was just what they thought they were going to make a profit out of it. So the project was going to be near Bathist in Regional New South Wales, just west of Bathist. Was proposed to be an open cut gold mine called the mcphillamy's Gold Project, and it was being developed by a company called Regis Resources, which is Australia's third biggest I think gold miner.
Every community needs new industry to keep the town growing.
Mcilamies would bring jobs and attracts people and attracts families to the community.
Regious Resources claimed the project would have supported about five hundred and eighty full time jobs during construction and two hundred and ninety odd jobs when it was in production.
To not have to leave the town at.
All, increase our house prices, keep the builders busy, ken the electricians busy.
They would extract up to sixty million tons of ore and from that they would get two million ounces of gold, So it was a pretty big deal. Would have delivered two hundred million dollars in royalties to the New South Wales government. And the planning had been going on for
seven years, something like that community consultation. I think they might have dealt with something like twenty three different community groups, including indigenous groups, preparation of environmental impact statements, all that sort of stuff. Finally it was ticked off by the New South Wales Department of Planning, Industry, Environment and then it was referred to the state's Independent Planning Commission and they ticked it off and it was granted approval under
the Federal Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Act. To all intents and purposes, the MIND proponents thought at that point it was a goer, and then this month, at the very last minute, that was all unraveled when the Federal Environment Minister Tanya Plibisek.
Intervened right okay, so we have this mine all set to go ahead, approvals ticked off, consultation done and these jobs expected. Then the minister intervened. So what did Tanya Pubsect do.
Well, it goes back a few years before she said no. There was an application for protection for the entire area of the mine made in twenty twenty one on behalf of a quite small group of traditional owners called the Wrajeri Traditional Owners Central West Aboriginal Corporation, and two weeks ago Plibisek approved their application. She didn't actually protect all the mind site on cultural heritage grounds, so of the full two thy five hundred hectar site, she protected a
much smaller part for roughly four hundred hectares. It so happens, though, that that protected area covers virtually the entire planned tailings dam, and Regius Resources says that's crucial to the whole operation. No tailing dam, no mine, So the whole thing's stopped. Right.
So the mining company is saying, as a result of this decision, the mine will no longer go ahead.
Well, they're not quite killing it off. I've been passing their words fairly carefully. Currently unviable were the words used by Regius Resources ce Jim Bayer. But still it looks like it looks like hundreds of millions of dollars down the gurglar. I mean, even if they were to try and revive it, they would presumably have to go back to the drawing board right because their tailing stam has been ruled out. I might add plibisek reckons they can
find another site for the tailing stam. The company at this stage says they can't. So we've got a standoff.
We don't have a site for a tailing stam, so makes it pretty hard to step forward with the project without that what we've got.
Bey gave this quite bolshie, I think you would say briefing to his investors, where he said.
Regis considers this Section ten declaration shatters any confidence the development proponents Australia wide, both private and public, can have in project approval timelines and outcomes.
And he went on the implications of this decision and not limited to the resources industry.
But also developers of infrastructure, renewable energy property, as well as tourism operators, farmers and owners of freehold land.
More generally, the Association of Mining and Exploration Companies, which is one of the peak bodies for the extractive industry. It came in firmly behind REGIS and they raised the old specter of sovereign risk and saying that investors would lose confidence in investing in Australia.
Understandably, after this and some other resources projects being blocked because of indigenous heritage claims, the mining industry is worried about the sovereign risk of trying to invest in this country.
The heads of the Minerals Council of Australia and the Business Council of Australia among others, weighed in as well and got stuck into the regulatory system. Their complaints were amplified through the reporting in various media, most notably you know the Murdock papers, the Conservative papers and Kerry Stokes's
West Australian paper, the West Australian. And you know there was I guess you would say the usual intemperate commentary by right wing pundits about approvals processes being hijacked by green groups and so on.
Mistake, this is economic suicide because this is a government that's putting its faith in green ideology rather than the industries that have long been the foundation of our prosperity. Someone who identifies as an elder has told the minister she can hear the ancestors, and next.
Boom, the mine is blocked.
I mean that seems to be what it is.
It is baseless and fast.
Of all, how she could sleep at night worries me. But maybe she's got voices in her ear, because you know she's had these secret voices, these people who claim to be from this when we're a jer what is it called, we're a jury, We're a jury jury clan. Yeah, how you know this is say credit?
Now, I think you can say that there was more than the usual amount of blowback on this decision. Right. Flpisex decision was also roundly attacked by the federal opposition.
If a business wants to come and actually do a development, we have that data, that understanding of impact on environment that I think it's now time for a secut time that's on approvals.
So I think it's fair to say that the level of complaint about this decision went well beyond the usual griping of the resources sector and its media and political advocates. This was the full court press, So it was an unusual reaction. But then this was also an unusual case.
What do you mean by that, Mike? What makes this case unusual?
Well, plisk is the Minister for the Environment, right, but her decision was not specifically about protecting the natural environment. It was about Aboriginal cultural heritage. And the decision was made under Section ten of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Heritage Protection Act. It's never been used by flibber sc before. I think she has knocked back several, but she'd never approved one before, so it's a very rarely used section of the law.
Okay, So what we have then is at the very last minutevironment minister making a decision that's not about the environment. Should we believe that that is the case? Is it credible that this decision is actually not environmentally related?
Well, well, there are claims out there, particularly by the industry, that these Section ten claims, these these Aboriginal heritage claims are being used as a kind of backdoor way to achieve environmental outcomes. That you know, Plipasek was really about protecting the environment in this area, which happens to be the headwaters of a fairly significant river YEP and.
It relates to cultural heritage, the protection of cultural heritage, the imminent threat of destruction.
Right.
