NOTE:
This online version of the thesis uses different fonts than the printed version held in Griffith University Library, and the pagination is slightly different. The content is otherwise exactly the same. ESSENCE AND DECISION. The Case of Coronation Hill.
Ian Hamilton Holland B.Sc.(Hons) Syd. U., Grad.Dip.Pub.Pol. UNE.
Australian School of Environmental Studies, Faculty of Environmental Sciences, Griffith University.
Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, January 1999. ii Abstract
The rise of environmental issues has presented a challenge to decision-making in the area of natural resources policy. This challenge has met with diverse responses, ranging from neo-liberal attempts to incorporate environmental values into economic calculus, through ‘ecological rationalist’ arguments for the special nature of environmental issues, to radical theories of the state’s role in controlling the impact of environmental concerns on capitalist profitability. From this plethora of ideas about how to address environmental concern should emerge some directions that are more promising than others. But which?
The Coronation Hill mine case, presented in this thesis, exemplified the complexities of natural resources decision-making in an environmental era. By analysis of the Resource Assessment Commission’s Inquiry into the Coronation Hill proposal, this thesis examines the strengths and weaknesses of the claims of different theoretical approaches. Such use of the single case to explore theory is exemplified by Allison’s work Essence of Decision.
The RAC, as a neo-liberal institution, attempted to utilise both Pigouvian and Coasian strategies to address environmental issues. Both types of strategy emerge in the application of contingent valuation to preservation values. Private property rights allocation strategies, derived by public choice theorists from Coase’s work, are also in evidence in debate about Aboriginal rights in the Kakadu Conservation Zone (site of the proposed mine). The problems that beset the RAC both in its use of contingent valuation and its attempts to resolve Aboriginal issues exemplify why neo-liberal approaches are of limited use for dealing with the class of policy problem that Coronation Hill represented.
Dryzek, Walker and others argue that ecological problems have a distinctive nature, which necessitates a distinctive policy response. However the evidence from the Coronation Hill case demonstrates the falsity of this premise. Ecological problems are in general similar to other policy problems.
Radical analysis of environmental issues has treated them as potential sources of disruption to capital accumulation. According to the structural dependence thesis as formulated by Block and Przeworski and Wallerstein, the role of the state is to prevent damage to investor confidence. Data from the Coronation Hill case, however, suggests that the ‘anti-capital’ recommendations of the RAC iii adopted by the government had none of the detrimental effects predicted by radical theories (and by business actors). This is probably because it is not in fact clear that environmental protection is a goal hostile to capitalism.
Environmental issues have also acted as an impetus to institutional innovation: innovation which the Resource Assessment Commission to some extent exemplified. The Commission’s apparent failure (it was shut down two years after the Coronation Hill episode) superficially lends credence to criticism of proposals for institutional reform. Comparative analysis of the Resource Assessment Commission and its established twin the Industry Commission, however, highlights the importance of institutional analysis for revealing that the type of institutional reform must match the type of problem being confronted. The Resource Assessment Commission is shown to be in several ways an inappropriate organisation to deal with issues like Coronation Hill. Thus the fate of the Resource Assessment Commission was largely inevitable, and was determined largely by its nature rather than by political events of the early 1990s.
Theoretically, the Coronation Hill case highlights the limitations of both neo- liberal and ecological approaches to dealing with environmental concerns in the natural resources policy field. It also, however, leads to the conclusion that there is no coherent policy category of ‘environmental policy’. Rather, environmental policy issues are similar to other policy issues, and are themselves divided into other more important categories. These categories are defined by the divisions between first, issues in which conflict originates in distributive issues versus those in which that conflict originates in value clashes; and second, those issues in which interests are divided along capital / labour lines, versus those in which they divide in other ways. iv Contents
Abstract ______ii
Contents ______iv
Lists of Tables and Figures______ix
Acknowledgements ______xi
Abbreviations ______xiii
Statement of Originality ______xv
Chapter 1. Essence and Decision______1
The impact of environmentalism on natural resources policy ______2 What are environmental issues?______3 Four and a half ideas about addressing environmental concerns in the natural resources policy area ______6 Neo-liberal agendas: Pigouvian and Coasian approaches______7 Ecological analysis ______10 Radical analysis ______13 Institutional analysis ______14 The RAC as manifestation of, and battleground between, ideas ______15
Chapter 2. Mine, Yours or Ours?______19
The Coronation Hill issue up to the establishment of the RAC______20 Aboriginal People and the Conservation Zone ______29 From exploration to mining: the Environmental Impact Statement ______36 The Environmental Impact Statement and Cabinet ______41 The RAC is established ______42 The Conservation Zone Inquiry ______51 Issues discussed in the Inquiries ______60 Aboriginal interests ______60 Environmental protection______65 v Development of the mining industry ______68 Conclusion ______71
Chapter 3. Methods ______72
Analytic induction ______73 Cases ______75 The use of cases ______75 Choice of case ______78 Beyond the case ______82 Choice of theories______83 Limitations of the case-based approach ______85 Research methods ______86 Documentary sources ______86 Interviews ______89 The content analysis of Inquiry hearings ______91 Conclusion______94
Chapter 4. Neo-liberalism and Environmental Policy Issues ____95
Testing the application of neo-liberal instruments______97 Analytic criteria ______97 Analysing Pigouvian policy instruments ______99 Analysing private property rights approaches ______100 A neo-liberal environment: the RAC in context ______103 A neo-liberal environment: the work of the RAC ______107 Contingent valuation______110 Conclusion ______118
Chapter 5. Pigouvian Techniques ______120
The problems of externalities______120 The ‘moral free lunch’ and the voters ______121 Bimodality and non-use benefits ______128 Devising the benefit cost analysis ______130 Paying for goods: willing or able? ______137 When does contingent valuation work? ______140 vi Why are Pigouvian techniques of limited utility?______142 Conclusion ______144
Chapter 6. Property Rights ______147
