Thursday, 16 October 2025

 Ellen SANDELL (Melbourne) (17:30): (1356) My adjournment today is for the Premier. Today I rise to speak to an issue that has actually been brought to me by a resident from the Premier’s local electorate but that has impacts for people across regional Victoria and the environment that we all rely on. The action I seek is for the Premier to meet with the members of the Citizens Against Residential Mining group, who since February have been unsuccessful in getting a meeting with her to discuss an important local issue.

In June this year a licence was granted to Falcon resources to explore for gold in a 94-square-kilometre area to the east of Bendigo, including an area that is under a new housing development. The mine’s operations also sit just a kilometre away from the Campaspe River, one of Victoria’s very important river systems and a key water source for both irrigation and domestic use. With its proximity to the Campaspe, there is a real risk of water used at the mine in the tailings dam leaking into the river. Evidence from the Save the Campaspe group that contaminated mine wastewater contains high levels of arsenic, antimony and zinc has been provided to us.

There is a long history of environmental damage and impacts to human health caused by historic and current gold mining, particularly in the Bendigo region, which I am sure you would be aware of. For example, arsenic dust as a result of mining operations at the Fosterville Gold Mine, not far from the Falcon resources licence area, has meant that residents cannot drink their tank water because of the contamination from the arsenic. Leaks from the tailings dam from the site have also led to arsenic and other pollutants being found in the local groundwater, we are told. Given the size of Falcon mining’s exploration licence, many local residents are concerned that this could happen on a greater scale if gold is found at this new site. Already a tailings dam has been constructed at the Falcon resources exploration site, with two more recently approved. Tailings dams like these are banned in a number of other countries due to the risk of them breaking posed to people, rivers and the environment. This includes in Brazil, where the collapse of a tailings dam at an iron ore mine in 2019 caused over 250 ‍fatalities and continues to have catastrophic impacts on the environment.

These are real concerns that the local community are raising. They deserve answers. It is important that government decisions around mining make sure that protection of human health and environmental health are considered paramount. My adjournment today is to ask the Premier to listen to members of her local community, to have a meeting with them, to hear firsthand their concerns and to listen deeply to what they are.