Peter Lindsay (Herbert, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Deputy Speaker, if you have not seen an angry ant before, look over here. I am extraordinarily angry about an issue that continues today in Australia. It is in relation to what governments do to get themselves off the political hook and what newspapers report, which is just wrong. It seems that you cannot believe anything you read in the newspaper, particularly in Townsville. On 1 February, Xstrata received findings from an independent analysis of air monitoring from October to December 2009 in Mount Isa which showed potential exceedence in one of their five high-volume air sampling stations in that town. As soon as they became aware of that matter they immediately informed DERM and launched an investigation. Based on their current findings they do not have any grounds to believe that Xstrata had caused a breach of their regulatory limits. They advised the state government that they would come back to them within 30 days and give them the results of their investigation.

But what happened? Before the 30-day period was up last Friday, the Minister for Climate Change and Sustainability in the Queensland parliament, Kate Jones, announced that the Department of Environment and Resource Management was preparing prosecution action after one of Xstrata’s monitoring stations in the town was found to have above-average levels of lead and that they had exceeded the allowable limit. That is highly irresponsible. It was done on a Friday, with maximum media coverage and sensationalism. It frightened the people of Mount Isa because they were concerned about their jobs. It frightened the company. It was terribly unfortunate because there was not a grain of truth in the allegation. The minister had trotted out the charge because she wanted to take the political heat off her own government.

The Townsville Bulletin reported next day that the global miner Xstrata was facing fines of up to $2 billion for breaching air quality emission standards for lead at Mount Isa. But they never did. The front page of the Townsville Bulletin carried the screaming headline ‘Xstrata to be prosecuted over air pollution’. But they were never going to be prosecuted. You cannot believe what you read in the newspaper. So to verify this one isolated exceedence, Xstrata had the samples retested through three different methods and two independent laboratories, one of which was run by the state government. It turns out that the exceedence was an anomaly and Xstrata were not exceeding their allowable limits. They have continued their record of never exceeding the prescribed lead levels in Mount Isa since acquiring Mount Isa Mines in 2003. The investigation showed that the lead levels in Mount Isa Mines that were under investigation were less than one-third of the regulatory limits for the period concerned, and preliminary findings for the month of January show that lead levels are under 20 per cent of the regulatory limits. It is wrong that state government ministers and members and newspapers in this country can seek to bring down the reputation of an Australian company that employs so many people—upon whose employment so many other jobs depend—when there is no basis in fact for the allegations.

Xstrata are continually pursuing a wide range of environmental issues. They have invested more than $250 million in more than 150 environmental initiatives since mid-2003. They are a responsible corporate citizen. They are considered a great company in the Mount Isa community. I want to use my time in the parliament today to back the wonderful results they produce for our country and for the Mount Isa community and my community in Townsville. I utterly reject these disgraceful allegations by the state minister and the Townsville Bulletin.