Limestone Coast Mining

Mr McBRIDE (MacKillop) (14:36): My question is to the Minister for Energy and Mining. Will the minister commit to conducting an independent investigation into the potential risks associated with rare earth mining operations on the Limestone Coast. With your leave, Mr Speaker, and that of the house, I will explain.

Leave granted.

Mr McBRIDE: The state government has released results of its research aimed at understanding the attitudes of locals who are concerned about the impacts from mining activities. However, locals would like to see science-based research conducted.

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS (West Torrens—Minister for Infrastructure and Transport, Minister for Energy and Mining) (14:37): I want to thank the member for MacKillop. He is a pretty fierce advocate for his local community. It's no surprise that he is asking questions of the government in the parliament about the Limestone Coast and about protecting local communities, but I want to assure him we are no different. We want to make sure that Limestone Coast is protected as well. We want to make sure that any associated risk with any type of mining activity is entirely dependent on proposed mining techniques, processing methods, location, environment, existing land uses and groundwater conditions.

The onus is on a project proponent to propose a project through the Mining Act via a mining lease application that considers all the above factors that I just mentioned. It's not a matter for us to tell the mining company how to safely mine. What we ask them to do is to prove to us that they can safely mine, taking into account all those factors, and that we independently verify those through scientific methods.

If you are proposing to mine in a particular way, we will ask you to provide evidence to back up the proposition about how it is mined and then we will independently verify it. To date, we have not received such a proposal from that mining company. I suppose what the member and the community are asking us is, 'The community are proposing that mining be conducted this way. Therefore, prove to us this way is safe.' The assurance I can give the local community is we will not approve any mining method unless the proponent can prove to us it will not have an adverse impact on the environment, on the local community, and that it can coexist with other forms of industry that are in the area.

I want to assure the member that the legislation members opposite introduced and voted for in the last parliament is the regulatory framework we will be using to assess this mine. The mine framework that we use in the Mining Act is something we have inherited from the previous government, and the previous government before that made changes. It is continually improved by each and every parliament. There may even be considerations in this parliament, even as we are getting close to the end of it, for further changes. It is constantly evolving and changing.

My main message to the people of the Limestone Coast is that this is not a political decision; this is a scientific assessment, an analysis of what the proponents are proposing. So as well as commissioning an independent investigation into every possible potential design of a project, which could be over a large geographical area, for us to then assume what they are doing and then attempt to give the community a scientific response to a proposal or what we receive, is not feasible.

We need to check this a bit, because I think there is a misunderstanding about the way the Mining Act operates. We receive a proposal and we assess it. We don't assess ideas, we don't assess the potential mining technique, we assess the actual mining technique. I hope that goes some way to answering the member for MacKillop's questions, but I am more than happy to be available for his community to answer any questions personally as well.