Property rights and the RAC ______148 Contingent valuation: willingness-to-pay and willingness-to-accept compensation ______149 Sacred site, Aboriginal land ______154 Definition and redefinition ______158 Discussion ______162 Is it worth defining environmental private property rights? ______162 Individuals: aggregated preference curves? ______165 Politics: truth judgement or preference satisfaction? ______167 Conclusion ______170
Chapter 7. Ecological Analysis ______172
Testing the special nature of ecological problems ______178 Complexity ______178 Non-reducibility ______183 Variability ______190 Uncertainty ______196 Collectiveness ______200 Spontaneity ______203 Conclusion ______206
Chapter 8. The RAC and Radical Analysis ______209
A radical reading of Coronation Hill and the RAC ______210 The radical argument in general ______212 Limitations of the radical argument ______215 The structural dependence thesis and the Coronation Hill case ______216 Share market analyses: methods ______218 Short-term and long-term reactions ______220 Results: 1: share market data ______225 Short term (daily share indices) ______225 Long term (monthly share indices) ______228 vii Results: 2: analysis of market analysis______230 Results: 3: industry analysis ______232 Discussion ______240
Chapter 9. Institutional Analysis______244
The failure of the RAC ______245 The RAC and the Industry Commission: same design, different results? ___ 247 The RAC and the IC: the similarities ______249 The RAC and the IC: the differences ______251 Size ______252 Independence ______255 Expertise ______260 Leadership & networks ______263 The appropriateness of the institutions as Commonwealth bodies ______269 Nature of force driving change ______271 Explaining the difference between the IC and RAC ______283
Chapter 10. Conclusion ______287
The abolition of the RAC: a predictable policy outcome ______287 Environmental issues and policy responses ______288 Environmental issues and a typology of policy ______290 The origins of conflict: means and ends ______290 The cleavage of interests: capital versus labour? ______293 A typology of policy problems ______294 Is there such a thing as ‘environmental policy’? ______297 Where to from here? ______299
Appendix A. Summaries of Transcripts of RAC Conservation Zone & IC Mining and Minerals Processing Inquiry hearings _ 300
RAC Conservation Zone Inquiry______300 IC Mining and Minerals Processing Inquiry ______303
Appendix B. RAC Publications ______312 viii Appendix C. Print media stories relevant to Coronation Hill ___ 317
Appendix D. General format of interviews, including confidentiality protocol ______323
Appendix E. Raw results of the content analysis of transcripts ______325
1. RAC hearings ______325 2. IC hearings ______326
Bibliography ______329 ix List of Tables
Table 2.1 Distribution of staff between branches of RAC ______49 Table 2.2 The budget of the RAC ______49 Table 2.3 The role of consultants to the RAC ______50 Table 2.4 Reports and submissions to the RAC ______51 Table 3.1 Witnesses to both IC and RAC Inquiries ______93 Table 4.1 RAC Consultants working on Kakadu Contingent Valuation study112 Table 8.1 Medium-term share market index tests ______228 Table 9.1 Overlap of RAC and IC operations______251 Table 9.2 The cost of Industry Commission Inquiries ______252 Table 9.3 Transcript material used for the comparative analysis of the two Inquiries______256 Table 9.4 Grouping of witnesses for testing content analysis data______259 Table 9.5 Frequency of conflict in inquiry hearings: analysis ______260 Table 9.6 The role of consultants ______262 Table 9.7 The leadership of the IAC and IC, 1989 to 1993 ______264 Table 9.8 The differences between the Resource Assessment Commission and the Industry Commission ______284 Table 10.1 A typology of policy issues, and the Coronation Hill case ______294 Table 10.2 Classifying ‘environmental policy’ issues ______296 x List of Figures
Figure 2.1 Map of the Northern Territory showing the location of Kakadu National Park and Coronation Hill ______21 Figure 2.2 Kakadu National Park, showing the stages of the Park, and the location of Coronation Hill ______22 Figure 2.3 A Chronology of events leading up to referral of the Coronation Hill issue to the Resource Assessment Commission______24 Figure 2.4 The reduced Conservation Zone, as declared in 1989 ______26 Figure 2.5 The structure and ownership of the Coronation Hill Joint Venture, 1988______27 Figure 2.6 The structure and ownership of the Coronation Hill Joint Venture, 1991______28 Figure 2.7 Artist’s impression of the mining operation at Coronation Hill ___ 38 Figure 2.8 A chronology of events following the referral of the Coronation Hill issue to the Resource Assessment Commission______43 Figure 2.9 The organisational structure of the RAC ______48 Figure 4.1 The Conservation Zone CV study results: low impact scenario __ 115 Figure 5.1 Taking a moral free lunch: the RAC’s model ______123 Figure 5.2 Taking a moral free lunch: an alternative hypothesis ______125 Figure 5.3 Coronation Hill gold production and all Australian gold production estimates ______135 Figure 8.1 The close relationship between movements in monthly share price and accumulation indices: industrial shares ______223 Figure 8.2 The close relationship between movements in monthly share price and accumulation indices: resources shares______224 Figure 8.3 Daily share market behaviour and the Coronation Hill issue (release of the Conservation Zone Draft Report)______226 Figure 8.4 Daily share market behaviour and the Coronation Hill issue (final Cabinet decision) ______227 Figure 8.5 The relationship between monthly industrial and resource share indices ______229 Figure 8.6 Expected and actual mineral exploration, 1979 to 1997______234 Figure 8.7 Gold exploration and the gold price______235 Figure 8.8 Australian gold production and the gold price ______237 Figure 8.9 ABARE gold production forecasts, 1989-1993______239 Figure 9.1 The budgets of the RAC and the IC compared ______253 Figure 9.2 The staffing of the RAC and the IC compared ______254 xi Acknowledgements
This thesis got finished, and that was thanks to:
• My supervisors Professors Aynsley Kellow and Roger Kitching, who read drafts, and provided ideas, opportunities and advice;
• Dr Linda Hort, colleague and friend, whose reading was tireless, no matter how inconvenient my requests for an opinion, and whose advice on all of the thesis was indispensible;
• My parents, for encouraging me throughout this endeavour, and periodically instilling that particular fear that can only be caused by the question “so... how is it progressing?”;
• Ms Leah Burns and Dr John Tisdell, colleagues who commented insightfully on aspects of chapters that touched on their fields of expertise;
• Dr Barbara Vernon (née Jolly) for early discussions about each others’ work, and for fruitful collaborations on Ecopolitics and conference papers;
• Dr Abigail Makim for conversations about our PhDs in 1994-5, and for setting the standard;
• the ANU Research School of Social Sciences for accommodating me over the summer of 1996-7;
• all my students at Griffith University whose questions make this kind of work so interesting;
• several Australian Public Service staff who gave of their time to be interviewed for this thesis; and
• Athol Chase and everyone else who buttonholed me in the tea-room and said “don’t get it right get it finished.” The usual disclaimer applies.
