E&OE….
Topics: Carmichael mine proposal
ROSS GREENWOOD:
Let's now go to – to try and sort out this out, the Environment Minister Greg Hunt is on the line. G'day Greg, how are you doing?
GREG HUNT:
Yeah, well thank you Ross.
ROSS GREENWOOD:
Look alright, we know that sometimes the paperwork and sometimes the information that you receive is not necessarily as robust as it could be. What actually is happening?
GREG HUNT:
Sure. So, firstly one of the myths that's been put about by some of the environment groups today is that court has rejected the mine and rejected the decision. That is actually incorrect and that – I don't blame you at all for presuming that's the case. What has happened is that the court has at my request, set aside the decision to be reconsidered.
That would usually take six to eight weeks, the reason being the department gave advice that there was a possibility and that the court might conclude that additional material never before considered could be required. So, in other words, it's a very technical area but the court case was heading in such a way so as the department thought, right, it looks like they may be requiring new things here. The department has said it's a technical and administrative sort of consideration…
ROSS GREENWOOD:
Okay, bottom line of the chase here is Greg, you were supposed to have all the reports sitting on your desk, physically sitting on your desk, so that when the decision was made you had all information in front of you at that time but there were two bits of paperwork that were missing on your desk at that time, that in regards to the Yakka skink and that in regards to the Ornamental snake.
Now, the fact that they weren't sitting on your desk at that time was the grounds for this to go to the Federal Court because that was a rule that had been created by the previous Labor government. Is that correct?
GREG HUNT:
Mostly correct…
ROSS GREENWOOD:
Who was the Minister at that time?
GREG HUNT:
So what happened is the then Minister Tony Burke had a decision against him by the court…
ROSS GREENWOOD:
Oh, was that Tony Burke, the same bloke who's in the news today because of his expenses and going to Robbie Williams concerts with his family?
GREG HUNT:
Possibly.
ROSS GREENWOOD:
Possibly.
GREG HUNT:
The – anyway, the court then said look, you have to have these conservation (inaudible) so we religiously have and I consider all and every conservation advice and I make sure there's somebody present when I do that with each and every one. Every conservation advice asked for by the department , provided by the department was considered. We made sure that every possible thing could be.
It now appears there's an additional class of materials not previously considered which the court may require. So, the department said look as a matter of prudence so as we don't find in six or eight or 10 or 12 months, a court decision which says there was a procedural issue, let's remake it now. The Shree Minerals decision was made in a matter of weeks, we're saying six to eight although it could be earlier. I won't pre-empt the outcome because I have to be very, very careful…
ROSS GREENWOOD:
My understanding from this, Minister here, you're telling me that you can't simply say I didn't have the information on the Yakka skink or the Ornamental snake. I've now got it, I've had a look at that, it's all sweet, no problems at all, here we go, project goes ahead, $16 billion Carmichael coal mine, tick, away we go, Federal Court, bugger off, you're decision's very fine but this is the way it's going to go?
So, you're telling me another six months is going to have to go and you're going to have to literally be videoed having looked at every piece of paper coming across your desk to make certain you look – to make certain that every one of those pieces of paper is ticked off?
GREG HUNT:
In the next six to eight weeks we'll be able to go through it and consider the additional material. We tried when we came into government to fix this and Labor said no. We put forward legislation which Labor rejected to deal with what was called the Shree Minerals issue relating to conservation advices.
We then made sure that they were there for every ministerial decision with somebody present which I requested which you didn't need by law but I wanted to make sure that somebody was always there and now it appears that the court might – was heading towards a position where they could have asked for a new category which previously wasn't required by law.
And so get in early, reconsider it, make sure it's done so there can be no question according to the law and two things happen here. One is Labor had a chance to fix this so as there could never be any issues. Two, it's true, there are some groups that want to stop mining in Australia…
ROSS GREENWOOD:
Well, no that's the bottom line of this. There's a whole bunch of people out there who say the coal being exported from Australia will go to India.
The Prime Minister has indicated he believes that this is a, if you like, a poverty breaking deal that will allow Indian people to have access to relatively cheap sources of electricity but here in Australia, they're indicating, well we don't care where that coal's burnt, in Australia or overseas, it's still going to be CO2 going into the atmosphere so therefore it's dangerous to all mankind and as a result we don't want it burnt, we don't want the project to go ahead. That's bottom line isn't it?
GREG HUNT:
Well, it's more than that in fact. Just as an example, I've got an email in front of me I've received at 6:06, just before calling you – ‘stop mining in Australia forever’. So that wouldn't be just coal, or gas, or oil. It would be gold, it would be iron ore, it would be any of the non-ferrous metals. Just- there is a view and some people will prosecute all of these through the court, that every mine should be stopped and every method used. And (inaudible) the email I've got in front of me is just an example.
But what I have to do is to get on, make a decision. We've cleared about a trillion dollars worth of resource and backlogged decisions that were just in the ‘too hard’ baskets of the previous government. They stopped the legislative change. They're against the one-stop shop. And fortunately, we've been able to implement one-stop shops with every state and territory, half the approval time and clear a billion- a trillion, a trillion dollars worth of backlog.
ROSS GREENWOOD:
Just incredible. So I hope that people now understand having heard from Greg Hunt here, the Environment Minister, just how absolutely ridiculous this whole petty bureaucracy. The poor old Yakka skink and the ornamental snake, they just don't know what's happened, what they've actually caused here.
But I've got to tell you, I'm not sure that necessarily they'd be all that happy about it themselves. Greg Hunt is the Environment Minister. We really appreciate your time on the programme, Greg.
GREG HUNT:
Thanks very much, take care. Bye bye.
(ENDS)