“I stress these acreages because I think it has been conveyed in the public mind that huge areas will be involved all the time, and we will have ugly scars all over the place from one end of the state to
the other,” Court said.

“The apprehension of permanent damage held by various interested parties is needless,

“I am sure they have not been fully and accurately apprised of the comparatively small areas that will be mined.”

However, Court did say that Alcoa expected to expand substantially. He was right.

In 2019, Alcoa cleared 947 hectares, or 2340 acres: almost 100 times more forest removed each year compared to the “comparatively small areas” Court used to allay concerns about “ugly scars”.

Since 1961 much has changed.

Crosswalks are lit and cats eyes make road markings visible at night.

Governments work to reduce tobacco demand, not subsidise its supply.

Our meat is prepared by private industry.

Fire extinguishers, hoses and sprinklers are standard in commercial buildings.

Aboriginal people were allowed to vote in WA in 1962.

But Alcoa is still covered by the Alumina Refinery Agreement of 1961, which has allowed its Darling Scarp operations to escape public scrutiny for 60 years.

In those six decades, while Alcoa added another two alumina refineries, the world changed.

Climate change is now a thing – to put it mildly. The south-west of WA was one of the first areas in the world to be affected as rainfall plummeted.

In 2022, the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change concluded with high confidence that the northern jarrah forest where Alcoa mines is at risk of ecological collapse due to hotter, drier conditions and more fires.

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While the condition of the Darling Scarp deteriorated, the population of Perth exploded five-fold to two million people stretching south to Mandurah, while Alcoa’s mining crept north.

Suburbanites wanting to enjoy nature have access to less and less of nearby forests as Alcoa moves into new areas to feed its refineries.

The WA Environmental Protection Authority was established to provide independent advice through a transparent process that invited public comment, but Alcoa’s mining remained exempt behind the shield of its state agreement.

Instead, a committee of bureaucrats reviews Alcoa’s plans, and they are signed off by the minister responsible for the promotion of industry, not ministers charged with looking after water supply, the environment or tourism.

Alcoa’s lease is due to be renewed for another 21 years from 2024.

It is simply not tenable that Alcoa continues with less environmental scrutiny than other resource giants.

Some progress was made when Alcoa referred its next big expansion of mining to the EPA in 2020, but scrutiny should be mandatory.

Hope for a better environmental outcome for the jarrah forests arrived in late 2021 from an unexpected source: Queensland mining entrepreneur Clive Palmer.

The High Court ruled that the WA parliament had the authority to change its state agreement with Palmer’s Mineralogy to avoid paying damages over a dispute about the refusal of a mining proposal.

The last fig leaf for inaction by WA governments against resource companies disappeared: state agreements can be changed without the concurrence of the company.

Yesterday’s politicians can be excused for not being able to predict the future but the McGowan government – with control of both houses of parliament – has no excuse not to protect the future.

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