Interview with Fiona Parker, ABC Central Victoria Bendigo

FIONA PARKER: Australia's Resources Minister is in Central Victoria today, visiting the Costerfield Mine, as I understand it, with Federal Labor MP for Bendigo Lisa Chesters. Madeleine King is with me in the studio now. Minister, welcome to Bendigo. 

MINISTER MADELEINE KING: It's a delight to be here, thanks, Fiona. What a beautiful day it is here in Bendigo, not as cold as I thought it might be. But I'm really looking forward to heading out with the local member, great advocate for the resources sector, the member for Bendigo, Lisa Chesters. 

FIONA PARKER: Are you concerned you're going to get thrown out of town because you're wearing a Freo scarf? 

MINISTER MADELEINE KING: Well, I'm not sure. What is the main team of Bendigo? I haven't seen any flags ‑‑ 

FIONA PARKER: Well, it depends. 

MINISTER MADELEINE KING: ‑‑ or anything, so I presume they don't ‑‑ 

FIONA PARKER: It depends. 

MINISTER MADELEINE KING: ‑‑ support Brisbane, so, and that's the main thing as a Fremantle supporter. So we've got plenty of room on the Fremantle bandwagon, so Bendigo residents are really welcome, and Central Victoria, welcome to join us all. 

FIONA PARKER: Said like a true politician. Let's talk about Costerfield and Fosterville as well, which is a large mine in our area, but Resources Victoria you must have heard, has charged the operators of Costerfield for incorrectly storing mining waste material known as tailings. Will you be looking for signs of negligence today when you visit that mine? 

MINISTER MADELEINE KING: Well, the breach that you've spoken of is a matter that the State Government is dealing with the Costerfield Mine operators, and it's a really important part of managing a mine is managing those tailings. So, they're exceptionally important that mine operators get that right, dealing with the waste from mining for the local community, for the environment, but equally for the future, the future of the support for such a mine, and Costerfield's a massive mine, it has about 250 employees, about 50 contractors, so it's very important to the local economy. 

But also, as we find as technology changes, those tailings become very useful. What we see in other mines around the country is that those tailings get themselves mined for what that waste has now become useful, so preserving the tailings properly, whilst mostly that is very, very important for the environment and the local community, and it is just simply the right thing to do. 

It's also a matter of importance for the future for what can be extracted, so there is less wastage out of mining operations. 

FIONA PARKER: Is that happening though at Costerfield? Local residents nearby might not agree that these tailings are useful. 

MINISTER MADELEINE KING: Well, and they might not be useful now, and that's what we find with tailings is it's important to preserve them and preserve them correctly, as I said, for the environment and the local community, but also for how they might be used in the future. 

I mean there are examples of this right around the country. I'm responsible for Geoscience Australia, and they do a map of mining tailings and what might be in them. So things that were not valuable are increasing in value, and antimony is one of them, which is one of the byproducts of the Costerfield Mine, but you know, 30 years ago, antimony was not really wanted, it certainly didn't have much of a price around it, but now it is highly desirable. 

The same would be for a lot of rare earths that we do a lot of work in. If I think of the biggest lithium hard rock mine in the world is in Greenbushes in WA, that started, one the first mines of WA was a tin mine, but now they're going through the tailings to get the lithium out, which we all know is in batteries for our phones, laptops, even EVs. 

So these things, they might not be useful now, but they become useful later. 

FIONA PARKER: So preserving the tailings properly instead of incorrectly storing it. Should residents expect stronger scrutiny of mining operations following cases like the one that Resources Victoria has taken against Costerfield? 

MINISTER MADELEINE KING: I've no doubt Resources Victoria will do an excellent job in making sure that rules are followed. There's a court process going on, well, a process going on that I can't interfere with, but it is a good thing that Resources Victoria are very much on the ball watching these things, 'cause what we know is following the rules around all of mining operations, whether it be health and safety, paying employees properly, but also dealing with the waste, is so vitally important for public support. So I have every confidence. 

