The community is supposed to be consulted about the progressive rehabilitation of the Sand Supplies mine on Crown land in the Grantville Nature Conservation Reserve.
By Neil Rankine
VICTORIA’S mining regulations have a lot to say about sustainable development, community consultation and transparency but in practice it’s a sham.
Over the past 12 months I’ve seen how local mining companies in Bass Coast avoid public scrutiny. They do so with the acquiescence of the government agencies tasked with regulating the mining industry.
The Mineral Resources (Sustainable Development) Act, 1990 specifies that mine operators must share information with the community and give them a reasonable opportunity to express their views about the activities authorised by their work plans.
Since the 1990s, work plans have had to be registered on Victoria’s mining register and the Department Head must allow access to the register and provide a copy of a registered work plan and variations to any person who pays the prescribed fee.
Over the past year Save Western Port Woodlands has applied to the Earth Resources Regulator (ERR) for the work plans of 11 sand mines operating in the woodland corridor between Nyora and Grantville.
That’s when we discovered a curious loophole: despite the legislation, registered documents are limited to rehabilitation bonds and work plans approved from 1 January 2010, and grants and work plan variations from 1 November 2014. Only four of our mines were actually on the mining register.
There is another loophole. By law ERR cannot disclose any confidential or commercially sensitive information. Who decides what’s confidential or commercially sensitive? Why, the mining companies!
ERR did supply us with three work plans, one in full and two lightly redacted. They also supplied a work plan variation, with 168 of the 186 pages redacted and no indication of what information was missing.
Under the rules, we were told, we could apply to the Department of Environment, Energy and Climate Action (DEECA). for the other seven pre-2010 work plans under Freedom of Information (FOI) legislation.
Eventually one work plan was supplied in a redacted form with no indication of what had been removed. Six were declined in their entirety under FOI secrecy provisions at the behest of the mining companies.
After obtaining legal advice, we appealed against the FOI refusals and redactions to the Office of the Victorian Information Commissioner (OVIC). Last week OVIC formally rejected three appeals and has indicated that it will reject the other four.
So much for the community consultation and transparency demanded by the act. The process has been time consuming and frustrating.
The three appeals rejected so far by OVIC relate to sand mines operating near the Grantville Nature Conservation Reserve and form part of the Western Port Woodlands corridor. There is legitimate public interest in the mines operating in our midst, some of them on public land.
The sole work plan we did receive under FOI related to the Sand Supplies sand mine within the Grantville reserve. Some of the plan was redacted, but it did a rehabilitation plan that stated the community should be consulted at each stage of development and rehabilitation of the site. Where is the opportunity to do so?
At a 2022 meeting with the Environmental Review Committee (since renamed the Grantville Quarry Operators Group and distanced from the regulator) we asked the operators to discuss their rehabilitation plans with a view to achieving better environmental outcomes.
Every operator at that meeting bar Dandy Premix declined to disclose their plans.
Our community has an important role to play in holding mining companies, including multinationals, to account for their environmental performance. While a rehabilitated mine site can never replicate the biodiversity of woodlands, it can still provide crucial habitat and biolinks if managed properly.
Yet when the Grantville Quarry Operators Group called for nominations for community representatives last year, it stipulated “not special interest groups” and declined an application from a staff member of the Victorian National Parks Association.
The quarry group puts out no agenda or minutes, it has no website or social media presence and its meetings are closed to the public. Few people know who the community representatives are, how to contact the group, make a query or raise an issue of concern.
This is sham community consultation and the system of mining regulation in Victoria is broken.
Neil Rankine is a convenor of Save Western Port Woodlands.
* References
Mineral Resources Sustainable Development Act
Over the past year Save Western Port Woodlands has applied to the Earth Resources Regulator (ERR) for the work plans of 11 sand mines operating in the woodland corridor between Nyora and Grantville.
That’s when we discovered a curious loophole: despite the legislation, registered documents are limited to rehabilitation bonds and work plans approved from 1 January 2010, and grants and work plan variations from 1 November 2014. Only four of our mines were actually on the mining register.
There is another loophole. By law ERR cannot disclose any confidential or commercially sensitive information. Who decides what’s confidential or commercially sensitive? Why, the mining companies!
ERR did supply us with three work plans, one in full and two lightly redacted. They also supplied a work plan variation, with 168 of the 186 pages redacted and no indication of what information was missing.
Under the rules, we were told, we could apply to the Department of Environment, Energy and Climate Action (DEECA). for the other seven pre-2010 work plans under Freedom of Information (FOI) legislation.
Eventually one work plan was supplied in a redacted form with no indication of what had been removed. Six were declined in their entirety under FOI secrecy provisions at the behest of the mining companies.
After obtaining legal advice, we appealed against the FOI refusals and redactions to the Office of the Victorian Information Commissioner (OVIC). Last week OVIC formally rejected three appeals and has indicated that it will reject the other four.
So much for the community consultation and transparency demanded by the act. The process has been time consuming and frustrating.
The three appeals rejected so far by OVIC relate to sand mines operating near the Grantville Nature Conservation Reserve and form part of the Western Port Woodlands corridor. There is legitimate public interest in the mines operating in our midst, some of them on public land.
The sole work plan we did receive under FOI related to the Sand Supplies sand mine within the Grantville reserve. Some of the plan was redacted, but it did a rehabilitation plan that stated the community should be consulted at each stage of development and rehabilitation of the site. Where is the opportunity to do so?
At a 2022 meeting with the Environmental Review Committee (since renamed the Grantville Quarry Operators Group and distanced from the regulator) we asked the operators to discuss their rehabilitation plans with a view to achieving better environmental outcomes.
Every operator at that meeting bar Dandy Premix declined to disclose their plans.
Our community has an important role to play in holding mining companies, including multinationals, to account for their environmental performance. While a rehabilitated mine site can never replicate the biodiversity of woodlands, it can still provide crucial habitat and biolinks if managed properly.
Yet when the Grantville Quarry Operators Group called for nominations for community representatives last year, it stipulated “not special interest groups” and declined an application from a staff member of the Victorian National Parks Association.
The quarry group puts out no agenda or minutes, it has no website or social media presence and its meetings are closed to the public. Few people know who the community representatives are, how to contact the group, make a query or raise an issue of concern.
This is sham community consultation and the system of mining regulation in Victoria is broken.
Neil Rankine is a convenor of Save Western Port Woodlands.
* References
Mineral Resources Sustainable Development Act
- Clause 39A Imposes a duty on licensees to consult with the community.
- Section 74 - The Department Head must allow access at all reasonable times to the mining register and provide a copy of a registered work plan and variations to any person who pays the prescribed fee.
- Section 77K - The holder of a Work Authority has a duty to consult with the community by sharing information with the community and giving members of the community a reasonable opportunity to express their views about the activities authorised by the Authority.
- Section 38 - exempts documents where information in those documents is protected by a secrecy provision.