Bills

Resource Operations Ombudsman Bill

Introduction and First Reading

The Hon. R.L. BROKENSHIRE (17:00): Obtained leave and introduced a bill for an act to establish the office of the Resource Operations Ombudsman; to provide for the making and resolution of complaints regarding issues related to the conduct of resource operations; and for other purposes. Read a first time.

Second Reading

The Hon. R.L. BROKENSHIRE (17:02): I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

This bill is a very important bill. This is another attempt for Family First, and my privilege as one of their members, to see some justice put into the state when it comes to farming and mining. I know that the government has had lots of issues in coming to terms with the fact that it is pro mining as against farming. I know that the Minister for Mining is far more vocal and proactive in the areas of promotion of mining than is the agriculture minister, whom I do not hear out there championing the cause for farmers.

As the shadow minister for agriculture said, the agriculture minister does get distracted on a lot of fronts, but we will not go there now, because we have busy business in this house and we cannot be flying around over issue after issue because we do not have frequent flyer points in the Legislative Council.

To get back to the intent of this bill, it is to combat issues where mining companies disregard the concerns of farmers or other affected parties in relation to accessing land, lease and licence agreements; to provide an effective grievance mechanism which is legitimate, accessible, predictable, equitable and transparent; to create an effective institution that provides fair and equitable redress for affected parties; to create an institution which advises of legal rights and obligations and, most importantly, is independent of the government, mining and farming industries; to minimise cost and time burden on parties with a view to limiting legal actions.

Just on that, to be fair, the agriculture sector acknowledges mining and it knows the importance of mining, but it wants a fairer and more level playing field when it comes to the fact that agriculture is still the primary—and with its sustainability will continue to be the primary—primary industry in South Australia.

It is not fair when farmers and their families have to sometimes spend $100,000 just on legal advice to defend their rights. We do not have an ombudsman for education. We should have an ombudsman for education. We are trying to get an ombudsman for education. But we do have an ombudsman for health and for community service complaints. We have a general ombudsman. There are lots of examples of where we have ombudsmen, and those ombudsmen do a great job and important work—the police ombudsman.

We are not changing the intent and purpose of the Mining Act here: we are simply giving an umpire opportunity through an ombudsman to those people who in one way or another are affected by the actions of minors. There are three basic functions:

1. Complaints handling: receiving and investigating community complaints and making detailed recommendations to the communities, the company and, where needed, to the industry.

2. An advisory role: providing advice to industry and government on developments required in policy and standards.

3. Compliance: ensuring that companies comply with the recommendations from the complaints mechanism and that the industry implements appropriate standards and policies.

I have always said that you should not have regulators sitting underneath and being responsible and answerable to the chief executive officer, who first and foremost has to drive progressive mining opportunity. We have the courts, we have police and we have a parliament; we have separation of powers. This would actually give separation regarding the regulatory, management and mediation to be (1) there, because I argue that it is not always there at the moment, and (2) totally independent of DMITRE. The guiding principles are:

1. Independent from stakeholders, especially the mining industry, industry consultants and associations.

2. Funding that is transparent to ensure independence and impartiality, and to ensure the mechanism is free of charge to complainants, as is the case with other ombudsmen. I will just put on the public record that this can be funded. I would already refute any argument from the government that they cannot afford to fund this, because they can. They can simply do that through some restructuring within the department.

3. Accessibility of information to affected parties, communities, councils and stakeholders, available at all stages of the mine operation.

4. Accountability and transparency that includes public disclosure of investigation results to ensure transparency, trust and accountability.

5. Compliance monitoring, something that we have seen on the Natural Resources Committee, where we have had serious concerns about the lack of compliance monitoring.

Regarding the benefits of this bill, we recognise that the private sector can be a driver of economic growth, which is needed in South Australia. Appropriate legislative and regulatory schemes for mining are required and are arguably already in place; however, an independent body monitoring compliance, grievance and acting in an advisory capacity is required. This would improve:

compliance with mining legislative and regulatory requirements;

compliance with best practice for mining—and I have examples where it has been far from best practice with some mining, not necessarily from junior miners, I might say;

compliance with obligations under their respective mining lease or licence, specifically in relation to degradation of land—and this is where I am talking about examples I have seen with a major minor—degradation of waterways and failure to appropriately rehabilitate land. However, this list is not exhaustive; and

compliance with entry agreements and any other agreements made with farmers or landowners.

