Mr BAIRD (4:57 PM) —I rise to speak on a matter of great significance to the people of southern Sydney: the protection of Australia's birthplace at Kurnell. The issue of the protection of Kurnell Peninsula is also a matter of concern for residents in greater Sydney and indeed Australia wide. Within the seat of Cook we are lucky enough to have the Kurnell Peninsula. Kurnell was the first landfall by Lieutenant James Cook and the Endeavour on the Australian continent. On that basis it is widely regarded as the birthplace of modern Australia. It was here that Banks and Solander collected the first flora and fauna specimens and it was here that the momentous meeting of Indigenous and European cultures first occurred. To paraphrase the words of Shane Williams, a representative of the local Dharawal Indigenous tribe, Kurnell was the site of the first Indigenous resistance and therefore has a great resonance and importance to Indigenous Australians nationwide. Kurnell was also the site of the first landfall by Captain Arthur Phillip and the First Fleet in 1788. It is featured widely in the memories of many Sydney residents.

It would therefore be an understandable shock to members present to learn that this area is under continued threat. Kurnell has been heavily exploited over the last hundred years both for heavy industrial uses and the extraction of sand to supply the construction industry in New South Wales. During my ongoing campaign to have Kurnell protected and conserved I have been overwhelmed by the number of letters I have received from residents Sydney wide who have written to tell me about their memories as children of sliding down the once towering dunes on a piece of tin or cardboard, as I did when I was a child. In fact, on Friday last I was interviewed for the Today program on Channel 9 on this very issue and the reporter conducting the interview had his own memories of travelling to Kurnell on family outings and tobogganing down the beautiful and striking sand dunes built up over tens of thousands of years.

Unfortunately, there are now next to no dunes left, as they have been converted through strip mining into ponds and lakes described by environmentalists as being 40 metres deep and by mining companies as being between 12 and 20 metres deep. It might interest the House to also note that the Kurnell sand hills featured heavily in iconic Australian films such as 40,000 Horsemen, Mad Max and Puberty Blues. They have been a backdrop to some of the films which are recognised as of great importance and heritage value to our nation. As construction has boomed in New South Wales, the demand for sand has grown to the point where more than 25,000 tonnes of sand are stripped from the fragile neck of the Kurnell Peninsula each and every week.

Residents in my electorate have been deeply concerned over this senseless destruction for many years but, unfortunately, successive state governments from both sides of the fence have procrastinated over this issue. The local Gweagal people, a clan of the Dharawal people, are also deeply concerned over the continued removal of the sand. The Gweagal are a salt water people who buried their elders in the sand hills to face the ocean and the clan's totem, the humpback whale. Sadly, much of the rich heritage of the Gweagal, the same people who met Cook on his landing, has been turned into bricks and mortar.

Due to the peninsula's great value to the community and the nation, I sought protection for it under the government's Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act in May of this year, presenting the nomination to the former Minister for the Environment and Heritage, Dr David Kemp, at a ceremony at Cook's landing place. During August of this year, I became aware that Rocla Quarries Ltd, one of the largest sandmining companies on the peninsula, was preparing to resubmit its application to mine a new site on the peninsula. On this basis, I applied to the new Minister for the Environment and Heritage, Senator Ian Campbell, for emergency protection over Kurnell under section 324F of the environment protection act. I would like to pay tribute to Senator Campbell and his department for their foresight and genuine concern over this valuable piece of our nation's history. Senator Campbell gazetted this, the first ever area protected under section 324F, on 20 September of this year.

I now wish to advise the House that Rocla Quarries has submitted its application to strip mine Kurnell, submitting it to the NSW government on 19 November. It is interesting to note that the original application by Rocla was withdrawn from the NSW government just a few months before the last NSW election, no doubt to the great relief of the marginal Labor member for Miranda, Barry Collier. I think that Mr Collier is aware of the strength of feeling in the Sutherland shire against any further exploitation of Kurnell, even if his government is not.

Unfortunately for Kurnell, however, Rocla—either by design or omission—never retracted its original application from the federal government Department of the Environment and Heritage. Due to the prospective nature of legislation, this means that the 324F protection granted in September 2004 will have no effect on the application. Thanks to Rocla's expert legal advisors, it stopped the clock in 2002, waiting until the political pressure was off the NSW government after the 2003 election before it resubmitted its extraction plan.

This does not mean that the fight is over. I have become aware of another method by which the Commonwealth may be able to stop Rocla and the NSW government in their tracks. I have recently facilitated meetings with prominent academics, scientists and historians who will be helping me to lay out a case as to why the mining of Kurnell should not proceed. I have also been greatly buoyed by the full cooperation of members of the local Indigenous community, including Merv Ryan, John Lennis, Shane Williams and local Indigenous community representative and leader, Aunty Berryl. I must also praise the Mayor of Sutherland, Coucillor Kevin Schreiber, and his council team and Malcolm Kerr, the state Liberal member for Cronulla, for their full commitment to saving Kurnell from complete destruction. I will be working hard in the coming weeks and months to build the case to stop this expansion. It is an expansion which will, by Rocla's own admission, remove one of the last visible dunes for which the Kurnell Peninsula was once famous. In Rocla's own EIS it states that the visual effect from places as far away as Brighton Le Sands and Cronulla would be `high', and hence the character of Kurnell will be irrevocably altered.

Of course, there is a far easier way for the senseless destruction of our nation's birthplace—a place of great resonance to Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians, a part of our shared and common history—to be stopped for good and in its entirety. The New South Wales government can, with a stroke of its pen, stop Rocla completely and end the destructive activities of the other sandmining concerns on the peninsula—Breen's and the Holt group of companies. I understand and concede that the construction industry needs a source of sand, but I cannot concede that the state of New South Wales is so small that a more acceptable alternative cannot be found. I also understand that some weight of scientific opinion prefers the offshore extraction of sand from depths greater than 45 metres. It is interesting, then, to note that the NSW government has placed a moratorium on any exploration of this as an alternative avenue.

For too long, the vested interests of companies such as Rocla, Breen's and the Holt group, the three sandmining companies on the peninsula, have held sway over the NSW Labor government. I hope that Barry Collier, the local state Labor member for Miranda, is quick enough to realise that if this proposal goes ahead his career in public life has a shelf life that may well expire quickly in 2007. The issue of our heritage and our nation's birthplace is felt keenly nationwide, but nowhere more so than in the Sutherland shire. Every proud Australian should let their voice be heard. It is time that we made it plain to Mr Carr and his band of supporters that we will not stand for the wanton destruction of our premier historic site.

This place, Kurnell, is of paramount importance to all Australians—black and white, European and Indigenous, migrant and traditional owner. I call on Bob Carr and his government to finally act in the best interests of our state and end this destruction once and for all. I am committed to stopping the continuation and expansion of sand extraction at Kurnell. This is one of the veryfew remnant areas of dune left—it is a tiny example of the hundreds of millions of tonnes of sand that Rocla, the Holt group and Breen's have removed from Kurnell since the 1930s. I look forward to working with the various academics, scientists, historians and residents who will help to achieve this end.