Don Farrell (SA, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for the Centenary of ANZAC) Share this | Hansard source

I seek to speak on a private member's bill in respect of defence—the Defence Legislation Amendment (Woomera Prohibited Area) Bill 2013. I suppose it is with some regret that I am in this chamber today to speak to the bill I had to move. The history of the bill is that there was a very exhaustive report called the Hawke report, which dealt with the issue of how to combine, in respect of the state of South Australia, the importance of the defence industry with other activities—in particular, mining activities.

As you would be aware, Acting Deputy President Whish-Wilson, the Woomera area in South Australia is approximately 120 square kilometres; that makes it almost twice the size of your own state of Tasmania. So we are talking about a massive geographical area and, because of the importance of the defence industry, this has been a protected area. The Hawke review looked at ways of freeing up some of this land for activities other than defence work. As a result of that review's report, a piece of legislation was drafted last year, was presented to the other place and passed with the support of the opposition, and then came to the Senate. I appreciate that that legislation came to the Senate reasonably late in the session, in June last year, but we were expecting that—because of its importance not only to Australia but, in particular, to South Australia—the legislation would be passed before the parliament was prorogued last year. Unfortunately what happened was that the then opposition, now the government, referred this matter off to a committee, and the opportunity for passing this legislation before the proroguing of the parliament did not occur.

As the now minister, then shadow minister, will know, I had some discussions, because of the importance of this issue to South Australia, with the minister about why it was that they were not proceeding with this legislation and why they were not proceeding with it post-haste. The indications that I was given, by the minister and other senators from South Australia who had an interest in this area, were: that although they were delaying it for that period of time it was not their intention to delay it, that it would be a priority issue in the new parliament if they were to win the election, and that not only would we see a piece of legislation pretty much identical with what I have put before the Senate presented to the parliament as an issue of priority but that legislation would in fact be passed by Christmas of last year.

When we came back, after the election, the opposition had won the election and were now in government, and the shadow minister with whom I had had the discussions was now the Minister for Defence and responsible for this area. What became very clear by the end of last year was that the government did not have a piece of legislation to proceed with; they were not going to proceed with the legislation and pass it, as I had been led to believe before Christmas. This legislation is of such importance to South Australia that I then said, 'We must proceed with it,' and we drafted a piece of legislation, I think it is fair to say, in almost exactly the same terms, other than where it was necessary to change the particular dates. So we drafted a piece of legislation. This piece of legislation that we are dealing with today builds on and reflects the Hawke report.

I do not think you can underestimate the significance of this piece of legislation to my home state of South Australia. We have had some bad news in recent times in terms of jobs being lost. The closure of Holden is obviously a very dramatic development for the north of South Australia and South Australia in general. Of course, earlier this week, we saw Toyota close down. Toyota operates in Victoria, but the impact on South Australia is quite significant because many of the component suppliers provide components for both Holden and Toyota. So we have had a hit with Holden, and the Toyota closure affects us as well.

So here is an opportunity for something to be done to create some jobs to replace those jobs that are going to be lost in manufacturing. I do not think you can underestimate the potential value and job creation potential of this bill to South Australia. One of the things that the opposition did was refer this matter to a committee before Christmas. One of the responses to that committee was from Geoscience Australia. I have a lot of time for Geoscience Australia. I was, for a very brief period of time, the science minister and I know the terrific job they do in providing valuable scientific information to the mining industry. They responded to the information that had been referred to the committee. I read from their response:

GA provided technical advice to the Review on the known and potential (undiscovered) mineral and energy resources in the WPA. The WPA has a diversity of mineral deposits and energy resources. The WPA contains four operating mines: Challenger, a mid-sized gold mine in the west; Cairn Hill, a small iron ore (magnetite)-copper-gold mine; Prominent Hill copper-gold mine in the south east; and the iron ore mine at Peculiar Knob (Southern Iron). There are some 150 known occurrences of minerals dominated by gold, iron ore, copper and opal but including uranium, silver, zinc, lead, diamonds, and heavy mineral sands. The potential for undiscovered deposits of the different mineral and energy commodities varies across the WPA and reflects the range of geological environments.

The WPA is one of the more prospective areas for mineral and energy resources in Australia and will continue to attract exploration activity. The proposed legislation provides a framework within which such exploration can occur.

So here our premier geological science body is pointing out just how geologically significant this particular area is. I think you can infer from its comments just how important it is for the exploration to continue.

I introduced this bill late last year. Even then, when the bill came before the committee, the indication that I was getting from the now government, and particularly the senators from South Australia, was that they did consider this a matter of some urgency and would bring forward their own bill. I do not know why they could not deal with the bill in the form I have proposed it, but they said, 'Look, this is a matter of urgency; we understand what you are saying and we are going to bring forward our own bill.' We are now almost halfway through February and we still have no bill from the government.

We see these future job losses in South Australia in the manufacturing area and we want something to replace them. We have our premier science organisation saying, 'Look, there is a heap of potential here; there is lots of potential for discoveries.' We can replace the jobs that have potentially been lost because of this government sitting on its hands when Holden and Toyota closed and when all of these other companies that supply those companies potentially close. Here we have a potential job replacement. You might have thought that on that basis the government would have taken this as a matter of some urgency, especially given their original indications and their indications late last year about how they viewed this issue. But, no, we have still not seen a piece of legislation.

