The Mining Industry's Campaign Against Native Title: Some Explanations

Abstract

The mining industry has consistently maintained that 'native title' is a major impediment to mineral exploration and development and that it is a key factor in recent industry trends. Yet there is little evidence to justify these claims. This article suggests that this contradiction is less a re ection of ideological opposition to native title on the part of industry leaders than a case of political posturing aimed at ensuring that government policy better re ects mining interests. Government policy is an investment determinant over which the industry can exert some in uence, unlike other determinants such as commodity prices and exchange rates. In addition to the industry's self-interest in pressuring government to circumscribe native title rights by overstating its detrimental economic impact, the peculiar intensity of the campaign is explained by its concerns about its role in the policy process, its popularity in the community and its comparative power as an interest group.

Policy Change and Industry Associability: The Australian Mining Sector

“…Lavelle () has described the opposition of the mining industry to native title legislation as posturing in an attempt to have altered to its advantage a factor affecting exploration and development over which it could exert some influence (in contrast to factors such as commodity prices and capital availability), but does not distinguish sufficiently the ‘industry’ and its associations, with the latter charged with stating things companies would avoid saying for fear of harming their corporate image, at a time when global reputation was becoming more important. Companies frequently want associations to play ‘bad cop’, to their ‘good cop.’ Lavelle's analysis also probably underestimates the pernicious effects of delay and uncertainty on investment decisions and (significantly) the differential effect of the imposition of the regime on firms of different sizes.…”

The Social Construction of Indigenous `Native Title' Land Rights in Australia

“…Despite all the hot air and fevered arguments about [native title] in the lobbying forums of the country, the real world of outback mining and mineral processing is getting on with it. Lavelle (2001) has offered a considered reading of mining industry responses to native title and suggests that it represents opportunist 'political posturing' designed to exert control over a 'negative variable'. The ideological element to this posturing was the notion that modern societies should encourage mineral investment because it is in the 'national interest' (Lavelle, 2001: 108).…”

“…Chief executive of the Western Australian Chamber of Mines and Energy, Ian Satchwell, for example stated, 'of the issues affecting exploration [native title] is the only one we can influence in Australia. Low commodity prices and access to capital are largely outside our control' (cited in Lavelle, 2001).…”

Unstable relations: a critical appraisal of indigeneity and environmentalism in contemporary Australia

“…After the instantiation of an Aboriginal land rights regime in the Northern Territory in 1976, mining projects were still largely unimpeded by Aboriginal interests in most other Australian states and territories. Indeed, when land rights legislation was later proposed in Western Australia, Queensland and across the Commonwealth in the 1980s and 1990s, the Mineral Council of Australia and other industry bodies mounted vigorous and expensive public campaigns against them, predicting dire falls in national prosperity that never materialised (Lavelle, ).…”