Mr BAYLEY – Minister, I want to take you back to Robbins Island, and I note your commitment to the process. You said it needs to be fair and equitable and you had faith in that process. I want to talk briefly about Aboriginal heritage and note the extraordinary step that the Aboriginal Heritage Council has taken, which is publishing a position statement on its website. This is the statutory body that advises government on Aboriginal heritage issues. It says:
Pilitika/Robbins Island is a place of connection, story and lives lived, of deep memory both tangible and intangible. Pilitika is a cultural landscape that is not an island in isolation.
Then they go on to say:
The Aboriginal Heritage Council will never support this project.
The Aboriginal community is united on opposing this project. Your Minister for Aboriginal Affairs also tabled a report in parliament in July 2021 that said the Aboriginal Heritage Act does not work. It does not provide effective mechanisms for protection. Yet this project was approved in 2023, two years after that 2021 report on the Aboriginal Heritage Act failing.
Do you think that an assessment of a place as significant as outlined by the Aboriginal Heritage Council, and opposed by the Aboriginal Heritage Council, do you think the process is fair and equitable? Do you really have faith in that process if it’s being assessed against an act that your own minister, three years before, said does not provide effective mechanisms for protection?
Mr DUIGAN – Thanks for the question; I do appreciate it. Having been to the island, as I’m sure you have, and all others potentially, and understanding what has been done in terms of turbine placement to respect Aboriginal heritage on the island, I felt in my conversations that they were very sincere efforts that had been made.
Mr BAYLEY – The Aboriginal Heritage Council doesn’t think that.
Mr DUIGAN – I can only speak to the conversations that I’ve had. I thought they were very sincere in their efforts to mitigate that issue, which they recognised. Again, for me as Energy minister, I have to have my faith in the process. I’m not sure of what you’re alluding to, in terms of our Aboriginal heritage minister. I don’t have knowledge of that conversation or that interaction. For me, it’s the process, it’s standing back, looking at it from the purview of the Energy portfolio – has it received its approvals? If that’s the case, then I am happy.
Mr BAYLEY – I guess that’s the question, is your faith in the process, if it was assessed against an act that your government is reviewing and saying you need to update because four years ago you said it didn’t provide effective mechanisms for protection. If your own statutory advisory body is saying it will never support the project, the question is, do you still have faith in that process, personally as minister?
I guess the option to restore this situation is, would you support the Aboriginal Heritage Act being updated, as is in process by this government, then having this project assessed against the new act, fairly and squarely, and in an equitable way, so that Aboriginal people can input into it, and a permit being discussed and determined as part of that process under a new act? Is that something that you think would be fair and equitable?
Mr DUIGAN – No, I don’t think that’s a fair and equitable outcome. Retrospective –
Mr BAYLEY – Because it disadvantages ACEN, the proponent?
Mr DUIGAN – Well, no, I think that is a –
Mr BAYLEY – Because that advantages Aboriginal people?
CHAIR – Mr Bayley, let the minister finish.
Mr DUIGAN – that is a very problematic proposition, in terms of applying retrospective legislation to various decisions that have already been taken care of.
Mr BAYLEY – We’ve already done that once with the State Coastal Policy on this project.
Mr DUIGAN – No, that’s not true that’s not true, we just simply made sound what was already made sound. So, no, I wouldn’t support that.
Mr BAYLEY – Even though the Aboriginal Heritage Council itself says that you should never approve this project?
CHAIR – Mr Bayley, please.
