PERDAMAN
UREA PROJECT
518. Mr R.S. LOVE to the Premier:
I refer to reports in The West Australian that the
federal Minister for the Environment and Water has held secret meetings in Western
Australia as she considers the fate of Perdaman's urea project on the
Burrup Peninsula.
Several members interjected.
The SPEAKER: Order, please!
Several members interjected.
The SPEAKER: We will just wait for the member for Mount
Lawley and others to stop interjecting. I am still waiting.
Mr R.S. LOVE: I refer to reports in The West
Australian that the federal environment minister has held secret meetings
in Western Australia as she considers the fate of Perdaman's urea
project on the Burrup Peninsula.
(1) Did the Premier or his
ministers meet with Minister Plibersek regarding this project?
(2) Is he concerned by these secret
meetings?
(3) Does he support the $4.5 billion
project going ahead?
Several members interjected.
The SPEAKER: Order, please!
Mr M.
McGOWAN replied:
(1)–(3) As
I understand it, the federal environment minister has certain decisions that
she has to make under the Aboriginal cultural legislation, nationally.
Mr R.H. Cook: The ATSI
heritage act.
Mr M. McGOWAN: That is the
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Heritage Protection Act, nationally.
There is something called a section 9, by which she has to make a decision on
matters of significant Aboriginal cultural heritage.
She has come to Western Australia from Sydney in a government aircraft. It has
flown to Karratha and has sat on the
tarmac; anyone can see it. She has attended a range of meetings with the
Murujuga Aboriginal Corporation, with local community groups, with
Minister Whitby and Minister Cook. I do not understand how that is secret. I do
not actually understand how that is secret. She is not Wonder Woman in an
invisible plane!
Several members interjected.
The SPEAKER: Could all the
members who are interjecting while the Premier is speaking please desist.
Mr M. McGOWAN: She has had
meetings with a range of people who have spoken to other people, no doubt, and
word has filtered to the press. We do not invite journalists to these meetings
and we do not invite opposition people. That
is not the way government really works. I think it is a good thing that she is
consulting with the local Aboriginal traditional
owners, local ministers, local community and so forth before she makes a decision.
Obviously, our position is clear. It
has been through our processes, through our environmental processes and through
our Aboriginal heritage processes.
The Murujuga Aboriginal Corporation is in favour of it. The government has
organised Northern Australia Infrastructure
Facility funding and worked with the Water Corporation and the port authority
to provide the relevant infrastructure. We have worked on amalgamating the
relevant land. All those things this government has done via the now Minister for State Development, Jobs and
Trade, the Minister for Regional Development, and me, when I was Minister for State Development, Jobs and
Trade. We have done everything we have been required to do in order to promote
a project that will be $4.5 billion of investment and create thousands of jobs
in construction and hundreds of manufacturing jobs when it is finished. That is
just normal process. I really do not understand the allegation.