Antinuclear

Big mining companies cannot be trusted in dealings with Aboriginal people

 The vast majority of the deals have occurred in a ‘David and Goliath’ scenario. On the one side, a team of mining magnates, expertly-trained negotiators and top lawyers have been armed with technology and strategic action plans. They routinely have access to and support of politicians and have often indulged in ethically-flawed tactics to divide the other side. The other side has usually consisted of community representatives without the training or skills to negotiate at this level, many of whom could not even read.

The mining agenda from a Yamatji perspective – The Drum Opinion (Australian Broadcasting Corporation),  Colin McKinnon-Dodd  30may 11“…..…the people that benefit least from mining are the people removed from the land to allow it.Indeed the mining industry’s track record with Indigenous landholders is appalling. Time and again the big miners have shown that they cannot be trusted in their negotiations with Aboriginal people. For a very long time economic giants such as Rio Tinto, BHP and Fortesque Minerals have been taking advantage of their negotiating power with traditional owners in Australia and overseas.

The vast majority of the deals have occurred in a ‘David and Goliath’ scenario. On the one side, a team of mining magnates, expertly-trained negotiators and top lawyers have been armed with technology and strategic action plans. They routinely have access to and support of politicians and have often indulged in ethically-flawed tactics to divide the other side. The other side has usually consisted of community representatives without the training or skills to negotiate at this level, many of whom could not even read. It was the same farcical situation that led to the vast land of Melbourne being handed over in return for blankets and scissors.
This has resulted in uniformly and outrageously lop-sided arrangements in favour of mining companies – the history of mining is littered with such travesties. But if you added up all the money that has gone on tax-payer funded welfare it would resemble much of the money that mining companies should have been paying traditional owners.

The taxpayer has been subsiding the mining industry’s moral debt. Every year billions of tax-payer dollars are squandered into reimbursing what the mining companies should have been paying. Every year traditional owners continue to be fleeced of hundreds of millions of mining royalties that should rightly be paid to them by the mining companies.
It is now time to address this appalling situation, regulate the behaviour of mining companies and ensure that more equitable deals are established with Aboriginal people. Legislators need to investigate better options. Clearly there is a case for a mining tax – but priority should be given to allocating the first money raised by it to those displaced from their lands to allow mining to take place – the traditional owners…….
The mining agenda from a Yamatji perspective – The Drum Opinion (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

May 31, 2011 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | aboriginal issues, AUSTRALIA - NATIONAL