Scott Ludlam (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to 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.

Ursula Stephens (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Social Inclusion and the Voluntary Sector) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I reiterate that the government is not supporting this amendment. This amendment of a proposed new clause 26 seeks to require a review of the costs and benefits of the uranium royalty arrangements initially on the fifth anniversary of the commencement of the section and then every three years. I remind the Senate and those listening that the purpose of the legislation we are debating today is to bring consistency to the royalty regime in the Northern Territory regardless of the mineral being mined. Any review of this legislation should be restricted to that specific issue—that is, should there be such consistency? In my view it is obvious that there should be consistency and that no review is required. It follows that the sorts of issues that the Greens amendment is seeking to be reviewed should only be considered in a review of the Northern Territory royalty system as a whole and, whatever the merits of such a review, this is not the legislation to initiate it.

Nick Minchin (SA, Liberal Party, Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Through you, Madam Temporary Chairman, to Senator Ludlam, the opposition’s position, as I earlier indicated, is one that is not in favour of supporting any of these amendments for the reasons outlined by the government and by me in my earlier remarks. To reiterate the point that was made, this bill is about bringing the treatment of uranium into line with the treatment of all other minerals in the Northern Territory for the purposes of royalty payments. That is eminently logical and, as the parliamentary secretary has indicated, we are talking about a royalty regime which has operated in the Northern Territory for some 25 years, with which everybody is familiar and which does on a consensus basis best suit all the stakeholders involved. It is our view that this is an appropriate bill and that it is not appropriate to support the amendments proposed.

Generally speaking, from my own point of view and, I think, from the opposition’s point of view, the policy proposition of reviews of new policy proposals does make eminent sense. In relation to some issues in the portfolio of communications—with which Senator Ludlam is as familiar as me—we have moved in this place for some review mechanisms of some of the things that the government is doing, and that is appropriate from time to time in relation to new policy. But I do reiterate that what this bill is doing is bringing uranium into line with a regime which is certainly not new but has in fact operated for some 25 years. The issue of a general review of those arrangements is a matter for another day, another place and another time. This is not the vehicle for any such suggestion

I must say I am not, and the coalition is not, generally aware of any enormous angst or concern about the royalty regime. It has operated for some time in the Northern Territory and it, no doubt, does not please everybody. The regulatory impact statement that the government issued in relation to this is a good canvassing of all the issues associated with the question of how appropriate payments should be made, to whom and by what mechanisms. Without delving into that whole question, I reiterate that this is not the vehicle for any such review. We are talking about existing policy and are simply ensuring that an existing policy now applies to uranium and brings uranium in the Northern Territory into line with the treatment of all other minerals. It is an approach that the coalition supports.

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

I will just make one further contribution and then I will move the amendment, unless the minister has anything else to say. We heard quite a bit during the debate about consistency, and nobody seems to have realised that the way that royalties are levied on the mining industry in the Northern Territory is, in fact, completely inconsistent with the way it occurs in the big mining states such as my own state of Western Australia, as well as Queensland and South Australia, I understand.

The fact of consistency should not necessarily be stuck to if the system is consistently broken. Consistency is one thing if the system is working well. I think we have more than enough evidence, which we took during the committee hearings, that consistency is not good enough. The system is not working. It is not working for the people who are most directly affected by dispossession and who end up in savage poverty on their own country while the mineral is taken out from underneath them. The traditional owners of the Ranger mine, to go to one specific example, were so supportive of uranium mining and the consistent approach that they fought the Jabiluka mine proposal tooth and nail for years until they succeeded. I take the minister’s point that perhaps this is not the right place to debate these issues. When is the right place and when is the right time? I move Australian Greens amendment (3) on sheet 5797:

(3)    Page 12 (after line 19), at the end of the bill, add:

26 Review of the costs and benefits of uranium mining royalty arrangements

        (1)    The Minister must cause independent reviews of the costs and benefits of uranium mining royalty arrangements to be conducted in accordance with this section.

        (2)    The first review must begin as soon as practicable after the fifth anniversary of the commencement of this section, and a further review must begin as soon as practicable after each third anniversary of that date.

        (3)    Each review must be completed within 6 months.

        (4)    Each review must:

             (a)    identify the costs and benefits of the application of laws and the operation of the royalty arrangements made by this Act;

             (b)    in particular, identify the costs and benefits to:

                   (i)    the Commonwealth;

                  (ii)    the Northern Territory Government;

                 (iii)    Indigenous communities, in general;

                 (iv)    Indigenous communities affected by mining operations to which this Act applies;

                  (v)    Indigenous communities which are party to any arrangement to receive any royalty under this Act; and

                 (vi)    corporate and other bodies involved in mining operations to which this Act applies.

        (5)    Each review must be undertaken by a panel comprising not less that 5 members, including:

             (a)    a person with expertise in royalty models and arrangements; and

             (b)    a person with expertise in mining law; and

             (c)    a person with expertise in the financial, managerial, infrastructure and service-delivery challenges of Aboriginal communities; and

             (d)    representatives of affected communities.

        (6)    The panel must give the Minister a written report of each review, and the Minister must cause a copy of the report to be laid before each House of Parliament within 15 sitting days of receiving the report.

Question negatived.

The Temporary Chairman:

The question now is that the bill stand as printed.

Question agreed to.

Bill agreed to.

Bill reported without amendment; report adopted.