Fragments of my early ideas about the rise of environmentalism were expressed in Holland, I., 1992. The New Ethic. In Smith, J. (ed.), The Unique Continent. Uni of Queensland Press, St Lucia, pp.197-205. An early version of my analysis of the demise of the Resource Assessment Commission was published as Holland, I., 1995. New Institutions for Evaluating Resource xii Development: The Resource Assessment Commission. People and Physical Environment Research 47, pp.7-19. xiii Abbreviations
AAPA Aboriginal Areas Protection Authority (see also ASSPA, NTASSA) ABARE Australian Bureau of Agricultural & Resource Economics ACC Australian Chamber of Commerce ACF Australian Conservation Foundation ACM Australian Chamber of Manufactures AFC Australian Forestry Council AFR Australian Financial Review AGPS Australian Government Publishing Service AHC Australian Heritage Commission ALJR Australian Law Journal Reports ALR Australian Law Reports AMEC Association of Mining & Exploration Companies AMIC Australian Mining Industry Council (later Minerals Council of Australia) ANZECC Australian & New Zealand Environment & Conservation Council APEA Australian Petroleum Exploration Association ASSPA Aboriginal Sacred Sites Protection Authority (also known as AAPA) BCA Business Council of Australia BHP Broken Hill Proprietary Limited (corporation) BIE Bureau of Industry Economics BMR Bureau of Mineral Resources CAI Confederation of Australian Industry CCNT Conservation Commission of the Northern Territory CEDA Committee for Economic Development of Australia CHJV Coronation Hill Joint Venture CHDEIS Coronation Hill Draft Environmental Impact Statement CLC Central Land Council CPD Commonwealth Parliamentary Debates (‘Hansard’) CRA (corporation name) CRES Centre for Resource & Environmental Studies (Australian National Unversity) CSIRO Commonwealth Scientific & Industrial Research Organisation CV contingent valuation CZDR Kakadu Conservation Zone Inquiry Draft Report CZFR Kakadu Conservation Zone Inquiry Final Report Volume 1 CZFR2 Kakadu Conservation Zone Inquiry Final Report Volume 2 DASETT Commonwealth Department of Arts Sport Environment Tourism & Territories DFAT Commonwealth Department of Foreign Affairs & Trade DPIE Commonwealth Department of Primary Industries & Energy xiv ECNT Environment Centre of the Northern Territory ERA Energy Resources of Australia (corporation) FEIS Coronation Hill Final Environmental Impact Statement FCR Federal Court Reports FLR Federal Law Reports IAC Industries Assistance Commission (later the IC) IC Industry Commission (formerly the IAC) LCC Land Conservation Council (Victoria) NAFI National Association of Forest Industries NCC Nature Conservation Council (NSW) NIEIR National Institute of Economic & Industry Research NFF National Farmers Federation NLC Northern Lands Council NSW New South Wales NT Northern Territory NTASSA Northern Territory Aboriginal Sacred Sites Authority (also known as AAPA) OECD Organisation for Economic Co-operation & Development OSS Office of the Supervising Scientist PM&C Commonwealth Department of Prime Minister & Cabinet RAC Resource Assessment Commission SMH Sydney Morning Herald TEC Total Environment Centre (NSW) WA Western Australia WMC Western Mining Corporation xv Statement of Originality
This work has not previously been submitted for a degree or diploma in any university. To the best of my knowledge and belief, the thesis contains no material previously published or written by another person except where due reference is made in the thesis itself.
(Ian Holland) Chapter 1 Essence and Decision
What happens when a perfectly normal, average-sized gold mine, is proposed for a site of World Heritage value? In Essence of Decision, Allison, discussing the placement of offensive missiles ninety miles off the coast of the United States, pointed out that what makes such a proposal an issue is not the hardware, but its location.1 Similarly, the location of mining, forestry and other resource- intensive industries has become increasingly controversial in Australia over the last twenty years. Much of this controversy has been a product of the rise of environmentalism.
This thesis critiques proposals to reform policy governing the allocation of natural resources in response to the rise of environmental issues. It looks at this issue through a case study of the Resource Assessment Commission (RAC), particularly with respect to its Inquiry into the proposed Coronation Hill mine, in Australia’s Northern Territory (NT).
This thesis is about essence. Much of the debate about Coronation Hill concerned the presence there of Bula, the essence of an ancestral being, and on what would be the consequences of disturbing the place. For environmentalists, it was a fight over the essence of national development priorities. This thesis is also about essence of a different sort: about what is essential for coping with the rise of environmentalism when it comes to maintaining a policy framework for the utilisation of natural resources.
This thesis is about decision. Specifically it concerns the Australian Government’s decision about the use (or non-use) of minerals at Coronation Hill. More broadly, it is about the problem of allocating natural resources between competing uses: of making this class of decision. It does this by looking at the contributions a range of theories can make to understanding these decision processes.
This thesis is about essence and decision. This conjunction is evident in the choice of case: a case that encompassed issues essential to stakeholders and decisions critical for governments. The thesis also demonstrates that the particular basis
1 Allison, 1971. Essence of Decision. 2 of conflict - conflict’s essence - affects the appropriateness of policy theories to explain or improve policy processes. The reasons for this are discussed in the context of this particular instance of natural resources policy-making. The impact of environmentalism on natural resources policy
Most societies have systems (though not necessarily state institutions) that organise their relationship with their physical environment. One aspect of these relations is the governance of the use of natural resources. In relatively resource-dependent economies such as Australia’s, these institutions (and decisions they take) are of particular importance. While the state often does not function as either owner, manager or user of those natural resources, in modern industrial states, a significant proportion of this decision-making about allocation and management of natural resources nevertheless involves the government. Questions about natural resources issues are thus public policy questions.
This public policy dimension has been increasingly evident as the rise of environmentalism has challenged the way our natural resources are used. Many environmental arguments have been appeals to the state to alter policy and institutions to better solve this new set of problems. These arguments are exemplified by the World Commission on Environment and Development’s approach to sustainable development, which was described as
a new era of economic growth, one that must be based on policies that sustain and expand the environmental resource base...
...the Commission’s hope for the future is conditional on decisive political action now...2
Attempts to pursue this new model of development has meant, in Australia as in similar countries around the world, governments hitherto mostly responsible for the distribution or regulation of natural resources for consumptive uses, have had to confront a whole new set of questions about, and pressures upon, natural resources.
2 World Commission on Environment and Development, 1990. Our Common Future, p.1, emphases added. 3 What are environmental issues?
Before setting out the ways in which the reform of natural resources policy- making has been approached, in this section I briefly sketch what this new set of questions actually is: what I mean when I speak of the effect of the rise of environmentalism. I also want to immediately foreshadow a speculation in the conclusion: that it is not clear that there is such a thing as ‘environmental policy’, any more than there is a coherent thing to be termed ‘environmentalism’.
Interwoven in the discourse on ‘environmental issues’ are four concepts: environmental problem, environmental crisis, environmentalism, and environmental policy. There is in addition, little distinction between the use of ‘ecological’ and ‘environmental’ in describing theories, policies, crises and movements. Thus Ehrlich and others refer to “environmental crisis”,3 while Lynn White wrote of an “ecologic crisis”,4 and Leeson and others “ecological crisis”.5 In addition to being used interchangeably, these terms are often prefixed with the definite article, implying there is some clearly defined phenomenon that is the environmental crisis. This reflects the idea that environmental problems are objective facts.
There is a tendency to think of environmental problems as scientific phenomena: a hole in the ozone layer is a problem; pesticide residues in foodstuffs are a problem. These are chemical phenomena which scientists can identify and explain in terms of human actions modifying the biosphere. Yet many actions that modify the biosphere are not perceived to be problems, while other actions start out as being solutions to one problem, and finish up as being perceived as a different problem requiring a solution of its own. Environmental problems are culturally, not scientifically, defined:
3 Ehrlich and Ehrlich, 1991. Healing the Planet. Strategies for Resolving the Environmental Crisis; Faber and O'Connor, 1989. The Struggle For Nature: Environmental Crisis and the Crisis of Environmentalism in the United States; Lewis, 1992. Green Delusions. An Environmentalist Critique of Radical Environmentalism; Redclift, 1984. Development and the Environmental Crisis: Red or Green Alternatives?; Walker, 1988. The Environmental Crisis: A Critique of Neo- Hobbesian Responses. 4 Lynn White Jr, 1967. The Historical Roots of Our Ecologic Crisis. 5 Leeson, 1979. Philosophical Implications of the Ecological Crisis: The Authoritarian Challenge to Liberalism; Ryle, 1988. Ecology and Socialism. 4 Environmental problems occur when some people are unhappy with other people’s use of the natural environment, because it imposes harms on them to which they have not consented.6
Environmental problems are therefore not matters of scientific fact, but result from perceptions about the outcomes of use of the environment.7 Furthermore the causes of such problems are not agreed. In fact, one of the differences between the analyses reviewed in this thesis (in Chapters 4 to 9) is that they tend to rely on different interpretations of environmental problems. The nature of these analyses are mentioned briefly later in this Chapter, and are revisited during the analytic Chapters.
