Greg Hunt (Flinders, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Climate Action, Environment and Heritage) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to raise the issue of the Crib Point bitumen plant. In the last weeks we have seen the shock revelation that the Victorian Minister for Planning and Community Development had been engaged in a program of public subterfuge. A press plan was released inadvertently by his office which showed a sham process for consultation over the Windsor hotel development. It was thorough, complete and malevolent, and it took the public for contempt through the planning process. The relevance of that issue to the electorate of Flinders, and in particular the Crib Point bitumen plant, is that the decision by the minister to approve a Crib Point plant must now be rendered null and void. It should be negated; it should be rejected.

The reason is very simple. We have a pattern of misuse of position by the minister—we have clear evidence—and, in the case of the Crib Point bitumen plant, there was a public hearing and an independent panel. The independent panel recommended against the Crib Point bitumen plant and the minister, in a shabby deal, overruled the independent panel and approved the Crib Point bitumen plant. The problem with the plant is very simple: it is reindustrialising a residential town. This town did have a history of industrial development but Crib Point is now a residential town. That moment, that time—that stage of history—has passed, and it is simply unacceptable to reindustrialise the town and to have multiple heavy truck movement right through the streets that are at the heart of this town—multiple carriages per day, multiple B-doubles—throughout the day. More than that, there will be the odours and the impact of the bitumen plant. All the time we are being responsible by saying that there is ample space at North Port, in between BlueScope Steel and Esso’s gas fractionation plant. There is an alternative five kilometres away which the community would accept, the council would accept, the state member would accept and I as the federal member would accept. So there is a clear, responsible, economic alternative. But instead we see a decision by Minister Madden which overturns the independent planning process. It smacks of the same misuse of public consultation to act as a sham. The decision must be overturned, and the minister simply cannot sustain that position. (Time expired)