Committee activity this morning touched on a couple of major pieces of government legislation working through the parliamentary pipeline.
The primary industries and resources committee had a briefing from departmental figures on proposed changes to freeze “activists” out of mining lease objections.
But given the significance of the bill and the powers it will extend to the government and relevant departments, Labor MPs on the committee questioned why the departments’ directors-general were not the ones giving the briefing.
There was no real answer.
The bill will limit objections to mining leases to those directly impacted or within 125 kilometres of a project, with the existing automatic referral of these to the Land Court to be replaced with referrals at the discretion of the minister.