FOSI submission on lease notifications and objections
Below is the text of the FOSI submission dated 28 March 2014 to
Department of Natural Resources & Mines.
Thank you for the opportunity to make a submission.
Mines have such massive impacts on our environment and
communities that it is essential that any person or group can stand up and
raise public interest issues, including in an open court. We know from bitter
experience this proposal, if implemented, will tip the balance too far in
favour of the destruction of the environment by mining companies and cause
greater community division. It would be a backward step for the State
government to change the law that provides public interest safeguards for the
community.
From our own recent experience on North Stradbroke Island,
where special legislation has been used to extinguish pre-existing community
rights to object to and challenge the renewal of expired sand mining leases in
open court, it is fair to ask – are foreign owned mining companies behind this
anti-democratic proposal to stop groups and citizens from having a fair say?
The only stakeholder who would benefit from the proposed
changes is the mining industry.
For the three reasons below, which we adopt, we absolutely
oppose the proposals to limit objection rights to a mining lease to ‘directly
affected’ landholders and to effectively restrict objection rights to
environmental authority applications to only 10% of mining projects in
Queensland:
1. The reasons put
forward for removing community rights to object to mining lease applications
are extremely weak and without any proper basis. This is a reduction in our fundamental
democratic right to partake in government decisions that affect us all.
2. Removing the
public notification process for mining lease applications will mean that the
vast majority of mining lease applications in Queensland will have no public
notification at all. If this was to
become law, then a community may have no idea that mining activities could
occur down the road from them if they aren’t ‘directly affected’ landholders.
3. Limiting
community objection rights to “site-specific” environmental authority
applications will totally remove existing community participation rights in up
to 90%of mining projects in Queensland.
We call on the State Government to adopt a policy position
which empowers, rather than disempowers, our communities to take responsibility
for our state and stand up for our environment. In Queensland for decades, any
person or group has been entitled to object to any mining proposal in open
court, to have the evidence scrutinised about the benefits and detriments of a
proposed mine.
We request that you do not make the changes but instead
keep existing provisions that allow any person or incorporated group to object
to all mining leases and environmental authorities. The North Stradbroke
legislation’s extinguishment of community rights to object to and appeal
against expired mining lease renewals set a bad recent precedent and has caused
on-going community division on and off the island. There are often legitimate
and soundly based objections to mines, particularly in sensitive
environments. The conventional and fair
process to follow in a democracy, is for the courts to ultimately resolve
conflicts between the rights of the mining industry and community rights to
protect and conserve the natural and/or social environments.
Sue Ellen Carew, President
