House of Assembly - Fifty-Third Parliament, First Session (53-1)
2014-09-16 Daily Xml

Contents

Rex Minerals

Mr GRIFFITHS (Goyder) (14:37): Given the announcement of 99 conditions that was made some 50 days ago, but they have not been available for public review—and it is not available for public review until later this afternoon—is the minister able to confirm the conditions attached to the transfer of the ore to market and, indeed, conditions associated with the rehabilitation of the site?

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS (West Torrens—Treasurer, Minister for Finance, Minister for State Development, Minister for Mineral Resources and Energy, Minister for Small Business) (14:38): I will take advice, but generally we set the conditions; we don't prescribe how the conditions should be met. We ask the company to come back to the regulators with their very best analysis about how they can meet the conditions. We then do an analysis piece of work on that and we give them a tick or cross.

All the conditions will be made publicly available today. I would like in future to have the release of the acceptance of the mining licence and the release of the conditions done simultaneously to avoid this delay of a few hours. I think that does cause some concern in the community, and I think we should be doing it a lot faster. It is just a technical issue that we have in the department, given that we don't know exactly when the mining company is due to accept the mining lease because it is an ASX-listed company and it has to abide by the terms and conditions of the ASX when they make their announcements to the market.

If we can better coordinate that, I would like to have more information made publicly available, but I will get a much more detailed answer for the member. I offer him a full briefing in my office, as I have done previously, and any other member who is interested to see how this process has worked because I am sure we will be coming to a regional area near you soon with more mining proposals—hopefully, in the South-East very soon for some very good shale gas opportunities.