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.