‘Environmental crisis’ as a concept is important to this thesis because the putative existence of such a crisis underpins the ecological analysis of policy problems that is critiqued in Chapter 7, and because it also occurs as a theme in radical analysis (Chapter 8). An environmental ‘crisis’ is more than the accumulation of a number of problems, or of big enough problems. Perception of an environmental ‘crisis’ has been one of the founding ideas propelling the rise of environmentalism and the mass movement that has gone with it. Environmental alarmism has a noble heritage, traceable back much further than Malthus, to the times of the Greeks, whose historians documented the relationship between environmental degradation (particularly land clearing) and economic decline.8 The contemporary manifestations have been the systems analysis of population and resource consumption of the 70s, and similar concerns with sustainability in the 90s.9 These issues have periodically been referred to as constituting ‘crises’ because they are perceived as “crises of survival” at a global scale.10
Just as in the case of ‘environmental problems’, the existence and nature of an ‘environmental crisis’ is debated, along similar lines as is the nature of environmental problems discussed. This point is developed further in Chapter 7, but a number of aspects can be noted here. There are a number of writers who see modern society as entering an environmental crisis phase. Some see
6 Wills, 1997. Economics and the Environment, p.5. 7 I would argue that Wills’ definition is too narrow in its reference to the natural environment: uses of the urban environment, for example, also lead to perceived environmental problems. 8 Glacken, 1967. Traces on the Rhodian shore; Perlin, 1989. A Forest Journey. The Role of Wood in the Development of Civilization. 9 Carson, 1962. Silent Spring; Meadows et al., 1972. The Limits to Growth; Ward and Dubos, 1972. Only One Earth. The Care and Maintenance of a Small Planet. 10 Eckersley, 1992. Environmentalism and Political Theory: Toward an Ecocentric Approach, p.179. 5 this as a result of overpopulation and resource exhaustion;11 some see it emerging through pollution and mismanagement of the biosphere;12 others as related more to institutional or even cultural failures.13 Against these ideas can be set those who consider such views unscientific and at best premature,14 ideologically biased as well,15 or as recognition of a phenomenon seen but misunderstood.16
While the ‘environmental crisis’ is certainly contested, popular alarm about such a phenomenon has fueled the rise of ‘environmentalism’. Environmentalism is a term with a great many meanings, because there are so many different ways of perceiving environmental problems, and therefore equally many ways of ‘being an environmentalist’: of wanting to respond to those problems. Broadly, then, it is possible to construe the term as referring to attitudes that register ‘environment’ as a category, and which lead people to argue that environmental problems warrant a response.
In saying this, I am drawing attention first to the idea of the environment as a category for policy. This is relatively new: “environment” departments were non-existent (in Australia and New Zealand at least) prior to the 1960s, and what are now known as environment groups were once called by quite different names, such as conservation societies or wildlife preservation societies.17 Second, having recognised the environment as a category, environmentalism fragments into a vast array of discourses, ranging from the conservative ‘wise use’ ideas of Pinchot,18 to the radical social ecology of Bookchin,19 and further, to the radical direct action or spiritualism of ‘deep ecology’.20
11 Ehrlich and Ehrlich, 1990. The Population Explosion; Meadows et al., 1972. The Limits to Growth. 12 Lovelock, 1979. Gaia. A New Look at Life on Earth. 13 Tainter, 1988. The Collapse of Complex Societies; Tobias, 1985. After Eden. History, Ecology and Conscience. 14 Beckerman, 1991. Global Warming: A Skeptical Economic Assessment; Maddox, 1972. The Doomsday Syndrome. 15 Simon and Kahn, 1984. The Resourceful Earth. A Response to Global 2000. 16 Lewis, 1992. Green Delusions. An Environmentalist Critique of Radical Environmentalism. 17 McConnell, 1965. The Conservation Movement: Past and Present. 18 Proctor, 1996. Whose Nature? The Contested Moral Terrain of Ancient Forests; Spirn, 1996. Constructing Nature: The Legacy of Frederick Law Olmsted; Wall, 1994. Green History. A Reader in Environmental Literature, Philosophy and Politics. 19 Bookchin, 1990. The Philosophy of Social Ecology: Essays on Dialectical Naturalism. 20 Foreman and Haywood, 1987. Ecodefense: A Field Guide to Monkeywrenching; Naess, 1984. Identification as a Source of Deep Ecological Attitudes; Tobias, 1985. After Eden. History, Ecology and Conscience. 6 This (bio)diversity of environmentalisms is a reflection of the range of opinions about the causes of environmental problems, mentioned previously. It also however results from viewing environmental issues from very different political vantage points. The many forms of environmentalism and their relationship to different ideologies has been extensively discussed elsewhere, both in general and in the context of natural resource conflict such as is the subject of this thesis.21 What it confirms is that to say one is ‘environmentalist’ is to say relatively little. To be part of an ‘environmental movement’ can mean engaging in left-wing radicalism or in right-wing radicalism; to be moderate, or to be part of something that refuses to be characterised in any such terms. This in turn also means that the pressures of environmentalism spawn diverse policy proposals. This diversity, the product of the heterogeneity of environmentalism, is one of the main subjects of this thesis.
There are therefore several concepts in the ‘environmental’ nomenclature ecosystem, every one of them contested and heterogenous. Having outlined aspects of each of these terms, this thesis is pragmatic in its use of the words. Against what would be clear disapproval from some quarters I have used the terms ‘ecological’ and ‘environmental’ interchangeably. There are situations where such linguistic promiscuity would be untenable: I am not convinced this is one of them. Four and a half ideas about addressing environmental concerns in the natural resources policy area
The process of adapting to the pressures of environmentalism has been difficult and controversial. It has been difficult because it has involved changing institutions and changing rules. These are seldom easy things to do, particularly when the changes have often necessitated changes disadvantaging long-established interests. However, there is more to the difficulty than this. The reason the process has been controversial (and not just difficult) is that it has not been clear just what the necessary or desirable changes have been. It is one thing to decide past forestry practices have been environmentally harmful, for example, but quite another to work out a solution.
21 Dryzek and Lester, 1995. Alternative Views of the Environmental Problematic; Eckersley, 1992. Environmentalism and Political Theory: Toward an Ecocentric Approach; Hay, 1988. Ecological Values and Western Political Traditions: from Anarchism to Fascism; McEachern, 1991. Business Mates: The Power and Politics of the Hawke Era; Young, 1990. Post Environmentalism; Young, 1995. Rhetoric and Strategy: Australian Mining and the Conflict Over Coronation Hill. 7 A survey of writings in the field of natural resources policy shows an extraordinary diversity of policy prescriptions. They range from wholesale reform of the democratic polity to the complete restructuring of the economy. Even within the economic policy arena, the prescriptions range from the privatization of property rights,22 through incentive-based regulatory innovation,23 to community-based planning of policy settings.24 To say the least, a concern with ‘ecology’ is not sufficient a program to define a politics.25 This thesis therefore uses the case of the RAC and Coronation Hill to discuss a range of theories that have been used to formulate ‘solutions’ to the question of how best to address environmental problems as they impact upon natural resource allocation decisions.
