What’s the fight over McPhillamys goldmine about and why has Tanya Plibersek hit out at ‘misinformation’?

A goldmine in the central-west of New South Wales attracted plenty of heated headlines this week.

The NSW premier, Chris Minns, expressed disappointment over a decision by the federal environment and water minister, Tanya Plibersek , that has put the future of the proposed project in doubt.

What has happened and why is one goldmine getting so much attention?

The project

The McPhillamys gold project is a proposed open-cut gold mining operation near Blayney, about 30km south of Orange in the central-west.

The developer, Regis Resources, has been planning the mine for several years.

Last year, it received its state planning approval from the NSW Independent Planning Commission. It was also approved under national environmental laws.

Related: Plibersek denies sacred site decision blocks NSW goldmine, calls on Coalition to support Indigenous heritage

In 2021, Wiradjuri elder Nyree Reynolds lodged an application to protect Aboriginal heritage from being destroyed by the mine’s waste dam, which was to be built at the headwaters of the nearby Belubula River. The application was supported by the Wiradyuri Traditional Owners Central West Aboriginal Corporation (WTOCWAC).

Plibersek issued a partial section 10 declaration this month that prevents the tailings dam being built in this location.

Other aspects of the project, including associated infrastructure such as a transmission line and a pipeline, still require federal approval. The company has also stated through announcements to the ASX that if it receives all of its approvals, the earliest it would expect to consider a final investment decision is the 2026 financial year.

What is a section 10 declaration?

Under section 10 of the Aboriginal Heritage and Torres Strait Islander Heritage Protection Act, the minister may make a declaration to protect an area if they are satisfied it is a significant Aboriginal area and is under threat of injury or desecration.

Section 10 declarations are rare.

The last to be made was by the previous environment minister, Sussan Ley, who accepted an application – from the WTOCWAC – to protect a sacred site on Bathurst’s Mount Panorama/Wahluu from a go-kart track.

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Plibersek has rejected some section 10 applications, including one to protect Darwin’s Lee Point/Binybara from a defence housing development earlier this year.

Why has this declaration been controversial?

Plibersek’s decision has received a lot of media attention, particularly from News Corp papers in the lead-up to the Daily Telegraph’s NSW Bush Summit, held in Orange this week.

The chief executive of Regis Resources, Jim Beyers, has said the project is no longer viable in its current form.

Political criticism has focused on the impact the section 10 declaration could have on jobs, economic opportunities in the central-west region and exports from NSW if it makes it difficult for the project to proceed.

The federal Coalition has accused Plibersek of ripping up a “$1bn mining opportunity in the name of activism”. The opposition environment spokesperson, Jonathan Duniam, said the government had “unilaterally” scrapped the project and sabotaged hundreds of jobs and millions in revenue. He also pointed to reports the Orange Local Aboriginal Land Council did not oppose the project.

Minns this week said he was disappointed. In radio interviews and a parliamentary estimates hearing he said he believed the federal minister’s decision was an error. He said the state government was working with Regis and was “hopeful that there’s a modification of the development application” to locate the tailings dam elsewhere and fast-track it through the assessment process. The state government met with Regis for discussions this week.

What has Tanya Plibersek said?

The environment and water minister has hit back at “misinformation” about her decision. Plibersek has emphasised that the partial section 10 declaration is not a decision to block the mine from proceeding and relates to 400 hectares of the 2,500ha site.

She has also, correctly, stated that the project does not have universal support in the Blayney and Orange communities.

The specific advice Plibersek relied on to make her decision is not publicly available.

But she told a media conference: “There is plenty of information about the reasons for my decision, including the fact that this is an area where young men were brought for initiation. It’s been used for thousands of years. It’s significant because it’s got two creation stories associated with it.”

Plibersek said on Tuesday that Australian governments had done a bad job of protecting Aboriginal cultural heritage and “the Juukan Gorge tragedy was an extreme example of that”.

“Labor, Liberals, Nationals, everyone in the parliament said we can’t allow things like that to happen again,” she said.

“If we truly believe that we can’t allow the destruction of Aboriginal heritage in that way, then occasionally decisions like this have to be taken.”