SOCIAL IMPACT ASSESSMENT

In recent years the idea of complementing environmental impact statements with social impact studies has found increasing favour in government, Aboriginal and, to some extent, business circles. One definition of a social impact assessment is: "All changes in the structure and functioning of patterned social orderings that occur in conjunction with, or as a result of, an environmental, technological or social innovation or alteration" (Environment Protection Agency, Review of Commonwealth Impact Assessment - Social Impact Assessment, 1996, ii).

The same study adds:

. . . in relation to major development projects, social impact is often defined as the effect of a development on people and specifically the changes that a development would create in:

• people's way of life (how they live, work, play and interact);
• their cultural traditions (shared beliefs, customs and values); and
• their community (its population structure, cohesion, stability and character).

Importantly however, social impacts can arise not only as a consequence of development projects, but can also come about as a result of policy change or the implementation of a programme or plan.

Social Impact assessment determines the changes likely to occur as a direct result of those social impacts.

Nature of Social Impacts

Social impacts can be categorised broadly as:

• quantitatively measurable impacts, such as population changes, effects on employment opportunities etc.; or
• non-quantitatively measurable impacts, such as effects on social relationships, impacts on psychological attitudes, community cohesion, etc.

Many of these impacts cannot be measured by technical or scientific means. Direct communication of how people feel via public participation is one, if not sometimes the only, legitimate manner of documenting the nature and extent of likely social impacts. Further, social impacts are distributive in nature, i.e. they can affect different people in different ways, with effects falling evenly and unequally over different sections of a population both at a particular time and over different time periods.

The Northern Land Council has stated that:

The type of social impact study that needs to be undertaken now is not intended to prove a link between, say, the Ranger mine operation and various forms of anti-social behaviour within the Aboriginal community. Rather it is for Aboriginal people to investigate and document their social concerns, given the way they are now living, and to develop strategies to achieve goals identified by this same process.

The aim is to have Aboriginal people begin to look at ways of recreating Aboriginal lives so that they are ready and willing to participate in the social life of the community in positive, culturally appropriate and fulfilling ways. (S 42, 15-6)

A Kakadu Region Social Impact Study was commissioned in 1996 to provide "a clear statement of Aboriginal experiences, values and aspirations regarding development of the region; and a proposed community development programme to enhance/mitigate impacts associated with development of the region."

Key stakeholders represented in overseeing the study include the Northern Land Council, the Aboriginal Community, Energy Resources of Australia and the Northern Territory and Commonwealth governments.

It is funded by the Commonwealth and Energy Resources of Australia.

This project is still in progress and it has thus not been possible for the Committee to appraise it either in terms of methodology or outcome but it looks forward to its findings, conclusions and recommendations.

The Committee recognises, however, that the concept of the social impact study could offer a viable framework within which a number of the issues which arise in the context of major development projects (such as mining) can be identified, analysed and discussed. Some of these issues are reviewed in chapter 5.