So I spoke to Tania Plipsec about this, and she firmly rejected any suggestion that her decision, which protected the headwaters and the springs associated with this river, was taken out of environmental concern.
No, I mean, the decision completely relates to cultural heritage protection.
But yes, there were environment groups also opposed to this project. There was the Belubula that's the name of the River Headwaters Protection group, for instance. They were worried about the potential impact on the river system because you know, wastewater from gold mining is notoriously toxic and Taling's dams are
notoriously prone to mishap. It's interesting also that the Environmental Defender's office provided legal representation both to the indigenous group and to the environmental group that were opposed to it, and campaign for public donations to help fund the fight. So, you know, it's interesting that plebisec consists it's entirely about cultural issues, but pretty clearly there's a big overlay of environmental activism in there as well.
After the break, the claims that the Heritage Protection Act is being hijacked. So, Mike tiny plibisex, she's used the original entist Rod Islander Heritage Protection Act in this case and this decision relating to a new South Als gold mine, and you say that decision is unusual. In fact, it's the first time that she's actually granted protection under that Act. So could you just tell me a little bit more about Section ten and what it's designed to do?
Right? Well, the mining industry has complained for several years that applications made under this particular section of the Act are proliferating and they have a dare i say, a reasonable case to make. And while mine's are the most common target, you know, they do also affect other developments, as they have alluded to in his briefing the other
day to his investors. There was a report by the law firm Ashurst a couple of years ago that found that the number of applications had been trending up since about twenty nineteen and that there had been an unprecedented number was what they described it as in the twelve months up until twenty twenty two when the report came out and they went through and they detailed quite a number of these Section ten applications, and they related to
a very wide range of proposed developments. Among them was roadworks near Kuroi and Queensland, underground power lines near Kempse in New South Wales, a residential housing development in Ginderbyne in New South Wales, and the one that I thought was most interesting, which was a wind farm on Robins Island in Tasmania. So it highlights an interesting internal conflict.
I guess within the green movement that in this particular case they have made common cause with an indigenous group to knock over what at one level looks like an environmentally positive project a wind farm.
Okay, and so you said earlier that there is this concern that Section ten might be being used by people with one agenda, whether that is environmental or perhaps otherwise, to try and block a project that they don't agree with. Is that the problem here, Mike. That's something that's designed to be used to only protect indigenous heritage sites can potentially be used in these other ways.
Well, yes, and you know I don't want to be mistaken for some rabid right wing here. I mean, I note that when Plebisk made this decision, the federal opposition Shadow Minister Ofurces, Senator Susan McDonald came out and accused the Labor government of encouraging anti mining activists to use, you know, these cultural considerations for their own purposes. She called it death by stealth and said that genuine concerns
were being weaponized. There's a degree of hyperbole on both sides here, I think, but particularly on the conservative side, you know. And even worse was Senator just Center Price, who gave some comments to The Knightly, which is a sort of pro mining new newspaper established in Western Australia by a number of mining billionaires, including Kerry Stokes and
Gina Reinhardt. The headline on the story Regius Resources colon Justenta Nampajinpa Price fumes over fake Indigenous Australians after New South Wales gold mine shafted, and in her quotes to the newspaper she said that she had spoken to genuine Wiradjeri people and that a lot of people who were claiming to be indigenous in fact weren't. Now, this was
an outrageous insinuation, absolutely outrageous. There's no evidence of that at all, but there is I think a legitimate question here, which is who speaks for indigenous interests and on whose behalf they speak. In the case of this gold mine, there was this local group, but there was also a land council, the local land council, which had no problem with the mind whatsoever. So we have competing indigenous factions,
one pro development and one anti development, and todate. We've seen anti development First Nations groups making common cause with environment groups. Those actions tend to be celebrated by progressives, but it could be a two edged swort. You know, there's no reason why write groups could not use Section ten claims. You know, for example, the anti climate change people could quite easily move to stop you know, wind farms,
solar developments on the basis of Aboriginal heritage concerns. So you know, this is a two edge sword that can cut left and right, I guess is my argument here.
Okay, So when you look at how this process unfolded them, particularly in regards to this mind in South Last, if we come back to that and the arguments being made around the Heritage Protection Act being weaponized, I mean to what extent do you think that those arguments are exaggerated or do you think that there is a case to be made here that the entire approvals process needs change, needs to be reformed.
Well, I think you put your finger on it there. I mean, obviously you have to take consideration of the environment and of the cultural implications for Indigenous folk. You know, that has to be part of the process. I think the overarching problem here is that the process is so bloody long that it goes seven years in this case of this particular mind, and then at the last minute's knocked over. When I spoke to blibersecond about that, she said,
absolutely correct. You know, the process takes a very long time. The current government is moving to try and expedite matters as best it can, and would that necessarily expedite claims of this current Section ten type claims.
Well, one of the proposals we have is a new national standard for First Nations consultation, which would make it clear much earlier in the piece who the right people are to talk to.
And I think that is probably the answer here. It's not a problem with the fact that this section exists. It's the fact that it can be cited quite late in the piece and can bring things to a grinding halt right at the very.
End, Mike, thank you so much for your time.
Thank you.
Also in the news today, Green's leader Adam Bant wants to see big business taxed at forty percent. Speaking at the National Press Club, Ban singled out fossil fuel companies as the types of multinationals that made quote obscene profits and should be giving more back to the public. Bant called it a robin Hood tax. Meanwhile, the Minerals Council of Australia, the leading advocate for Australia's oil and gas companies,
called it economic sabotage. And inflation is finally coming down, with the RBA announcing the July rate at three point five percent, down from three point eight percent in June. The ABS says electricity rebates driving down energy prices have helped curb inflation this month, but economists say the drop is unlikely to result in an interest rate cut. I'm Ruby Jones. This is seven am. Thanks for listening.