OPINION: A decision to deny mining activity on private property could have repercussions for land access and land ownership laws.
At this stage it’s only the mining industry expressing dismay at the federal government’s decision to block an important aspect of Regis Resources’ McPhillamys gold project in NSW.
However, two issues have the potential for events surrounding the project to become more than a mining issue, given the repercussions for land access and land ownership laws.
Secrecy is the first problem, with Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek using an obscure section of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Heritage Protection Act of 1984 to reject the mine plan.
Private land is the other problem, because while most Aboriginal land access issues relate to Crown land, McPhillamys is on land that has been farmed for more than 100 years and is privately owned.
Until Ms Plibersek rejected plans by Regis to start a mine and stockpile mine tailings (waste rock), the miner had every reason to believe it would be able to proceed with the development of a project costing $1 billion and yielding close to 200,000 ounces of gold annually.
Every approval required for the mine to proceed had been obtained after four years of planning. And Regis also secured the support of local residents, including Aboriginal groups and their land council.
What no-one expected was Ms Plibersek’s use of Section 10 of the 1984 Act, which covers “confidential and culturally sensitive information”.
The minister has not revealed who she spoke to about McPhillamys and the location of the tailings dam, which is at the heart of her decision to ban the project as proposed.
Nor has she revealed what she was told in private by activists lobbying on behalf of a small group of people not associated with the regional land council.
Section 10 of the Act permits secrecy “to ensure that culturally sensitive information is handled appropriately” and can mean allocating a male or female officer to the case depending on the information to be discussed.
Anyone using the secrecy provisions of the Act is warned that it could affect “the weight the minister is able to give the information”.
In the Regis case, it is obvious Ms Plibersek applied considerable weight.
However, exactly what she was told about Aboriginal traditions at the McPhillamys site remains unknown and seems likely to stay that way.
“Some of these traditions have been disclosed to me privately and must remain confidential due to their cultural sensitivity,” Ms Plibersek said in a statement.
“If this site were to be desecrated, it would be a threat to the continuation of the Wiradjuri/ Wiradyuri culture.”
“[I]t adds to a growing belief that investing in the Australian resources industry has become excessively risky
Being culturally sensitive is an admirable trait, but a minister keeping secret her reason for a decision is not. Rather, it adds to a growing belief that investing in the Australian resources industry has become excessively risky.
Adding to the perception of risk is the reported involvement in the McPhillamys decision of the discredited Environmental Defenders Office, which was castigated for its role in attempts to weaponise Aboriginal culture to block Kevin Gallagher-led Santos’s Barossa gas project in waters off the Northern Territory.
In the Barossa case, the EDO, which is part-funded by the federal government, was found to have been a party to “confected” evidence, resulting in objections being tossed out of court and enabling Santos to finalise construction of the project.
Ms Plibersek likened McPhillamys to Rio Tinto’s destruction of Juukan Gorge in the Pilbara, despite no work having started on the tailings dam in NSW.
Criticism of the minister’s use of Section 10 and its secrecy provision has been likened to the hijacking of Aboriginal heritage by anti-mining activists, who have been handed a new tool to oppose development plans.
But where Section 10 gets really interesting is that it has been applied to a project on private land, which begs the question whether only mining projects have something to fear.
Residential property developers should be looking very carefully into whether they’re exposed to the potential use of Section 10, even if they own the land and especially if there is evidence of historic Aboriginal activity.
Until Ms Plibersek intervened at McPhillamys, the Aboriginal culture and land access issue was confined to concern about Crown land, as laid down in the laws that followed the High Court’s 1992 Mabo decision, which recognised a form of land title preceding European settlement.
After McPhillamys, it is open to debate whether all owners of private land have something new to consider.
AI could join EVs
WITH apologies for serving a dish of alphabet soup, the question relates to the dramatic slowdown in public acceptance of electric vehicles (EVs), and whether artificial intelligence (AI) could be heading down the same slope.
The EV issue is well understood and relates to an over-promoted technology that will one day dominate the transport industry, just not yet.
Problems of range anxiety, slow charging and low resale value are dogging the EV industry, as demonstrated last month when Ford dropped plans to build large electric sports utility vehicles (SUV) in the US.
The AI issue is remarkably similar: a hugely over-promoted technology that is not delivering what was promoted and might take years to justify the current high level of investment in data processing centres.
First signs of an unexpected AI crisis have been emerging in the US, where investors are starting to question whether it will generate the promised profits.
The share prices of companies promoting AI have run out of steam as it dawns on investors that very few businesspeople actually know how to use AI.
According to The Economist, only 4.8 per cent of US companies use AI to produce goods and services, down from 5.4 per cent earlier this year.
Comparisons are already being made with past booms that fizzled, including railway building in the 19th century and the dot.com rush of the late 20th century.
Trouble on campus
ANOTHER ‘business’ in trouble is the university industry.
While there is an awakening at the student level that obtaining a university qualification is not necessarily a ticket to a happy and prosperous future, promoters of universities are discovering that the cash is drying up.
The immediate problem is that the Australian government is considering whether it should turn off the tap that has allowed an influx of foreign students who, in some cases, account for 90 per cent of students seeking business degrees.
Losing access to a flood of international students would force universities to return to their roots as places of learning rather than the degree factories they have become.
