Thank you.
Just very briefly, good morning from Brisbane and thank you very much for the opportunity to speak to you.
By way of background, my research for the last 25 years has focused on the interrelationship between indigenous people and extractive industries. Over that time I've also worked as a negotiator for aboriginal peoples. I have worked with them to conduct what I refer to as indigenous or aboriginal impact assessments. A number of these have related to large energy projects, particularly to a number of liquefied natural gas projects in the northwest of Western Australia. My experience extends to Canada. I've undertaken fieldwork in Newfoundland and Labrador, in Alberta and in the Northwest Territories.
My comments on international best practice draw on that 25 years of both research and professional engagement.
I want to stress that I am addressing what I consider to be best practice. That, to me, involves two components. It involves the conduct of indigenous or aboriginal impact assessments of major energy projects and, based on those, the negotiation of legally binding agreements between aboriginal peoples, governments and proponents, covering the whole life of energy projects.
The reason for stressing those two points is as follows. Conventional impact assessment has dismally failed indigenous people. That applies in Australia, it applies in Canada, it applies throughout the globe. There are numerous reasons for that. Time means I can't go into them in detail, but I am happy to take follow-up questions.
The major issues are that conventional impact assessment is driven by proponents and the consultants they employ. Their objective is to get approval for projects and, as a result, they tend, for example, to systematically understate problems and issues associated with projects, and to overstate particularly their economic benefits.
Conventional impact assessment tends to deny the validity and knowledge of indigenous knowing, indigenous views of the world. It fails to adopt appropriate methodologies and it tends to be very much project focused. It tends to deal with one project at a time.
The result of that last point is that cumulative impacts tend to be either ignored or very much understated. That, for example, is very evident in the context of oil sands in Alberta.
In response to these fundamental problems, what is happening increasingly is the emergence of indigenous-conducted impact assessment. There are a number of different models that can be applied in developing indigenous-controlled impact assessment. Again, I am happy to elaborate.
Just to mention one, for a proposed liquefied natural gas hub in the northwest of Western Australia, a strategic assessment was conducted by the federal government and the state government in Western Australia. There were a number of terms of reference for the strategic assessment that related to indigenous impacts.
What occurred was that the regional representative aboriginal body, the Kimberley Land Council, and aboriginal traditional owners of the site negotiated with the proponent and the governments that they would simply extract all of the terms of reference that dealt with indigenous issues and would conduct the impact assessment in relation to those terms of reference.
It is extremely instructive to compare the six-volume impact assessment that emerged from that exercise with an impact assessment conducted by the lead proponent, Woodside Energy, in relation to another LNG project in another part of Australia. There is a world of difference. Indigenous impact assessment is much more capable of properly identifying the key issues for indigenous people and, just as importantly, of identifying viable strategies for dealing with those impacts.
The second component of best practice is the negotiation, based on those impact assessments, of legally binding agreements for the whole-of-project life.
One fundamental factor is that the political reality—and this isn't just an issue in relation to indigenous peoples—is that once projects get approval, the attention of government moves elsewhere. Given that many of these projects will last for 20, 30, or 40 years, there is a huge issue of making sure that over time there is a continued focus on dealing with the issues identified in impact assessment and in dealing with changes over time. No project is the same after 10, 20, or 30 years. How do we ensure that there is a continued focus?
One way of doing it is to negotiate agreements that cover the whole of project life and provide the resources to make sure that the focus can be maintained, and to provide management mechanisms and decision-making mechanisms that provide for ongoing input from affected indigenous peoples.
It is essential that those agreements extend through the whole of project life, because as we're becoming increasingly aware, as projects developed in the 1960s and 1970s reach the end of their lives, there are very major issues about closure and rehabilitation of projects and about dealing with project impacts that can in fact extend far beyond the operational life of the mines, the gas fields, and the oil fields concerned.
I would stress that I am talking about international best practice that's emerging, but there are very clear examples of such practice having been realized.
The final point I would stress is that the negotiation of agreements for the life of projects must occur in a context in which indigenous peoples have some real bargaining power. If they lack that bargaining power, then the agreements that result are likely to entrench their disadvantage, their lack of power. It is thus critical to have an appropriate legal framework and international legal instruments such as the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People, with its emphasis on free, prior and informed consent. It's an example of the sort of framework that can provide that real bargaining power.
Thank you.