Q: I wanted to ask about the national interest provision. Would a Minister be able to exercise that provision to approve housing, energy, critical mineral projects that otherwise wouldn’t comply with environmental standards?

Murray Watt:

What the bill itself says is that it directs, the kind of examples or the situations in which those matters could occur are more related to defence and national security matters, national emergencies, there’s got to be a really high bar before people can actually, before a minister can intervene and approve a project not withstanding its environmental impacts. I would expect they’d be the types of things that would occur, rarely exercised, explained with a statement of reasons. And this is something Graeme Samuel recommended. He recognised elected governments should have the ability in rare situations to make a decision that is inconsistent with those national standards.

Q: Still technically possible?

Watt:

I’m not going to give hypotheticals about the kind of situations they could be used. I think the bill in referring to those types of matters around defence and national security and national emergencies gives you a good indication. You don’t have concerns it could be exercised for other projects? I’m not going to speculate about the kind of projects they would be used for. They’re the kind of things we’ve got in mind.

OK, so that is what Watt has in mind. But let’s take critical minerals, with 80% of potential projects sitting on Indigenous land. We have already seen the critical minerals deal with the United States linked to national security by the resources minister. And so while Watt is saying the provision could be used for ‘national security’ you have a prime example of what that means, right there.

Indigenous land? Environmental concerns? Doesn’t matter – national interest provision can over-ride it all.