Not only have we not seen a piece of legislation but we now discover—what I discovered this morning—that the government has undertaken a RIS, a regulatory impact statement. It is true that we did not do that because there was an urgency about this matter. We needed to get on with the job. This government claimed when they came into office that they were going to tear up red tape and make it easier for businesses and start-ups to get going and operate in this country, and all that sort of thing. What have they done? They have referred it off to have a regulatory impact statement done.

Maybe I am getting suspicious in my old age, but I am starting to think that the government are not fair dinkum about proceeding with this legislation. They did not do what they said they were going to do before Christmas. After Christmas, they have not done what they said they were going to do, which was to bring legislation before the parliament, and now they are talking about some other date in March, I think. What are they going to do then? They are going to have another inquiry into this legislation.

We have had the Hawke report. We have had the legislation go through the House of Representatives. We have had an inquiry referred by them last year. We have had another inquiry into this piece of legislation. When we eventually see this legislation, if we ever do, they are going to refer that off to another committee. Is the government serious about trying to do some job creation in South Australia? Because if they were, the minister would stand up in a couple of moments and say: 'Look, you're right, Senator: this is a matter of urgency. It is a matter of urgency for South Australia. We have got to create some jobs to replace those jobs that are leaving manufacturing. We are going to get behind your piece of legislation.' But, no, we have not seen the legislation that they are proposing to replace my legislation with. It may appear.

I said at the hearing that we had this morning—and I know you were present, Acting Deputy President Whish-Wilson—'Look, if you've got something substantially different than this then let us know.' I was told, 'Oh, no, it's not substantially different.' Well, if you have got some amendments that are reasonable amendments, I am very happy to give them consideration, because I understand the importance of this legislation to South Australia. I am disappointed that the senators from South Australia do not appreciate just how important this is to South Australia and the urgency of it. I have said to those senators opposite from South Australia, 'Look, if you have got some concerns, if there are some other issues that have been raised, I'm very happy to consider those amendments.' But, no, no amendments are going to come forward. It is like extracting teeth trying to find out what the nature of those amendments might be. I do not think they can be very significant because, if you look at all of the submissions that have come in on this report, basically people are in support of this proposal. Basically people want it to proceed. Certainly the mining industry want it to proceed and the government of South Australia want it to proceed. I think you can extrapolate that even the government of the Northern Territory want it to proceed. Why do they want it to proceed? Because it is good for South Australia, it is good for jobs and it is good for the country.

We now find ourselves in a situation where today we could vote on this piece of legislation, if we had the support of the government, and tomorrow, or soon thereafter, we could start on the process of opening up and exploring the Woomera protected area. That would create jobs. You create jobs in the exploration phase. We saw from the Geoscience report that 150 prospective areas out there have already been identified. So jobs would be created in exploration. We are talking about the Gawler Craton here, one of the most prospective mineralisations in the world. The mineralisation is deep down—you have got to go quite a long way to find the minerals, unfortunately; we are not like Western Australia, where you just scratch the surface and the minerals are there! You do have to go a long way down, but they are there. We know that from Olympic Dam.

Exploration, of course, creates jobs. So, if you are a young worker in the north of Adelaide and your prospect of getting a job in the manufacturing area has ceased, well here is an opportunity—you can drive a couple of hours north of Adelaide and you can get into exploration. Of course, if they do discover mineralisation then you have the construction phase where you are building these mines. As we all know, and as Senator Johnston would know from the Western Australian experience, that is the big job-creating phase. That is where there is lots of work concentrated over a period of time, but plenty of jobs. Then once the mine is built and operational you have got the ongoing jobs. If Geoscience Australia are right in the 150 prospective areas that they have discovered, then this has tremendous potential to replace the jobs that are leaving other sectors of the economy.

I have made it very clear that the opposition is only too happy to sit down with the government and work out what needs to be done to amend this legislation. I think we have got to give considerable credit to the two ministers in the former government who dealt with this, Minister Smith and Minister Ferguson. Both of them understood the significance of this for South Australia, both of them were committed to implementing this piece of legislation. They knew how important it was to South Australia. What I am concerned about is that the government does not understand just how important this is, does not understand the urgency to South Australia of getting this legislation through and does not understand just how important it is going to be to create jobs into the future, particularly for young South Australians—and other Australians, because we all know this industry has a lot of fly-in fly-out workers who come from other parts of the country.

I want this legislation to go through and go through quickly. I am concerned that the constant delay and the pushing back of dates by the government is a reflection that they are not fair dinkum about proceeding with this legislation. I got that impression when they delayed it last year. I was happy to be corrected and said, 'Look, okay, you've said you are going to delay it but introduce it after the election by Christmas.' I have again become suspicious that they are not fair dinkum about proceeding with this legislation and this legislation is absolutely vital. As I said at the outset, the Woomera protected area is twice the size of Tasmania. We are talking about an enormous area of land. For the sake of South Australia I plead with the minister: get behind my bill. Raise any amendments that you have got and we will sit down and discuss them right now, and we will get this legislation through today and we can start prospecting tomorrow.