FIONA PARKER: And rehabilitation ‑‑ 

MINISTER MADELEINE KING: And for rehab, absolutely. 

FIONA PARKER: ‑‑ as well. 

MINISTER MADELEINE KING: Rehabilitation is really important, and there's a lot more work being done on this in the last number of years, which is really important. 

FIONA PARKER: Fosterville Gold Mine, expansion plans I'm sure you've heard about getting green‑lit by Victoria's Planning Minister last year. However, there was and still is a lot of consternation over this, given residents nearby, about 250 properties, they're saying may sustain cosmetic damage from the largest predicted seismic event in the next decade. What do you say to those who are living by that particular mine? 

MINISTER MADELEINE KING: Yeah. So I visited Fosterville last year, again with Lisa Chesters, and I spent a good amount of time there. It's really another very important mine, and as we see technologies change, as well as the value of gold changes, it becomes more likely that things do get expanded, hence the Southern Cross mine that's also being worked on not that far away from here as well. 

So, in regard to the seismic event, I'm not exactly sure what that refers to, I just have not been made aware of that. I know there's been a lot of concerns around increased noise around Fosterville, and I know there's also a process going on with some local residents around that, and that's ‑ also ‑‑ 

FIONA PARKER: And there has been issues with houses moving and all of that over the last few years. 

MINISTER MADELEINE KING: Yeah, and I mean, I ‑ there's a similar experience in ‑‑ 

FIONA PARKER: So that's the seismic events they speak of. 

MINISTER MADELEINE KING: ‑‑ oh, is it, it's more than one, or? 

FIONA PARKER: Well, yes. 

MINISTER MADELEINE KING: Yeah. Well, I mean, and I know the same ‑ similar events happen in Kalgoorlie as well, with the big super pit there in Western Australia, and it really is up to the mine operators and the community to work together to make sure people aren't affected by mining. What is really important, though is it is a vital part of the local economy and the hundreds of people that work it, both Fosterville and Costerfield, you know, they rely on that operation to feed their families and to keep the community going as well. So, it's a balance ‑‑ 

FIONA PARKER: There are two sides ‑‑ 

MINISTER MADELEINE KING: ‑‑ and we get that. 

FIONA PARKER: ‑‑ of the debate, certainly the underground production blasting creating a lot of issues for local people who were not happy to see the mine given those expansion ‑ or given the green light for expansion, but then again, you're right about the jobs, because a lot of the local people who are employed there and are raising families were very pleased to see that mine be able to continue operating, and then there's exploration. 

Now let's turn our attention to that. If you're just tuning in, the Federal Resources Minister, Madeleine King, is with us in the studio this morning ahead of visiting Costerfield Mine later today. 

In terms of exploration, there's an underground exploration tunnel proposed for Sunday Creek near Kilmore. People living near there are concerned about what that might mean for them. What do you say to people who don't want to live next door to that? Is it fair to them to have to put up with the noise and the sound and that type of thing? 

MINISTER MADELEINE KING: Well, I was at Sunday Creek just yesterday, actually with the member for McEwen, Rob Mitchell, and Southern Cross Mining there as well. Again another remarkable deposit, but also these are deposits that are very historical but exploration technology has changed, as I said, value of gold has changed in what is the 175th year since Margaret Kennedy and Julia Farrell discovered gold here in Bendigo, that you have places like Costerfield and Fosterville and also up at Sunday Creek expanding, is very ‑ it's remarkable, and it's really important for ‑ very important for the local community and the local economy, but it's good for all of Victoria to have gold mining further exploration so that that contributes to the royalties of the State. 

FIONA PARKER: But I guess in this, it's underground exploration. 

