The Australian Greens support this bill and the committee report but would like to place the following matters on the record that were either not mentioned or not explored thoroughly in the report.
Funding of Rehabilitation
There have been concerns raised by ERA, and other stakeholders, about ERA’s ability to fund the rehabilitation which the costs for have blown out significantly. The most recent estimate was $1.6 to $2.2 billion. ERA is currently examining several options to fund rehabilitation, but both ERA and Rio Tinto have stated they are committed to the full rehabilitation of Ranger Mine. There is currently no binding agreement between ERA and Rio Tinto that Rio Tinto will take on rehabilitation costs in the event that ERA are unable.
The Australian Greens wish to highlight this because it is important that companies who make large profits from mining are responsible to rehabilitate their sites and that this cost is not passed on to the Commonwealth as it often is.
Traditional Owner Involvement in Rehabilitation
Traditional Owners have been involved in the rehabilitation process beyond consultation for the bill and committee memberships. Other aspects in which the Mirarr Traditional Owners have been involved include procurement as well as ensuring the rehabilitation will support the post-closure land use requirements and allow for the Traditional Owners to reconnect to country. ERA outlined this in the public hearing in Canberra:
We also have the Ranger mining agreement, where we have a relationship committee, and we are supporting reconnection to country activities where we can hear directly from the traditional owners about the type of landscape, including the cultural landscape, that we need to rebuild across the Ranger project area. … We also engaged heavily early on, around 2013, with Murray Garde, the linguist, to understand the post-closure land use requirements directly with them to understand how they would want to interact with the land and to understand fully their diet and the bush tucker.
ERA further explained that:
We've commenced, with the support of the Northern Land Council and Gundjeihmi Aboriginal Corporation, a cultural reconnection steering committee. It involves a number of traditional owners coming out and interacting with the land. We visit the site itself and the local areas. We talk about the cultural elements of the rehabilitation and what they would like to see and what they wouldn't like to see. We've constructed a number of rock habitat areas, we've commenced cultural planting areas and we've changed a number of elements of our rehabilitation plan to suit the final needs.
It was confirmed by ERA at the public hearing that ‘one of [the] biggest rehabilitation contracts for the planting of stems and seeds is with an Indigenous business…called Kakadu Native Plant Supplies’. This sentiment was shared by the Gundjeihmi Aboriginal Corporation, who stated:
Traditional owners are meeting regularly, every month, with the mining company and the Northern Land Council. Sometimes they visit the site to go through the whole cultural closure criteria that were developed and to keep an eye on the revegetation and everything.
This level of involvement of Traditional Owners is highly appreciated and is to the benefit of not only the Traditional Owners, but also ERA.
The Australian Greens believe it is paramount that Traditional Owners are deeply involved in any and all aspects of rehabilitation of their land.
Senator Dorinda Cox
Substitute Member
Greens Senator for Western Australia