Jordon Steele-John (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

Tonight I bring to attention an issue that is being raised loudly by the Western Australian community. The health and longevity of our environment cannot be sacrificed to a further mining development. Many in the community hold a deep appreciation for WA's beautiful jarrah forests. What many don't know is that a US based mining corporation, Alcoa, has been clearing WA's jarrah forests for 60 years. If this wasn't bad enough, this corporation is now wanting to clear an additional 11,408 hectares of our jarrah forests. Alcoa's proposed expansion could impact over 100,000 potential nesting trees for black cockatoos and clear critical quokka habitat. Cockatoo nesting trees can take hundreds of years to develop, but Alcoa wants to clear them away with one devastating sweep.

This project not only puts our vulnerable wildlife at risk but, for the 2.4 million residents in Perth, there is a high risk of contamination to our water supply. If the Serpentine Pipehead Dam is contaminated by these operations, over 100,000 Perth households could be consuming contaminated water within hours. These kinds of hard lines are precisely those which must not be crossed under any circumstances. Our community will not take this lying down. Thousands of people have called on the government to hold Alcoa to account, and I want to thank everyone who submitted to the WA EPA in opposition to the expansion of Alcoa's mine. The Greens, including my Greens WA colleagues, are with you and will passionately campaign alongside you in opposition to this. I want to highlight the incredible engagement, advocacy and dedication of tens of thousands of people in WA and across Australia who are pushing back against these destructive environmental projects. Thank you to everyone who recently made a submission to the EPA regarding Alcoa's expansion. Thank you to organisations like the WA Forest Alliance and other environmental campaigners who have organised across the state of WA to ensure that people's voices are heard.

We know that WA has a deep history of mining companies coming into its regional areas and leaving when the money has been made. Mining developers like Alcoa have a poor track record of environmental clean-up and rehabilitation. Indeed, according to the WA department, Alcoa has failed to meet its very own rehabilitation targets for over 27,000 hectares of native vegetation already. Australia's lands and oceans are being mined, trawled and exploited for corporate profit, with little given to our communities. We have over 5.7 million tonnes of material in our oceans from the gas and oil infrastructure that is the product of these industries. It is equivalent to 110 Sydney harbour bridges worth of steel. All of this material is in our oceans because of these polluting industries, and this is an opportunity to create a truly circular economy by salvaging this material and making it new again.

The recently released WA can't wait report paved a clear way forward to resolving these issues. Labor must act.