I rise to speak on the Mineral Resources (Sustainable Development) Amendment (Financial Assurance) Bill 2025. This is a piece of legislation which is around the designated mines in the state, the Latrobe Valley mines. My National Party colleague the member for Morwell spoke so well on this because he knows these issues better than anybody else in this place. He lives and breathes it every single day. He understands it because he has always lived in the area, and he is always out and about fighting for a fair share for his community. I commend him for taking such a strong stand on backing his community day in, day out. This element is around the declared mines, as I said. I understand, though, there are other areas of the mineral resources bill which have some impacts on my community, particularly when you are talking about this retrospective element of trailing liabilities for the rehabilitation of mines. My electorate of Lowan is the home of a large number of mineral sands deposits. We have so many exploration permits around the region. We see that Stavely Arc, which goes through the electorates of Mildura and Murray Plains and into the neighbouring electorate of Ripon as well a little bit, provides many very valuable minerals, some of which have been mined for an extended period of time. We have all heard about the goldmine in Stawell, which is so well known and which attracted the Chinese originally to come out from their homeland to land at Robe and traverse South Australia and into Victoria via Stawell, then into Ballarat as well, in the seat of the Speaker. It is an important aspect and something that obviously has brought a lot of wealth to our state. When we look around Parliament house, there is gold leaf on every corner that you look at because of the gold rush in this state.
However, it has been a long time since we have had a similar rush on minerals in my electorate, and there is deep concern within the community around the safeguards for mineral sands mining. There is deep concern when it comes to the risks around that and the protections that will be in place for the landholders, but also for the community. Some of that is around the concerns of our farmers around putting mining ahead of agriculture. There are many in my community who feel like they have not been heard, and there are examples around the state where mines have not been rehabilitated back to their productive value. This legislation will deal with some of those elements. This legislation will deal with elements around rehabilitating coalmines in the Latrobe Valley. But I have seen firsthand that we have mineral sands mines across regional Victoria that have not been rehabilitated properly. There are areas where certainly the base has not been put back in in an appropriate way. It has been bulldozed in nice and quickly at the end, or to beat rain or during rain, and it has not been prepared appropriately. As a result, we have cracks in the ground which would fit me inside very easily. There are also issues with the different layers being mixed. There are chlorine and boron which have come to the surface levels, which are absolutely toxic, for those who are unaware, to grow the produce that farmers need to grow to be able to earn a living. We have also got increased rates of weeds through that sand as it is rehabilitated and as the soil is put back in that order. Because it has been sitting in a pile in a paddock for a period of time, all of the organic matter is lost. All of those things that make for a good soil combination to make for farmland, the soil that we need, is reduced. So it has got a twofold impact. On the one hand, we have got an increased cost of production because it costs more in chemicals to get rid of the weeds.
On the other hand, the productivity is lower; we have got lower growth rates. We are not seeing the same production possible in areas that have been mined compared with an area right next to where that mine was. Now, this is where there needs to be a consideration for trailing liabilities in other areas of mining, not just around those three mines that are rehabilitated coalmines, but also looking at making sure that if mining is to go ahead, there are appropriate safeguards in place to make sure that our Victorian farmland, if it is used for mining, will be rehabilitated to a point where that production value is maintained. And if that production value cannot be achieved again, there needs to be compensation back to the landholder.
But there also needs to be a recognition that if this land cannot be rehabilitated, if there is not the scientific research to back it in that it can be rehabilitated, there must be an additional value put on the net amount of agricultural land that will be taken out of this state, because we can never forget what agriculture contributes to the state of Victoria. It is not just about putting food on our table or of growing fibre that puts the clothing on our backs. It is also about being an economic driver for the state of Victoria. It is about being an economic driver for Australia as a nation, but also it will always be the economic backbone of our rural and regional communities.
There are many people in the farming sector who feel like their voice has not been heard by the Allan Labor government. There are people in this community who have questions that could be answered, and I think that it is absolutely reasonable that they have the opportunity to ask questions of government officials when at the same time the government is talking about how mineral resources are going to help fund Victoria’s future and how we are going to ride the wave of a mineral sands boom.
You need to take the community along with you. You need to be able to ensure that they understand what those safeguards are. Is there going to be input along the process of any mining approvals? Particularly through the technical reference group, will there be a voice of agricultural professionals – of experienced people who understand the local soil types – to give input and reference to the EES process? At the moment the voice of agriculture and the expertise of our local farmers are not included in consideration of the environment effects statement.
Are we going to have greater access to information from Resources Victoria, as in a front-facing shopfront where people can come in and ask basic questions so they can understand more about whether there are any exploration licences on their land and they can understand what the processes are for when they can give some input into how their land is utilised, how it will be rehabilitated, what work plans are in place and particularly if there is a variation to a work plan? They need to be able to understand when they will be able to have their voices heard.
We also need to make sure it is fair and equitable. We know that mining companies can afford the top end of town lawyers. It is not fair that our farmers do not have similar supports to back them in, particularly when agriculture is one of the most important drivers of our rural and regional economy. These are things that the government should consider when they are considering amendments to legislation such as this before us today, but it is also about how we can make sure our community understands that mining can work alongside agriculture or, where it cannot, that it should not go ahead. We are not hearing that from the government.
Farmers have just been shut out from that discussion, and people are very, very angry. They are very, very angry that they have not been heard. They have been talked about, but they are not being heard in terms of what the impact will be on their land, what the impact will be on the future productivity of the land that they own and what the impact will be on the net agricultural sector and production within the state of Victoria. While we see this legislation bringing in trailing liabilities for the Latrobe Valley coalmines, I do urge the government to take a similar amount of time to look at what is in place for mineral sand mining. In particular, if there is one thing you can do today, you can make sure that the voices of people within Ag Vic are included and working with Resources Victoria to understand what the impact will be on our local soils to make sure that we do not stuff it up, because you can only stuff it up once and it is gone for good. It is too important to get this wrong.
We need to have more information to our communities, our communities to be listened to and appropriate action to be taken so that we have the safeguards we need for mining to go ahead in the first place and that there is accountability but then the rewards come back to the communities that will host those mining areas.