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Extract from Hansard [COUNCIL - Thursday, 10 April 2008] P2129b-2135A Hon Norman Moore; President; Hon Jon Ford; Hon George Cash; Hon Giz Watson

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Extract from Hansard [COUNCIL - Thursday, 10 April 2008] P2129b-2135A Hon Norman Moore; President; Hon Jon Ford; Hon George Cash; Hon Giz Watson Extract from Hansard [COUNCIL - Thursday, 10 April 2008] p2129b-2135a Hon Norman Moore; President; Hon Jon Ford; Hon George Cash; Hon Giz Watson URANIUM MINING (IMPLEMENTATION OF GOVERNMENT COMMITMENTS) BILL 2007 Second Reading Resumed from 4 April 2007. HON NORMAN MOORE (Mining and Pastoral — Leader of the Opposition) [10.10 am]: I do not know whether there is a problem with the acoustics in the chamber, Mr President, but I heard you put the question that the Uranium Mining (Implementation of Government Commitments) Bill 2007 be now read a second time. The PRESIDENT: I did. Hon NORMAN MOORE: This bill needs to be debated. Hon Giz Watson has already given the second reading speech. One would anticipate that the government would respond to the second reading debate. If the government does not want to respond, it is entitled to do that. I find it extraordinary that the government would have allowed this bill to be voted on without saying anything. Hon George Cash: It is the acoustics. Perhaps they can be given another opportunity. Hon NORMAN MOORE: In all the time that I have been a member, I have never noticed that the acoustics are that bad. For two weeks in a row the government has failed to speak on a bill moved by either the opposition, or, in this case, the Greens (WA). It is an amazing state of affairs. I do not propose to speak on the bill but I am getting on my feet simply to avoid a vote being taken on the second reading debate and for this house to be ridiculed by the Premier for not being able to organise itself properly. I am doing my best to help the government organise itself so that it knows what to do when a bill comes on. Clearly it has forgotten. This has occurred twice in two weeks. What is wrong with members opposite? If it is a problem with the acoustics, hopefully we can do something about it. It is strange that it has happened only twice in the history of this house. HON JON FORD (Mining and Pastoral — Minister for Employment Protection) [10.13 am]: There are no problems with the acoustics of the chamber. I am the lead speaker for the government on the Uranium Mining (Implementation of Government Commitments) Bill 2007, and I will respond on behalf of the government. I thought that other members might have liked to have responded before I did. Hon Norman Moore: In effect, when the opposition introduces a bill, you are the alternative argument. You would expect us to respond to your bills and we expect you to respond to a private member’s bill. That is what you are here for. Hon JON FORD: Okay. The government opposes the bill because there is no requirement to implement its provisions. In effect, the argument behind the bill will fail to do what I think the Greens (WA) are trying to achieve, which is stop uranium mining. On 23 March 2007 the Premier issued a media statement headed “No backflip on uranium mining policy”, which stated — “As I said only this morning, there will be no uranium mining in WA as long as I am Premier,” Mr Carpenter said. The Mining Act 1978 allows the Minister for State Development to put certain conditions on a mining lease. Since 23 June 2002, the minister has placed endorsements on each of the new mining leases at the time of the grant that exclude uranium mining from the mining lease. This removes the authority to mine uranium, pursuant to section 110 of the Mining Act. This is the government’s preferred approach to progressing the objectives that the specific amendments in the bill to the Mining Act are intended to achieve. As at 14 August 2007, 941 mining leases had been granted with such an endorsement. Incidental or unintentional mining of uranium is not affected. The Premier has stated that if a miner who had a mining lease prior to 23 June 2002 tried to pursue the mining of uranium in the true mining sense—that is, to make a profit from uranium mining by either exporting it or using it within Australia—the government would consider amending the Mining Act to prevent the mining from occurring. However, the industry has taken a pragmatic approach to this matter. It has said that it is uninterested in pursuing uranium mining while the government has this policy in place. There are a couple of other problems with the bill. It attempts to impose a $500 000 fine on a miner who pursues uranium mining. That is an inadequate penalty and would not prevent uranium mining. If we were to pass this bill, it would stop mineral exploration in WA. A lot of incidental mineralogy exploration is occurring and people are surveying and exploring for all sorts of minerals. When they do that, they might find uranium and then highlight the prospectivity of uranium mining. Under this bill, those people could potentially be prosecuted and would have no defence. That is the government’s position, which has not changed. We believe that we have an effective policy in place that sends a message to the industry that there will be no uranium mining in this state, and the industry accepts that. The legislative powers under section 110 of the Mining Act already give the Minister for State Development the ability to exclude a miner from mining any mineral that the government of the day wants to exclude. No-one has tried to pull it on. As I said, there were 941 mining leases as at 14 August [1] Extract from Hansard [COUNCIL - Thursday, 10 April 2008] p2129b-2135a Hon Norman Moore; President; Hon Jon Ford; Hon George Cash; Hon Giz Watson 2007 and no-one has tried to pull it on. We have an effective policy and legislation in place. If someone tries to pull it on, we will consider making a legislative amendment to prevent him from mining. The government opposes the bill. HON GEORGE CASH (North Metropolitan) [10.17 am]: If ever there was a hypocritical response to a particular bill in this house, that was it. Because I am a fair person, I do not blame Hon Jon Ford because he is required to mouth the government’s response in a situation in which the government has been shown up by the Greens (WA). The Greens are trying to implement what the former Minister for State Development, Clive Brown, said on 25 June 2002, in a statement to the Legislative Assembly, that he would do — I wish to announce that the Western Australian Government has prohibited the mining of uranium for nuclear purposes from any mining leases granted from Saturday, 22 June 2002, . He then explained various issues and said — The policy will be ratified in legislation through the early introduction to Parliament of a government Bill that will specifically amend the Mining Act 1978 to prohibit the mining of uranium for nuclear purposes. That is what Mr Brown said way back in June 2002. It is now nearly June 2008 and the government has not introduced its bill. That is the bill that the government promised it would introduce in an early and timely fashion. As a consequence of the government not doing what it promised, the Greens (WA) decided that they would introduce a bill into Parliament to do exactly that which the government had promised back in 2002. Now the Minister for Employment Protection has stood in this house and acknowledged, by way of his response, that the 2002 statement of then minister Hon Clive Brown was nothing more than a hoax. It was nothing more than government spin aimed at misleading the public. More than that, it was aimed at misleading members of the Australian Labor Party who at that time were raising the issue of uranium mining in Western Australia. I say that I understand the position of the minister because I know where he comes from in the factional system of the Labor Party. To be put in a position in which he had to stand and defend the government by saying that it now opposes what then minister Clive Brown said in 2002 must have made the minister wonder what this Parliament is all about. I say that because we on this side of the house know the Minister for Employment Protection’s reputation in this place. We know that when he gets up and says something, he will do what he says. He has proved that time and again, and that is why he is one of the ministers who is respected in this house, yet today, as the minister representing the minister in the other place and having carriage of this bill, he was forced, because of the way in which Labor deals with spin and the media, to get up and make that statement. I say to the minister, Hon John Ford, that it is no wonder his speech was relatively short in length; I can understand it. I am surprised he did not get up and say, “We oppose the bill”, and sit down, because having to justify why the government is opposing the bill does not lend any support to the fact that the government has been stood up by the Greens. This bill proposes to amend section 154 of the Mining Act 1978. That section of the act deals with general penalties. The Greens’ bill proposes that there be an additional penalty of $500 000, with an additional penalty of $50 000 a day, for mining uranium in Western Australia.
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