A review of the literature on natural resource allocation - particularly the environmental aspects - shows the diverse range of suggestions about how environmental problems might need to be dealt with. A number of these are examined in this thesis, and are now briefly described. Neo-liberal agendas: Pigouvian and Coasian approaches
Some (such as Pigou or Pearce) say the way to deal with environmental concerns is to correct pricing failures for environmental goods.26 Others say it is not the prices so much as the absence of private property rights leading to the absence of a market, and thus the absence of any prices at all, that is the issue (such as Coase, Buchanan, or Anderson & Leal).27 These two approaches to environmental issues are frequently advocated together as part of the neo- liberal policy trend of the 1980s and 1990s, which “seeks not to criticise markets but to restore and uphold them”.28 They are thus as much two parts of one approach as they are distinct theories. They constitute one-and-a-half theories rather than two genuinely independent ideas, and are therefore discussed
22 eg. Brubaker, 1995. Property Rights in the Defence of Nature; Moran, 1991. Property Rights and Efficiency - Ownership of Innovations and Mineral Prospects. 23 Grabosky, 1995. Governing at a Distance: Self-Regulating Green Markets. 24 Kinrade, 1995. Towards Ecologically Sustainable Development: the Role and Shortcomings of Markets. 25 Ryle, 1988. Ecology and Socialism. 26 Pearce et al., 1990. Sustainable Development: Economy and Environment in the Third World; Pearce et al., 1989. Blueprint for a Green Economy; Pigou, 1920. The Economics of Welfare. 27 Anderson, 1991. The Market Process and Environmental Amenities; Anderson and Leal, 1991. Free Market Environmentalism; Buchanan, 1969. External Diseconomies, Corrective Taxes, and Market Structure; Buchanan, 1978. From Private Preferences to Public Philosophy: The Development of Public Choice; Coase, 1960. The Problem of Social Cost. 28 Bell, 1997. Ungoverning the Economy. The Political Economy of Australian Economic Policy, p.11. 8 together in the context of the RAC (Chapter 4) before being critiqued separately (Chapters 5 & 6).
The first element of neo-liberal environmental policy is Pigouvian, and is exemplified by environmental economics as a discipline. I refer to this approach as Pigouvian because of its origins in the work of Pigou in the 1920s on the economics of air pollution.29 When Pigou considered the case of pollution produced by factory production, he made two observations. First, the factory did not properly consider the troublesome problem of its dirty linen: social costs were greater than private costs. Second, the state could intervene in order to make private costs approximate social costs. This simple argument underpins a great many market-based policy instruments: those in which government action corrects market failures, with the aim of simulating the operation of a ‘free’ market.
The Pigouvian approach takes as its starting point the observation that environmental damage and resource misallocations alike are generally the result of some market inefficiency. If environmental damage is a product of inefficient economic arrangements, then the problem is one of achieving economic efficiency. The question then is: what causes the inefficiencies? Most environmental problems can be classed as externalities of some sort. That is, they are the result of a divergence between private costs and benefits on the one hand, and net social costs and benefits on the other. The symptoms of such market failure include: rents or excess profits (produced by imperfect competition), transaction costs (produced by imperfect information and the burden of negotiation), barriers to exchange (produced by imperfect institutional arrangements and lack of property rights), and spillovers (sometimes themselves defined as externalities).30
Successful management of environmental problems then becomes a matter of internalizing externalities; the removal of any discrepancy between private and social marginal cost. Once this is achieved, efficient outcomes will result. In this case, “efficient” describes not merely a profitable operation, but one where social and private valuations are consistent. “Transactions and resource allocations which do not take environmental concerns into account are unlikely to be efficient.”31
29 Pigou, 1920. The Economics of Welfare. 30 For a discussion of the different definitions of externality, see Sagoff, 1988. The Economy of the Earth. 31 Moran et al., 1991. Markets, Resources and the Environment, p.20. 9 The second approach - that the problem lies in the absence of private property rights - can be traced back to Locke. It is most closely associated with what is called free market environmentalism.
At the heart of free market environmentalism is a system of well- specified property rights to natural resources. Whether these rights are held by individuals, corporations, non-profit environmental groups, or communal groups, a discipline is imposed on resource users because the wealth of the owner of the property right is at stake if bad decisions are made. Of course, the further a decision maker is removed from this discipline - as he is when there is political control - the less likely it is that good stewardship will result. Moreover, if well-specified property rights are transferable, owners must not only consider their own values, they must also consider what others are willing to pay...32
Such a theory sees far less role for government than other approaches to environmental problems. This is because “political control” is understood to be a source of the problem, rather that the solution, to poor management. Government’s main role is in presiding over the property rights system:
Free market environmentalism emphasizes an important role for government in the enforcement of property rights. With clearly specified titles - obtained from land recording systems, strict liability rules, and adjudication of disputed property rights in courts - market processes can encourage good resource stewardship. It is when rights are unclear and not well enforced that over-exploitation occurs.33
But while this role for government exists, other roles are open to sustained criticism:
When [most economists] are prevented from sleeping at night by the roar of jet planes overhead (publicly authorised and perhaps publicly operated), are unable to think (or rest) in the day because of the noise and vibration from passing trains (publicly authorised and perhaps
32 Anderson and Leal, 1991. Free Market Environmentalism, p.3. 33 Anderson and Leal, 1991. Free Market Environmentalism, p.3. It should be emphasised that free market environmentalism is not merely about having well defined property rights, but well defined private property rights. This is sometimes not clear in the language used in the literature. For example Moran describes how “property which is unowned will lead to each individual to maximise its value to himself [sic] with little regard to the ongoing value of the resource” Moran, 1991. Property Rights and Efficiency - Ownership of Innovations and Mineral Prospects. Very few resources in fact are “unowned”: Moran merely refers to jointly owned property for which management strategies either have not been devised or are not being enforced. Free market environmentalists tend in this way to equate joint ownership (by for example the Crown) with lack of ownership - in rather the way colonists chose to regard native territories as terra nullius. 10 publicly operated), find it difficult to breathe because of the odour from a local sewerage farm (publicly authorised and perhaps publicly operated), and are unable to escape because their driveways are blocked by a road obstruction (without any doubt, publicly devised), their nerves frayed and their mental balance disturbed, they proceed to declaim about the disadvantages of private enterprise and the need for Government regulation.34
Together, these two approaches - Coasian and Pigouvian - create an approach to environmental questions that seeks the promotion of full private property rights where possible, publicly ‘grandfathered’ tradeable rights where not, financial and tax incentives in some situations, privatization in others, and regulation of any sort as a last resort.35 Ecological analysis
There are, however, others who say that environmental problems have nothing to do with types of property or pricing failure. They argue instead that what must be understood and responded to is the nature of natural resources and the ecological systems within which they are located.36
The basic principle behind ecologically-centred analysis is “that the slowly building environmental crisis should be a unitary and overriding concern for all human beings.”37 Beyond such broad concerns, ecological analyses are by no means homogeneous. I am particularly concerned with the argument that environmental problems are different (and prior) to other problems in nature and importance, and as such cannot adequately be treated by existing policy institutions.