It would also:

create an independent body specifically advised on issues relating to mining, because currently no independent body exists within South Australia;

provide timely legal advice to affected parties;

provide dispute resolution, including reducing financial and time burdens placed on the parties, and the stress, I might add, most specifically to farmers;

create a mechanism to address and hopefully limit the power differential between mining companies and farmers; and

improve transparency within the mining industry through regular reporting of issues to the parliament of both the investigations and annual reports.

The powers of the ombudsman include the broad powers to investigate, review, monitor compliance in relation to general mining, fracking, gas and petroleum exploration. Investigation can be commenced on receipt of a complaint or of the ombudsman's own initiative.

The ombudsman will be able to undertake administrative audits; receive complaints and concerns—not abiding by licence agreements and conditions; entry agreements; failure to rehabilitate the land; pollution issues of dust, noise, soil; breaches of relevant acts—make recommendations to the government and industry; provide independent advice as to the rights of each party's processes and procedures, legal obligations under the current legislative system whilst still maintaining impartiality and independence.

It is not intended that the ombudsman advise a party on a matter before the ombudsman but rather be able to give clear, easy to obtain, impartial advice in the first instance about legal rights and obligations of a party. The ombudsman will have alternative dispute resolution powers as to facilitate an agreement between parties; and, as other ombudsmen have, this needs the same powers of a royal commission.

I want to comment briefly in my wrap up of media comments. My interest is about getting a balance between mining and agriculture. As I said earlier, that is not the case at the moment. The mining industry knows that, the government knows that. We want to see a strong and vibrant mining industry, but we have a lull at the moment which is unfortunate for our economy, but where there is a negative there is also a positive. That positive is that this gives us a chance now to put this mechanism in place for when the mining boom returns, not to work against mining exploration and mining extraction, but to give some equity and fairness back to our agricultural community and their families.

I believe that the farmers on Eyre Peninsula have not had a fair go when it comes to the Mining Act. I have been over there many times and met with farmers and these are sustainable farmers—generational farmers, many of them—who will produce food for hundreds of years into the future, increasing production per hectare year in, year out. As tough as it has been this year, so far in a lot of areas there have been pleasant surprises at just how the grain yields have still been there and, if we had more money put into research and development—and we will need to with climate change—that would continue to underpin the sustainability of the farmers.

I beg to differ with the Hon. Tom Koutsantonis, the Treasurer and Minister for Mining, that farmers expect more here than anywhere else in Australia. That is not true. Farmers do not expect more. I remind this chamber of the house where the Treasurer sits. Not only is the carpet green, it has motifs of wine grapes and wheatsheafs, not by accident because some interior designer decided that it would look nice in the House of Assembly, but it is there to make a statement that this state was built and developed and continues to prosper as a result of agriculture. That is a reminder that all members of the House of Assembly especially should take on board every time they go into their chamber.

We need to have a mining act that is more balanced and fair towards farmers. At the moment those people within the department who are charged with being proactive in getting mines up in South Australia also do the regulation. I am arguing there needs to be a review of the act and we need an independent mining ombudsman for the farmers and the community per se. We have seen what happened when a general review of the act came in or significant numbers of amendments. The reality was that push came to shove and the South Australian Chamber of Mines and Energy (SACOME) got their way.

I say to the CEO, who I have had many talks with, and to SACOME as an industry association, to please look at this in a fair and reasonable way. This will not work against what you want to do in developing the mining industry. It simply makes it fairer for our farming community. DMITRE is the agency that is responsible for licensing approvals and regulating mining licensing conditions. Bringing an ombudsman in there would provide an independent umpire, particularly regarding regulation of the licences that have been approved.

I have worked with farmers across the state. They are all subjected to unprecedented exploration and possible mining ventures occurring, and the Mining Act does not produce fair legislation for farmers. Whether it is Eyre Peninsula, the Mid North, Yorke Peninsula, parts of the Mount Lofty Ranges and also the South-East, the reality is that, of the 6 to 7 per cent of prime agricultural food production land that we have, all of those areas are potentially under threat.

Look at the aeromagnetic surveys; look at what is happening. There is a lot of exploration still occurring, and there will be a lot of intellectual property there when the mining recovery occurs. As I said, it is not quite balanced enough for farmers. Farmers have to go through—pardon the pun—a minefield to actually be able to find out what their rights are. If we are going to grow mining and also grow farming, I think it is time that we allow farmers and other people the right to access an independent mining ombudsman. I commend the bill to the house.

Debate adjourned on motion of Hon. J.M. Gazzola.