QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE

Ms MADELEINE KING (Brand—Minister for Resources and Minister for Northern Australia) (15:07): I thank the member for Clark for his question. The state and territory governments regulate much of the mining rehabilitation around the country, and they are responsible for ensuring that regulatory requirements indeed exist but also are met by mine owners. So governments in all of our states and in the Northern Territory require mining companies to plan for closure from the outset and to back those plans with financial assurances, including the payment of bonds and other similar schemes.

There are, however, legacy mines around the country that came into existence before the structured and very essential important assurances I've just mentioned and the overall regulation of mining activity. The states and the Northern Territory manage those legacy mines and their remediation and rehabilitation. While Commonwealth taxpayers do not foot the bill, the Commonwealth does support responsible mine rehabilitation in a number of ways, but, very importantly, through the ongoing funding for investment in the Cooperative Research Centre for Transformations in Mining Economies, CRC TiME.

The report that you referenced was a joint effort between the CSIRO and CRC TiME. CRC TiME is the world's only dedicated research body examining the social, economic, cultural and environmental impacts of mine closure, as well as delving into how you do effectively rehabilitate a mine. I want to take this opportunity to thank the CEO, Dr Guy Boggs, and his team and the 75 partners in that CRC for their efforts in addressing the challenges of mine remediation.

That includes those state and territory participants that I mentioned earlier, and their responsibilities—and that is how they are seeking to meet those responsibilities. Rehabilitation has changed a lot. As of recently, Geoscience Australia has an atlas of mine waste that seeks to unlock value in previously mined and underused rock to boost our global position as a clean energy powerhouse.

At Collie in my home state of Western Australia, Lake Kepwari, a former coal mine, is now a lake enjoyed by many in the community. And Iluka's Eneabba Operations show how large mineral sands projects can be returned to really great biodiversity. But equally, in the south-west, we see how mineral sands are returned to agricultural land.

There are also new technologies, really importantly, that that repurpose mine infrastructure—for example, proposals such as Green Gravity in the member for Cunningham's electorate, which uses disused coal mine shafts to store and dispatch renewable gravitational energy. These are really important projects. There is a lot of work to do on rehabilitation.

Taxpayers are not footing the bill. The state and territory governments are primarily responsible for making sure that that rehabilitation happens, but we support them as we can.