Ecological approaches to environmental policy problems begin from an analysis of the nature of ecological systems, and of the problems humans experience in living within those systems.38 It is claimed that these problems need to be approached differently to others:
34 Coase, 1960. The Problem of Social Cost, p.26. 35 Pearce et al., 1989. Blueprint for a Green Economy, p.155. 36 Dryzek, 1987. Rational Ecology: Environment and Political Economy; Paehlke, 1989. Environmentalism and the Future of Progressive Politics; Walker, 1991. The Political Ecology of Environmental Destruction; Walker, 1992. Conclusion: The Politics of Environmental Policy; Walker, 1992. The Neglect of Ecology: The Case of the Ord River Scheme. 37 Ehrlich and Ehrlich, 1991. Healing the Planet. Strategies for Resolving the Environmental Crisis. 38 For a summary and contrast of ecological and neo-classical microeconomic approaches to resource allocation problems, see Young, 1982. Resource Regimes. Natural Resources and Social Institutions. 11 A central puzzle is to determine whether (and how) [links from the environmental to the social system] have been taken into account in the policy-making process; for this, the daily tools of policy analysis are frequently inadequate. Furthermore, environmental policy has a number of features which set it apart from other political issues. Many of its problems arise from the attempt to treat it in the same way as, say, industrial relations, and a failure to appreciate how and why it differs.39
What are the attributes of ecological phenomena that make them so different to other policy matters? Dryzek considers that ecological problems share a number of traits: “complexity, non-reducibility, variability, uncertainty, collectiveness and spontaneity.”40 Together these features may be utilised as criteria against which may be placed the various decision-making mechanisms used by societies, in order to judge their level of ‘ecological rationality’. Dryzek then argues for the priority of ecological rationality thus:
The preservation and enhancement of the material and ecological basis of society is necessary not only for the functioning of societal forms such as economically, socially, legally, and politically rational structures, but also for action in pursuit of any value in the long term. The pursuit of all such values is predicated upon the avoidance of ecological catastrophe.41
Unlike some ecocentric or ‘deep green’ analyses, then, concern for human civilization informs the analyses, as it does Lovelock’s Gaia hypothesis.42 The ultimate hazard posed by environmental ignorance is not the destruction of other species that might have moral standing, but the destruction of human civilizations on a planet that will continue existing nonetheless.43 Dryzek and Commoner both use criteria of ecological rationality to evaluate decision-
39 Walker, 1992. Introduction, pp.5-6. 40 Dryzek, 1987. Rational Ecology: Environment and Political Economy, p.33. Walker has a similar list of distinctive features: interconnectedness, synergism, threshold effects, ignorance, irreversibility, interpenetration, invisibility, and exponential population growth. Walker, 1992. Introduction, pp.7-9. Commoner likewise considers that the biophysical world is governmed by four laws central to effective resource management: “everything is connected to everything else”, “everything must go somewhere”, “nature knows best” and “there is no such thing a a free lunch”. Commoner, 1971. The Closing Circle. 41 Dryzek, 1987. Rational Ecology: Environment and Political Economy, p.58. 42 Lovelock, 1979. Gaia. A New Look at Life on Earth. Deep ecological theory is not considered directly here. For discussion of deep green theories of values and their consequences see Naess, 1984. Identification as a Source of Deep Ecological Attitudes; Nash, 1984. Rounding Out the American Revolution: Ethical Extension and the New Environmentalism; Nash, 1989. The Rights of Nature. A History of Environmental Ethics. 43 Dryzek, 1987. Rational Ecology: Environment and Political Economy; Lovelock, 1979. Gaia. A New Look at Life on Earth. 12 making mechanisms, the argument being that successful solutions to environmental problems will be those that measure up to the criteria of ecological rationality. Similarly, Carden argues
Ecological rationality, defined as ‘instrumental to the pursuit of [the] long-term goal’ of ecological stability in the human-nature system, must take precedence over all other forms of rationality in collective choice mechanisms.
Instead, it is economic and political rationality which are invoked most often in policy formulation...
Incorporating ecological rationality into the policy process is essential for the successful resolution of land degradation problems.44
Looked at in this way, environmental problems can be defined as ways in which the policy systems of contemporary polities (including our democratic capitalism) depart from ecological principles. Boyden’s sweeping categorisation, for example, thus contrasts the “growth gospel” which “is probably shared now by all national governments in existence” with the “ecological viewpoint”, which (apparently unlike its opposite) is based on the appreciation of “facts”; namely:
that the earth’s resources are finite and that there are limits to the extent to which the biosphere, on which all life and civilization depend, can be battered and polluted before it is damaged beyond recovery.45
It is true that environmental problems are hard to solve, and society seems more aware than before of the problems of significant resource scarcities, but does this mean these problems are any different to other policy problems? Chapter 7 discusses the alleged uniqueness of ecological phenomena as it has impacted on resources policy, by exploring the deliberations of the RAC on environmental and anthropological issues.46
44 Carden, 1992. Land Degradation on the Darling Downs. 45 Boyden, 1974. Australia and the Environmental Crisis, p.3. A similar contrast is made in Walker, 1992. Conclusion: The Politics of Environmental Policy. 46 While the focus in Chapter 7 of this thesis is on testing the alleged special attributes of ecological phenomena, there are other grounds on which to dispute the ‘ecologic rationalist’ position. There is a line of defense against the arguments of Dryzek, Boyden and others that does not rely on challenging their descriptions of ecolgical phenomena, nor on rejecting the in-principle acceptiance of “lexical priority” for ecologically rational structures. It simply attempts to show that there is no significant risk of ecological catastrophe, and that ecological factors are given precisely the priority they need. See for example Simon and Kahn, 1984. The Resourceful Earth. A Response to Global 2000. 13 Radical analysis
While neo-liberal and ecological schools of thought have directly addressed the environment in particular, others who have addressed the problems of integrating environmental concerns into natural resources decision-making have discussed sources of these problems in less specifically environmental ways. They explain the shortcomings of our natural resource management institutions using more general concepts.47 These explanations include radical accounts of environmental crisis as a crisis of capitalism.48
The idea of crisis is one used by ecological and radical analysts alike. But while the idea of environmental crisis underpinning the arguments discussed in Chapter 7 leads Dryzek and others to an ecologically-centred critique of existing resource policy arrangements, the crisis of capitalism recognised by radical writers leads to a critique of capitalism in less ecocentric terms. Though the radical analysts are a diverse group, they share a concern with the role of business in environmental degradation, and all argue that the state contributes to the problem through the protection of a favourable investment climate at the expense of other community needs.
