Bob Brown (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question without notice is to the minister representing the minister for the environment. When is it expected that the government will approve or disapprove of the Wandoan coalmine project in the Surat Basin in the north of the Darling Downs in Queensland? Is this the world’s largest open-cut coalmine? Is it true that in terms of carbon it will produce when burnt, wherever in the world, the equivalent of 10 per cent of Australia’s current greenhouse emissions from this one mining source?

Stephen Conroy (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Government in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you for that question, Senator Brown. The minister, I am advised, has discretion that he has to exercise under the EPBC and he is going to consider all the facts of this case. In terms of some of the more detailed questions you ask, I will take them on notice and get back to you as soon as I can.

Bob Brown (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr President, I have a supplementary question. Amongst the detail I asked: is this the world’s biggest open-cut coalmine, at 11,000 hectares? Will it produce the equivalent of 10 per cent of Australia’s greenhouse gases through the combustion of that coal overseas or domestically? My added supplementary is: how much federal government moneys have been expended on this project to date and how much is earmarked for the assistance of this project in any way, including transport of coal to port?

Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Finance and Deregulation) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr President, I rise on a point of order. The supplementary question—or most of it—is clearly not in the minister’s portfolio, or the representing minister’s portfolio. It is just to the wrong minister.

John Hogg (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

All I can do, Senator Wong, on your point of order, is to ask the minister to answer that part of the question that is relevant to the portfolio that he is representing.

Stephen Conroy (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Government in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Mr President. I would concur with my colleague that probably the majority of that question was outside the portfolio. I am happy to take on notice those parts that are relevant to the portfolio and come back to Senator Brown with the information as it becomes available.

Bob Brown (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I cannot get the answers to the questions in the portfolio or outside it, but I will persist, Mr President, with a further supplementary question. I am quite happy for the minister to pass on that question about the expenditure of taxpayers’ money on this massive carbon pollution project in Queensland. But I ask the minister: what studies has the Commonwealth done independently on the impact on the natural heritage, the cultural heritage and the water systems of the Surat Basin?

Stephen Conroy (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Government in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you again, Senator Brown. I am happy to get any additional information around those questions that the minister is able to provide.