Mining

Mining dominates wealth and exports in Western Australia. The current boom driven by China's phenomenal growth is having extreme social and environmental consequences. A two-tier economy is arising; those working on high pay for the mining sector and the rest.

The scale of development and the extreme shortages of skilled workers are compromising provision of affordable housing. Water aquifers are being damaged and in the goldfields hyper-saline cyanide-laced water is poorly managed. Aboriginal people are still locked in an unequal struggle for recognition of heritage values and basic land rights.

The minerals industry is based on non-renewable resources dependent on fossil fuels to power its activities. The Greens (WA) believe a strategic Sustainability Assessment to 2050 is urgently needed.

Goals
The Greens (WA) want:

• a ‘Minerals Strategy 2060’ for Australian mineral development that takes into account the trend to declining ore grades, difficulty in accessing deposits, rising costs for exploration and processing and a decline in greenfield exploration1
• the ‘Mineral Strategy 2060’ to be developed in conjunction with an ‘Energy 2060 Strategy’ focusing on the emerging decline of cheap oil and natural gas production (see Greens (WA) Energy Policy)
• increased efficiencies in raw-materials use while reducing demand for virgin2 materials by promoting the reuse and recycling of mineral products
• governments to keep the rate of new minerals and natural gas developments within the capacity of skilled labour and other resources needed, including for related services such as housing, education, heath

Initiatives
The Greens (WA) will initiate and support legislation and actions that:

• keep the rate of mining and natural gas development within the skills and resource base available without compromising the resources needed for related services such as housing, education, health and government regulation of company performance
• limit the use foreign workers under 457 Visas within this framework
• implement the principles for the conduct of company operations within the minerals industry as developed by Australian non-government organisations in 1998 (Australian NGOs, 1998)
• require assessment of the direct and indirect embodied energy incorporated in minerals industry products from exploration, mining, transport and processing to final products for the purpose of strategic analysis
• require all mining projects to be subject to public assessments that integrate social, regional, environmental and economic factors
• establish rights for third party public interest claims to ensure compliance with environmental laws associated with mining
• evaluate proposals to pump desalinated sea water from Esperance to Kalgoorlie in relation to the water mounding problems in the Kalgoorlie region and its long term viability
• comprehensively review the standards of acceptable processes for mineral processing, recycling and reuse of mineral products
• ensure that mining companies do not become de-facto land-owners by continuous use of exemption strategies, by enshrining the ‘use it or lose it’ ethos in the Mining Act
• develop legislative frameworks to ensure that no mineral extractive industry can use legislative provisions of any Act to operate in an anti-competitive manner
• refer all State Agreement Acts to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission with a view to ensuring that they are not anti-competitive to other industry stakeholders
• act immediately to stop the development of any further State Agreement Acts (See Greens (WA) Sustainable Economy Policy)

Environment

• prohibit mining, exploration and development of industrial hubs associated with resource beneficiation3 within National Parks and ‘A’ Class Conservation Reserves, wilderness areas and other outstanding nature conservation and heritage sites
• develop legislation that defines the social, economic and regional value of water used by the minerals industry
• review the management of mining operations to ensure the integrity of aquifers, rivers, lakes and the ocean
• the Department of Water to urgently introduce a sustainable water management plan for the Pilbara and adjacent areas, including audits of water use (See Greens (WA) Water Policy)
• review the 1995 Memorandum of Understanding between the Department of Environment and Conservation and the Department of Industries and Resources to significantly enhance cross-agency cooperation
• review the Mining Act to augment the environmental responsibilities and powers of the Department of Industries and Resources
• extend the powers of the Department of Industry and Resources and the Department of Environment and Conservation to access, review and audit mine and mineral processing sites, including public access to these reviews and audits
• require greater enforcement of licence and ministerial conditions by the relevant departments and Ministers in relation to resource industries
• review the Temporary Reserve System to phase out Temporary Reserves, given that a number of these exist to facilitate exploration and mining within National Parks
• enshrine in Western Australian regulations the principles contained in the Federal (1995) Best Practice Environmental Management in Mining and provide for regular updates of these principles to conform to world best-practice
• expand the environmental bond system used by the Department of Industries and Resources to cover extractive industries
• review design criteria and integrity of all tailing structures to ensure complete retention of all materials and fluids, and establish an audit and public register of all tailing residue structures
• phase in ‘cradle to grave’ stewardship for all waste produced during mining operations
• establish restrictions on mineral sands mining in high conservation areas within the Western Australian coastal zone
• ensure that all mining approvals are consistent with the land use capability of the region and that all assessments are based on a whole-of-region plan for all extractive industries in the area, integrating social, environmental and economic factors
• establish an open and transparent process for third party appeals against mining proposals, including maintenance of the rights for public interest objections in the Mining Wardens Court
• manage pastoral properties that are taken up by the mining industry, according to best-practice land management and rehabilitation requirements
• support the take-up of pastoral properties by mining companies on the proviso of committed maintenance and rehabilitation strategies
• subject approvals for mining to comprehensive rehabilitation provisions coupled with effective enforcement procedures
• prohibit mining and export of uranium

Social

• enable small-scale prospectors access to mining and exploration tenements held by other parties
• promote decentralisation and the re-establishment of remote communities by:
  • lobbying the Federal Government to exempt company housing in such communities from fringe benefits tax
  • changes to State Agreement Acts, and
  • regulating to reduce fly-in, fly-out arrangements
• change the system of fringe benefits taxation so that private driving of mining company vehicles is appropriately and equitably taxed
• at a state level, call for the Federal Government to implement an indexing of the Zone Tax A and B zone allowances and the removal of zone tax allowances from fly-in, fly-out workers
• promote alternatives to 12 hour shifts in the mining industry which lead to unsafe work practices
• establish a round table between the State, local government and the mining industry to resolve the rating inequity attributed to those authorities in which State Agreements operate
• review the royalties system to promote equity in the industry, greater downstream processing and greater recognition of the financial burdens carried by local government in regional service provision
• support the premise that a least 25% of royalties retained by the state, after Federal grants fiscal adjustment, is returned to the region over and above current provision of state services
• support the introduction of amendments to the Commonwealth Crime Act (1914) to provide for the prosecution of individuals or companies who act in an environmental or industrial manner overseas that would be contrary to the requirements of the environmental or mining regulations of their home state
• improve the occupational health and safety regulations for mine workers and ensure strict compliance with such regulations and establish a mineworkers tracking register
• ensure that mining practices are consistent with The Greens (WA) Health and Employment and Workplace Relations policies
• seek to prohibit Australian Workplace Agreement’s and their replacement Employee Workplace Agreement’s from use by the mining industry as all employers should bargain collectively and in good faith with all their workers

Glossary
1. A greenfield exploration site is one at a previously unexplored location some considerable distance from any existing or past mine site. It does not include exploration adjacent to earlier discoveries that seek extensions to existing known ore deposits - these are called brownfield sites.
2. virgin products – products made from newly processed raw materials and containing no recycled materials.
3. benefication - the removal of impurities from an ore in preparation for refining.