Radical analysts - exemplified in Chapter 8 by the work of Block, and by Lindblom’s Politics and Markets49 - argue that the state protects capital because politicians and bureaucrats are concerned with protecting investment levels. They want private capital investment to be maintained because it is the key both to maintaining politically acceptable levels of employment, and to securing the income stream necessary to fund public expenditure programs. The state, therefore, literally cannot afford to pursue environmental protection at the expense of investor confidence.
It is thus the state’s role as protector of investment that makes it partisan. The state does not represent people in general but capitalists in particular. Environmental radicals however put an unusual spin on this classic Marxist
47 Neo-liberal approaches are located in a similarly broad literature and theory. The distinction lies in the far more explicit, environment-specific literature on free market environmentalism and Pigouvian policy instruments than can be found for radical and institutional approaches. 48 Pepper, 1993. Eco-socialism. From Deep Ecology to Social Justice; Redclift, 1984. Development and the Environmental Crisis: Red or Green Alternatives? 49 Block, 1977. The Ruling Class Does Not Rule: notes on a Marxist Theory of the State; Block, 1980. Beyond Relative Autonomy: State Managers as Historical Subjects; Block, 1990. Political Choice and the Multiple "logics" of Capital; Lindblom, 1977. Politics and Markets. 14 argument. This arises because they are concerned not just with the conflict between classes - between capital and labour - but between capital and nature.
According to a radical analysis, environmental protection presents business with costs it would prefer to avoid. The more stringent the protection, the greater the costs faced. The implication is that countries with high environmental standards will make business less profitable, driving investment to cheaper (and by implication more polluted) countries.
To avoid this outcome, the argument goes, the state needs to protect investment by not permitting ‘excessive’ levels of environmental protection. Coronation Hill was one of many cases of environmental conflict where representatives of capital claimed a certain outcome was necessary to avoid capital flight, but whether these claims were warranted is debatable. In Chapter 8, the radical analysis of environmental problems is critiqued through a close examination of the impact (or lack of impact) of the Coronation Hill decision on investor confidence. Institutional analysis
The final of the four approaches I deal with is institutional. A number of writers on environmental issues see the challenge of addressing environmental issues as being in forming new political institutions, and changing existing ones.
If Pigouvian and Coasian theories are together one-and-a-half policy theories about how to deal with environmental concerns, institutional approaches barely comprise one coherent idea. Bringing the Coronation Hill case to bear on institutional perspectives on environmental issues is a complicated task for several reasons. First, the advocates of institutional reform as the means of addressing the rise of environmentalism are not the ‘institutionalists’ in political science terms, but a different group of writers.50 Second, there is an overlap between ecological analysis and institutional analysis as applied to environmental issues. Third, the institutional literature is complex and not focussed on a single model of politics or policy theory.
In this thesis I have focussed on a few ideas about institutional responses to policy needs. The starting point is the claim that institutional reform is critical
50 Advocates of institutional reform include Mercer and Kraft for example, while political science writers focussing on institutional factors include Atkinson and Coleman, Richardson, and Oran Young. 15 to effective policy-making in a changing environment.51 In Chapter 7, however, one particular type of such reform - that framed by Dryzek’s ‘ecological rationality’ - was rejected. The institutional analysis of Chapter 9 addresses the importance of institutional reform based on more general principles. The key concepts that are drawn out of the literature are predictability, autonomy, and capacity. Successful policy regimes are characterised by predictability: convergent expectations amongst participants in a policy arena that mean that decision processes are stable, predictable and understood by affected parties.52 Successful state institutions within those regimes are characterised by autonomy (the ability to independently formulate ideas and objectives) and capacity (the ability to pursue those ideas and objectives).53
The case of Coronation Hill and the RAC reveals a lack of these three attributes, and links this paucity of institutional efficacy to the RAC’s failure. In this way the strength of an institutional analysis is confirmed, at the same time providing reasons to think the RAC was a poor type of response to the problem presented by the rise of environmentalism. The RAC as manifestation of, and battleground between, ideas
The next Chapter will outline the Coronation Hill case and the nature of the RAC in more detail. It will show how there is a relationship between aspects of the RAC and the different approaches to environmental issues that have just been mentioned. The RAC’s neo-liberal heritage is represented by its use of benefit-cost conceptual frameworks, and its strong interest in valuation techniques such as contingent valuation.54 Its existence as an ecologically distinctive institution is evident in its operating principles, as amended by environmentalist and Democrat Senator Norm Sanders, and by its strongly participatory processes.55 Its struggle with the privileged position of business is evident in its dealing with the investor confidence issue, and in its
51 Mercer, 1991. A Question of Balance. 52 Young, 1981. Natural Resources and the State: The Political Economy of Resource Management; Young, 1982. Resource Regimes. Natural Resources and Social Institutions. 53 Atkinson and Coleman, 1989. The State, Business And Industrial Change In Canada; Atkinson and Coleman, 1992. Policy Networks, Policy Communities and the Problems of Governance; Pross and McCorquodale, 1990. The State, Interests, and Policy Making in the East Coast Fishery; Skocpol, 1985. Bringing the State Back In; Skocpol and Finegold, 1982. State Capacity and Economic Intervention in the Early New Deal. 54 See Chapters 2, 4, 5 & 6. 55 See Chapters 2 & 6. 16 problematic relationship with the business lobby.56 Finally, there is no question that the RAC was very self-conscious of its place as an institutional response to environmental pressures, as well as itself becoming a champion of further institutional reform.57
This relationship of the RAC to all four sets of ideas allows me to first, explore the case of Coronation Hill and the RAC in more detail than has been done elsewhere and to suggest a different explanation of the RAC’s fate than that offered by scholars to date; second, to use the experience at Coronation Hill to understand the limitations of the approaches to environmental issues analysis I have just outlined; and third, open up the possibility that it is a mistake in at least some contexts to think in terms of a coherent category of ‘environmental policy’.
The next Chapter presents the most in-depth description of the Coronation Hill case that has been assembled anywhere in the literature, together with some discussion of key features of that case, necessary to the analyses in subsequent Chapters. Though primarily descriptive, it also allows me to discuss a number of aspects of the case neglected in other literature on Coronation Hill and the RAC.
Chapter 3 explains the methodological framework in which the thesis is developed. It sets out the case-based analytic induction method, and explains how the case study material described in Chapter 2 was assembled and analysed. It explains the choice of case, the techniques used at those points in the analysis at which I move beyond the case (particularly in Chapter 9), and some of the limitations of the approach adopted.
Chapters 4, 5 and 6 examine the RAC’s experience as a neo-liberal institution applying neo-liberal policy instruments to environmental questions. Chapter 4 locates the RAC’s origins in neo-liberal thought and the ideas of public choice theory. Chapter 5 uses a critique of the RAC’s use of contingent valuation to explain the problems with the use of Pigouvian techniques in dealing with the rise of environmentalism in the natural resources area. Chapter 6 does the same thing in the area of property rights, arguing that the definitional stability needed in which to enforce a property rights regime was absent because to a
56 See Chapter 8. 57 See Chapter 9. 17 significant degree environmentalism is precisely about disputing the appropriateness of existing property rights definitions, as well as distributions.
Chapter 7 takes a different line. ‘Ecological rationalists’ such as Dryzek have been amongst the main critics of neo-liberalism, but this Chapter uses the case study to present a detailed critique of the key premise of ecological rationalism: that ecological problems are different to other policy problems.
