Fifth-generation farmer Peter Teasdale warns the country's food bowl could be at risk from the critical minerals boom.
His 20-odd kilometres of farmland in Rupanyup, 280km north-west of Melbourne, is being eyed off by mining companies for the "Donald Project", a mine set to become Australia's second-largest rare earth project.
Teasdale was "disappointed" by the $13 billion rare-critical-minerals deal signed by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and United States President Donald Trump, which raised fears such projects would be expedited despite community concerns.
"The real big problem here is it's just going to wreck our ability to produce food going forward. And I'm not just talking about the next 10 or 15 years," he told SBS News.
"We think long term, in generations ... it shouldn't be taking place on productive farmland."
Teasdale said Victorian farmers had worked tirelessly to make the soil productive and were supplying a quarter of the nation's total food as a result.
He worries the dust from mining the minerals could contaminate his crops — largely wheat, barley, canola and lentils. Anxiety heightened after visiting a previously mined site earlier this week, large parts of which can no longer yield any crops.
"The visible impact is that they haven't got viable crops on there … the fact it's all slumping and got holes coming out of it. It's just horrendous and really hard to see," he said.
Teasdale fears the "fast tracking" of projects, with the critical minerals deal committing to measures that "accelerate, streamline, or deregulate permitting timelines and processes".
Brett Hosking, president of the Victorian Farmers Federation, said farmers feel "unheard, voiceless" and feel like collateral in the discussions between Trump and Albanese, "rather than active participants or partners".
"When they [farmers] hear that, they feel like this is a done deal before we've even gone through that environmental assessment, and that's a pretty powerless space to be in," he said.
The two leaders signed an agreement on rare earth and critical minerals in front of reporters during what US officials billed as a "bilateral lunch" in the White House cabinet room. Source: Getty / Anna Moneymaker
He'd like Albanese to understand the impact on agricultural land, the additional risks from increased activity, such as fires or road accidents, the risk from toxic mineral dust, as well as the disruption from additional traffic or 24/7 lights and noise in otherwise peaceful areas.
"Do we value more the minerals that sit beneath the soil, or the people that live and farm and operate their community above the soil?" he questioned, inviting Albanese to visit the communities impacted.
While Tuesday's US$300 million ($462 million) in equity commitments focused on projects in Western Australia and the Northern Territory, the government granted Astron Corporation's Donald Rare Earth and Minerals Sands "major project status" the following day.
This means the federal government may offer additional support to the project, potentially helping it overcome regulatory hurdles or obtain government approvals.
The deal has been widely celebrated by the mining industry, with Minerals Council of Australia CEO Tania Constable stating it was an acknowledgement of Australia's role in developing "new technologies, defence capabilities and renewable energy infrastructure".
"It confirms Australia's fundamental role in the global supply chain of the very minerals, materials and rare earths that the world requires," Constable said in a statement.
'Stark change' prompts environmental concerns
Mia Pepper, campaigns director at the Conservation Council of WA, said the deal signifies a shift from a critical mineral mining focused on renewable energy to defence assets.
She said it's a "stark change in language" that goes beyond "fast-tracking".
"This was the first time we've heard the word deregulation, which is a really different meaning. It's not then about a slow approvals process. It's about moving regulatory hurdles," she told SBS News.
"We're deeply concerned about any move to deregulate when it comes to the environment, because we know that our environmental laws, as they are, are weak and not protecting our environment."
Pepper said the number of threatened species is on the rise, while all environmental health indicators are on the decline, pointing to the 2020 review of environmental laws by Graeme Samuel, which found the system was broken.
On Friday, Environment Minister Murray Watt said he was "confident" that the highly anticipated reforms to the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act, to be tabled in parliament next week, would deliver on recommendations from the Samuel Review.
Lian Sinclair, economic geographer at the University of Sydney's School of Geosciences, is wary of suggestions that all mining approval delays are attributable to environmental approvals or communities "getting in the way and slowing things down".
"What we see is that so many of them have had their environmental approvals in place for years," she said.
Sinclair, who has a database of every single critical mineral mine proposal in Australia, said many sites have their approvals but are waiting for capital investment.
Environmental carve-outs 'deeply concerning'
In 2023, the government passed a bill that granted nuclear-powered submarines exemptions from current environmental laws in the national interest, to facilitate the AUKUS defence deal.
Greens senator David Shoebridge argues these AUKUS carve-outs show "Labor has form"
in excluding projects from longstanding environmental and safety regulations.
"If these arbitrary US timeframes for development of critical minerals and rare earth projects are going to be met, then it suggests the Albanese government may be intending to abuse existing 'national security' loopholes that bypass federal, state and territory environmental laws," he said.
"You can only imagine how much pressure there will be from the likes of Gina Reinhart to push through a new national security approvals process for their mining projects so they can get a quick and dirty tick, regardless of the environmental impact."
Greens senator David Shoebridge argues it would not be the first time that Labor seeks environmental exemptions to get a major project through. Source: AAP / Mick Tsikas
In response to these concerns, a government spokesperson said: "All projects that could potentially impact matters of national significance are required to comply with national environment law."
However, Pepper said we've already seen this play out at a state level.
The WA government says the State Development Bill will enhance productivity, giving the premier powers to "accelerate and oversee regulatory processes”.
China has a near-monopoly on extracting and refining rare earths, the process of separating them from other minerals. Source: SBS News
"Our laws exist for a reason. They're a safeguard and a protection. And there's new ways that governments are seeking to bypass existing laws, and that's deeply concerning,"
she said.
Is there a pathway forward?
Sinclair said any large infrastructure project, mining or otherwise, will have an environmental impact, whether on water, land clearing, or the local economy.
"That's just a fact, and that doesn't mean that it's unacceptable," she said.
"The question is, is the impact that is experienced at that local level justified and balanced by, for example, the need for the renewable energy that might be produced, and therefore achieve net zero?"
She explained that's why community consultation and environmental protection acts are so important: to give a voice to the communities impacted and to find an acceptable threshold that balances the effects and how communities will be compensated.
Pepper is concerned about Alcoa's gallium project in Wagerup, 120km south of Perth, which got a US$200 ($308 million) equity boost as a result of Tuesday's deal with Trump.
Galirum is a byproduct of bauxite mining, with the rare mineral serving as a component in LED lighting and defence technologies.
The refinery has faced unprecedented public opposition, including anguish about the clearing of more Jarrah forests, with 59,000 public submissions against the project currently being processed by the state's Environmental Protection Agency.
"This is the only Jarrah forest in the world, and for 60 years, it has been cleared. And rehabilitation efforts by Alcoa have failed," she said.
She said that, with species like the Baudin's Cockatoo on life support, the conservation group would like to see proper rehabilitation of mining sites and the adoption of new mining methods.
"I think we have to absolutely look at new ways to extract minerals from mine wastes.
"Reproducing mine waste is going to be water-intensive and chemical-intensive, and that's a cost we'd rather not have on our environment.
"But if that's the option, versus clearing more Jarrah forests, which we know we can't replace, then I think that would be a preference."