MINISTER MADELEINE KING: Well, yeah, that makes sense, because the resources are underground and that's where they have to look. So that may be, there's a whole number of technologies, some of them use ‑ the same technology is used offshore, but they're obviously underground rather than underwater but that's exploration in a mining State that Victoria is, and I think it's important that those undertaking those exploration of course meet all community standards, but of course very importantly the regulatory standards. 

FIONA PARKER: And with your role as Resources Minister, there has been contention over your Government's approval of new coal mines during this term, but in the meantime here in Victoria, Pauline Hanson's One Nation wants to keep coal‑fired power operating in Victoria and lift the ban on nuclear. What do you think of that? 

MINISTER MADELEINE KING: Well, the truth is that the coal‑fired power stations, every single one of them right around the country, have a set end date by the companies that operate them. They are old, they are literally running out of puff, running out of steam, and we do need to transition. Like climate change is a reality, and we need to move to net zero, and our government is committed to that, we've legislated for it, but you have to have a pathway. People still need to have reliable energy.  

So here in Victoria it's highly dependent on brown coal into those coal‑fired power stations, but that is increasingly changed into renewables, and that's a really good thing, but it takes time, and we accept that. We do have to invest in transmission, and under the leadership of the Minister for Climate Change and Energy, Chris Bowen, we're doing that, backed up by gas. Of course, gas is very important in Victoria, the manufacturing industry of Victoria is built off the back of affordable gas because of the waste product of oil really. 

FIONA PARKER: There's been a move here in Victoria though to start transitioning away from gas as well. 

MINISTER MADELEINE KING: That is true, yet there are 5 million homes in Victoria that depend on gas for heating, and similar ‑ not the same numbers, but there's high numbers in the ACT as well. 

The point is, I think, is that we need to make sure people can heat their homes, cook what they want, when they want, enable them to transition to electrification if they can afford it, that can be very challenging, and you need the pathway, and a sensible pathway to net zero is what this Government is all about. 

FIONA PARKER: And what about the One Nation policy, though to lift the ban on nuclear energy?  

MINISTER MADELEINE KING: Well, we don't support nuclear power, we don't see the need for it when we are already making extraordinary investments into renewables, as private investment through people's rooftop solar, batteries, and so forth, and we are able to do those renewables and have that without going through a nuclear pathway, and you know, Pauline Hanson, you know, can pop up policies but they're yet to be seen to actually be realistic. 

FIONA PARKER: In the meantime, Madeleine King, as Federal Resources Minister, off to Costerfield gold and antimony mine today, and I understand you're hoping to encourage young girls to get involved in mining? 

MINISTER MADELEINE KING: Oh, absolutely, Fiona. 

FIONA PARKER: As a career. 

MINISTER MADELEINE KING: Yeah, yeah. Well, I was out on Monday night, the Women in Mining National Awards hosted by the Minerals Council of Australia, and if I can give a shout‑out to a couple of locals, Nikki Hartrey. She runs the women's rescue training week and that won an excellence in company programs, and so that's a really fantastic vote of confidence in the industry, and also Stevie Child who won the exceptional young women in resources for Victoria in July. She was a finalist; she's an engineer at Costerfield. 

So young women doing, you know, really great things in the mining industry, and they'll be the leaders of tomorrow in this industry. 

FIONA PARKER: Enjoy your time in Costerfield and our beautiful part of the world today. Dare we say go Freo? 

MINISTER MADELEINE KING: Oh, please, please say go Freo. As I said, Fiona, there are many seats aboard this bandwagon, and I hope all Central Victoria get on board. 

FIONA PARKER: I'm just going go, Kylie to be honest. I'm just looking forward to the pre‑match entertainment. 

MINISTER MADELEINE KING: And that's fair enough too. 

FIONA PARKER: Thank you for joining us. 

MINISTER MADELEINE KING: On a night like this, yeah. 

FIONA PARKER: Thank you for joining us in the studio this morning. Madeleine King is the Federal Resources Minister.  You're listening to ABC Central Victoria. Thank you for the pleasure of your company this morning.