Warren Truss (Wide Bay, National Party, Shadow Minister for Infrastructure and Transport and Local Government) Share this | Hansard source

I would like to ask the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and the Arts some questions about the environmental impact assessment for the Traveston Crossing dam. I am aware that he visited the site a little while ago. Firstly, I would like him to give us some information about the timetable for the environmental impact assessment. Has he yet received the assessment from the Queensland government, and when does he expect that his own consideration of this issue under the EPBC Act will be completed?

The minister visited the site in the company of Mr Graeme Newton of Queensland Water Infrastructure, the project proponents. It has also been reported that the former opposition spokesman for the environment, Mr Albanese, also secretly visited the site in the company of the proponent, Mr Graeme Newton. I am aware that in the minister’s visit he spent a small time—he had a truncated meeting—with a few specifically invited locals, but does he intend to give equal time to those who oppose this project as he spent with the proponents of the project during his visit to the Traveston Crossing dam?

Is he aware that the Queensland Treasurer said in state parliament on 15 May that the Queensland government has already spent $500 million on the project, which is about a third of the government’s estimated cost of completing the project? Why has the Queensland government been allowed to get the project one-third completed before it has even lodged the environmental impact statement with the Australian government for consideration? Is the minister aware of repeated claims by Queensland government ministers, as reported in the media, that they have already received a wink and a nod from the Rudd Labor government that it will approve this project?

I am particularly asking for an assurance from the minister that there will be genuine integrity in the environmental impact assessment of the Traveston Crossing dam. There are serious environmental issues involved, and hopefully someone during the minister’s visit was able to explain some of those to him. The community is deeply concerned that this process is fatally flawed, especially in view of the fact that the minister does not even have the environmental impact assessment and the project is one-third built.

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