… The concept of international best practice represents a kind of prevailing global or regional consensus (or compromise) among representatives of government, industry and international development finance institutions as to what constitute appropriate ground rules and protections for the achievement of the private objectives of industry and the public goals of government. This concept rests, of course, upon the optimistic assumption that the primary private goals of industry and the primary public goals of governments are or can be compatible ...
And the Feds are just as bad: the Federal Government won’t put the extra $1.5 million on the table (or the full amount required to conduct the study) unless it is matched by the notoriously broke NSW State Government, yet it shovelled how much into the failed Fuel and Grocery Watch schemes? Is this attitude consistent with the declared aims of a Federal Government that set up the Murray Darling Basin Authority as legally obliged to place the health of the river system ahead of all other considerations?
As for industry funding, it seems that the industry contributors to the proposed Namoi Catchment Study want a cost-benefit analysis done first.
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The end result - zippo.
Even more distasteful is the suggestion made in the NSW Government’s submission to the Senate Committee that the State Government ownership of minerals confers exclusive rights to allocate resources and collect royalties resulting from their exploitation, making the people of NSW direct stakeholders in the continued success of mining in NSW.
Or the NSW Minerals Council statement that:
We [the coal industry] do[es] not own the resources; the people of New South Wales own the coal and other mineral resources. We are merely acting on behalf of them in developing those resources and we return our payments back to the government by way of royalties - that is, over $1.4 billion alone for this year. That is a lot of money that the people of New South Wales get back in consolidated revenue ...
None of this, of course, could have been achieved without water. Could it be that the NSW government doesn’t want to face study findings that might curtail water use by miners, and hence the flow of revenue into its coffers? Perhaps the people of NSW will have to do their own cost-benefit analyses to determine whether or not the “development” of mineral resources at the expense of huge consumption of natural resources like water is ultimately beneficial, and exactly what approach will provide them with the most sustained prosperity.
Thankfully this year and the next are election years, so there has never been a better time for anyone who is concerned about dwindling water resources or their contamination to lobby for government action. Start by getting onto your local member now!
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