Scott Ludlam (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I have one further amendment that I would like to move before we conclude debate on this bill. This one goes to the way that mining royalties are being distributed to the traditional owners and to the Aboriginal communities in affected areas at the moment. Some of the tenor of this amendment reflects more widespread practices within the mining industry rather than in the uranium sector specifically. Hundreds of agreements obviously exist between traditional owners and the mining industry. A native title working group discussion paper that was published in December 2008 found that about a dozen of these agreements had provided substantial benefits to Aboriginal people and Torres Strait Islanders and exhibited principles embodying best practice—about a dozen out of several hundred. This recent report absolutely must not be ignored. This expert body called for a review of the Native Title Act 1993 because there is such a limited number of good agreements to provide models for, and so few of them are providing financial or other benefits for traditional owners.

We skimmed over this aspect when we were debating the bill earlier, but the implication from both sides of this chamber is that mining automatically brings benefits for the Aboriginal communities who find themselves in the path of mining developments. It is an absolute article of faith, of unchallenged faith in this country, that mining is automatically good for Aboriginal people. The evidence is utterly damning and points in the opposite direction. Perhaps the minister will correct me if things have been done since December 2008, but no substantive work whatsoever has been done to review the way that these agreements are failing people so badly.

The amendment that I will move recognises this and provides that the review take place after five years of the commencement of this bill and every three years thereafter, to thoroughly examine the costs and benefits for those affected by the profit royalty system established by this legislation. We are making significant changes to the way that royalties are assessed and paid. The amendments list those who should be involved in a review, including the Commonwealth and Territory governments, the Indigenous communities themselves and the mining corporations concerned. This independent review and evaluation process would provide a mechanism to assess whether this process is actually delivering the stated benefits to Aboriginal communities.

I acknowledge that both the Leader of the Opposition and the minister representing the minister concerned have already indicated that they will not be supporting this amendment. I certainly look forward to hearing some rationalisation as to why this would be the case.