Lee Rhiannon (NSW, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

If the Minister for Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities, Tony Burke, had been able to hop on that plane to Rio I would have recommended that he read Dirty Money by Matthew Benns on the long haul across the Pacific. Mr Benns's book details numerous examples of the impact that mining companies—many of them Australian owned—are having on low-income countries. Dirty Money is a stark reminder that the Gillard government's plan to promote so-called sustainable mining to respond to global environmental damage and social inequality is an irresponsible policy that should not have any role in the negotiations to finalise the UN document 'The Future We Want' at Rio+20. Mining companies have an appalling record in low-income countries. This is one excerpt from Dirty Money:

They put the boys into the Anvil mining truck. They came for my dad. I asked them 'where are you taking him?' and they didn't answer." The Australian mining company trucks had come roaring into the African village and disgorged over 100 heavily armed Government soldiers. The rebels, protesting at the way the Australian company was mining the Congolese silver and copper without giving anything back to the local community, had already surrendered. But their looting of food and fuel from the Anvil Mining depot at Kilwa could not go unanswered. The Australians flew in the Government troops, loaded them onto their trucks and then stood back while they rounded up the rebellion's 'sympathisers'. "We started running but the soldiers caught and searched our belongings, they arrested my dad and two other boys," said Albert Kitanika. The soldiers refused to say where they were taking his father. "They took him 50 metres down the road where they shot and stabbed him to death." A United Nations investigation found Mr Kitanika was one of at least 100 people summarily executed in the Government operation in 2004. Afterwards the Australian company issued a press release praising the Government for its rapid response. Asked about its role in transporting the troops, Anvil's chief executive officer Bill Turner said: "So what".

Sadly, these events are not unusual for mining corporations in Africa and other low-income countries.

Closer to home, Australian mining companies may not be working with the military but their actions are far from world's best practice. The name Ok Tedi has become synonymous with polluting mining practices. Downstream from the BHP Billiton owned mine, 50,000 locals from 120 villages have been affected. Polluted waters from the mine have destroyed food, gardens and fishing grounds. Hardship and sickness is what this mining operation brought to locals. This gold and copper mine has been run for the benefit of boardrooms far removed from PNG, but if you read the company's documents you would be led to believe otherwise. BHP's 'Guide to Business Conduct' promises: 'It is BHP's policy to achieve a high standard of environmental care.'

Rio Tinto also talks up its high standards. This mining giant states with reference to workers in Australia: 'Employees will be protected to the best of the company's ability against harassment in the workplace.' However, in Indonesia Rio Tinto is being investigated by the National Human Rights Commission over sexual abuse of underage children at its Kelian mine. BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto are two of the mining companies that are playing a role in AusAID's Mining for Development Initiative, introduced last year by the Prime Minister with the stated aim to see:

… developing countries use their natural resources to grow their economies and provide social benefits to their people.

The statement goes on to say that this will:

… improve resource governance, sustainability and development.

The wisdom of the choice of BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto by AusAID is telling. BHP Billiton's main task is to maximise its profits, and that is frequently at the expense of occupational health and safety standards on the job, environmental standards and the rights of local communities. BHP Chairman Jac Nasser recently told the Institute of Company Directors that Australian industrial laws should be amended to 'recognise the rights of management'. BHP Billiton regularly battles unions campaigning to protect working conditions.

In Australia, mining companies such as BHP Billiton do not have a track record in managing the environmental and health impacts of mining related activities that we can in any way be proud of. This leaves a very big question mark over how these mining companies can serve as a model for best-practice mining in low-income countries. A Western Australian parliamentary inquiry into the deaths of over 9,000 native birds near Esperance in Western Australia that occurred over about four months between the end of 2006 and 2007 found the cause was lead poisoning from Magellan Metals lead carbonate. Illegal mining is polluting the Great Barrier Reef and uranium mining in Kakadu National Park conflicts with the World Heritage status of those sites. Newmont Mining dumped 7,000 tonnes of poisonous mercury over Kalgoorlie—mercury damages our vital organs. And we should never forget that it was the careless actions of the Australian owned company Esmeralda that resulted in a huge cyanide spill that reached the Danube River and killed countless fish in Hungary and other countries. With a track record like this, Australian mining companies are hardly the model international citizens to promote responsible mining practice. The Greens certainly support the right of all nations to develop their mineral resources in accordance with the needs of their communities and to protect local and global environments. But the Australian government's increasing emphasis on mining in developing countries risks prioritising interests of mining companies over the needs of local communities. With most workers employed on mining projects in low-income countries not drawn from communities neighbouring the mine and locals having to contend with negative health impacts and damage to their food sources, the Australian funded Mining for Development Initiative does not look like a program that directly meets the objectives of the Millennium Development Goals.

The Independent review of aid effectiveness, released in April 2011, states that using the aid budget on extractive industries 'could raise conflict-of-interest issues, which would need to be carefully managed'. The Gillard government is championing a pro-mining message at Rio+20 this week. The government's preparation for the negotiations reads suspiciously like a strategy to assist mining companies to boost their profit margins. The Australian government's 'Rio+20 and mining for sustainable development' document asserts that mining is sustainable development. Mining by definition, however, is unsustainable, as all mining involves exploiting a non-renewable resource.

Experience of mining to date demonstrates that mining results in damage to local and global environments. Air and water pollution are a common feature of mining along with loss of biodiversity, displacement of local communities and destruction of farming land. The climate change impacts of many mining operations are huge. The burning and mining of coal in New South Wales contributes about 40 per cent of Australia's greenhouse gas emissions. Friends of the Earth, Aid/Watch and Quit Coal have questioned the governments tactics at Rio+20 in a letter sent to the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Senator the Hon. Bob Carr. Their letter states:

The UN draft states that Rio+20 must not 'impose new conditionalities on aid and finance', nor 'restrict the policy space for countries to pursue their own paths to sustainable development'. In addition, the UN draft reasserts the obligation of developed countries to commit at least 0.7% of national income to overseas aid; the Australian position suggests a commitment of only 0.5%.

Their letter further states:

Australia's proposals on 'financing sustainable development' signal the use of aid in 'enabling policy settings, regulations and incentives (such as innovative market-based tools) to catalyse private finance in sustainable investments'. At the same time, it favours the use of aid 'creatively to leverage private capital through risk-sharing'.

The closest the government's Rio+20 document comes to admitting any problem is in its statement: 'Converting mining into sustainable development is a challenge.' The weakness of this statement reflects that AusAID's mining projects are out of step with its own objectives. Using the cloak of overseas development as a way to rebadge mining as a plus for low-income countries is troubling. At the very least AusAID should start working with mining impacted communities to oblige the companies to clean up their waste, help communities disrupted by mining to restore sustainable living practices and ensure that the bulk of the profits are retained by the people of the countries where the mining occurs.