Chapter 8 examines a radical analysis of natural resources policy and the rise of environmentalism. A radical approach sees environmental degradation as a product of capitalism, and argues that the state cannot protect the environment at the expense of exploitative industries such as mining, because it must act to protect investor confidence (an analysis called the structural dependence thesis). In this Chapter, however, I explore how the Coronation Hill case provides no evidence of any sort for the structural dependence thesis, and suggest that the reason is that there is nothing about environmental issues that makes them necessarily anti-capital.
Chapter 9 deals with the fourth and final approach to understanding the RAC and its role in dealing with environmental questions in the natural resources policy arena. It focusses on an analytical comparison between the RAC and its institutional progenitor, the Industries Assistance Commission. This analysis reveals differences between the institutions that explain why the RAC was abolished while its relative prospered. This analysis is used to endorse institutionalist analysis as the way to understand what the important features would be of any state-sponsored attempt to solve the ‘problem’ of reconciling environmental and resource exploitative goals.
Bringing together insights from each of the analytical Chapters, I conclude by arguing that there are different circumstances for policy-making, and that there needs to be ‘matching’ of the approaches to understanding or making policy that have been discussed throughout the thesis to specific circumstances. In the case of Coronation Hill, a situation in which divergent value systems were the basis of conflict, and in which capital-labour differences were not central, neither neo-liberal nor radical understandings of the policy terrain had much to offer. But in other situations they may (including other environmental policy cases). Further examination of other cases will strengthen or refute this argument. 18 The first stage in this process is to describe the case of Coronation Hill. This will facilitate the in-depth analysis in subsequent Chapters. It also allows me to review some of the existing commentary on Coronation Hill, and raise questions about that commentary that are taken up at different points throughout the thesis. 19 Chapter 2 Mine, Yours or Ours?
As I pointed out in the previous Chapter, natural resources conflict between environmental interests and resource users like the mining industry, had become acute in Australia in the 1980s. This was nowhere more evident than at Coronation Hill. The debate over the use of Coronation Hill was a three-way tussle, however. In addition to miners who claimed the site for gold production and environmentalists who wanted it turned into National Park, were the Jawoyn Aboriginal people of the region, who wanted to reassert control over places they maintained had always been theirs.
This Chapter describes the case of Coronation Hill, also known as Guratba.58 The intention is not to recount in detail all the facts of the case - for these one need only turn to the extensive report, consultancies and transcripts of the Resource Assessment Commission’s Inquiry. This Chapter sets out the history of the issue and some of the basic information about the events, bodies and processes involved that are focussed on in more detail in Chapters 4 to 9.
The spectrum of comment on the Inquiry has been very wide indeed, but treatment of commentary has mostly been confined to subsequent Chapters. The information for this Chapter is drawn primarily from legislation, the Conservation Zone Inquiry’s Reports, Submissions made to that Inquiry, and the Coronation Hill Joint Venture’s Draft Environmental Impact Statement.59 Major document series consulted as primary sources for the study are catalogued in the Appendices.60
58 The name Guratba and its significance are explained in the last part of this Chapter. 59 The Final Report is that referred to here as CZFR; volume 2 is referred to as CZFR2. The draft environmental impact statement was released as: Dames & Moore, 1988. Coronation Hill Gold, Platinum & Palladium Project Draft Environmental Impact Statement. It is referred to here as the CHDEIS. 60 Reference is made to the transcripts of the hearings, held in a number of capital cities in late 1990 - early 1991. These hearings are listed in Appendix A. Appendix B lists the publications (excluding Bulletins and newsletters) of the Commission. Appendix C catalogues most print media reports about the Conservation Zone Inquiry and related matters. 20 The first part of this Chapter gives a primarily chronological description and discussion of the case of Coronation Hill. The second part of the Chapter returns to the material but approaches it in terms of the themes addressed by the RAC’s Inquiry. This organises the material along lines in which it is used in later Chapters. The Coronation Hill issue up to the establishment of the RAC
Guratba is a hill of 200 metres relief, lying on the South Alligator River in the Northern Territory of Australia. It is located in Kakadu National Park, some 200 kilometres south east of Darwin and 100 kilometres north of Katherine (see Figure 2.1). Guratba is in the south of the Park, standing immediately below an escarpment which runs from Arnhem Land south to Katherine Gorge (see Figure 2.2).61 Kakadu National Park is one of Australia’s highest profile natural areas, and one of around ten nominated by the nation for World Heritage Listing under the International Convention for the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage, administered by the UNESCO.
The South Alligator River, which rises just southeast of Guratba, feeds north into extensive wetlands. The area receives summer monsoonal as well as convection storm rainfall and is dominated by dry eucalypt woodland away from the creeks.62 The region is remote country, home to imposing tropical landscapes as well as dry, rough and open terrain.
Originally traditional lands of a number of Aboriginal groups, including the Jawoyn and Mayali, the country surrounding Coronation Hill was part of the Gimbat pastoral lease, operated from the first half of the 20th century.63 During this period, Aboriginal people were relocated south of the region, though some remained present at Gimbat, possibly as employees.64 The Gimbat lease was operated only intermittently from 1870 until its
61 CHDEIS p.3-7. 62 CHDEIS pp.3-1, 3-19, Figure 3-1; CZFR p.53. 63 CZFR pp.43, 160. 64 CZFR p.160; CZFR2 pp.282-83. 21
Figure 2.1 Map of the Northern Territory showing the location of Kakadu National Park and Coronation Hill.
Source: CZFR. 22
Figure 2.2 Kakadu National Park, showing the stages of the Park, and the location of Coronation Hill.
Source: CZFR. 23 resumption, together with the adjacent Goodparla pastoral lease, by the Australian government in 1987.65 Figure 2.3 gives a schematic chronology of these events, up to the time of the 1989 Cabinet decision to refer the mine proposal to the RAC.
The Gimbat and Goodparla Pastoral Leases had been resumed in 1987 as part of a long term strategy of National Park development that stemmed from the outcome of the Ranger Uranium Inquiry.66 In reporting from that Inquiry, the Commissioners stated that
...the Commission accepts that it is desirable to include at least one large total river catchment in a regional national park... the South Alligator River catchment is clearly the most suitable... To include this whole catchment, all of Goodparla and portion of Gimbat pastoral leases... would have to be resumed.67
Both the Fraser and Hawke governments pursued such a policy, leading to the declaration of Kakadu National Park in three stages: Stage 1 in 1979, Stage 2 in 1984 and Stage 3 in 1987 (Figure 2.2).68 In addition to declaration as National Park, the stages were successfully nominated for World Heritage listing in 1981, 1987 and 1992 respectively.69 All of the three Stages were also listed by the Australian Heritage Commission on the Register of the National Estate in 1989.70
When the pastoral leases forming Stage 3 of the Park were resumed, however, there were both existing mineral leases, and exploration activity which had begun in 1984, in the area. A mine proposal for the Coronation Hill site was being developed by the Coronation Hill Joint Venture (CHJV), and other sites, principally El Sherana and Palette, were considered highly
65 The Gimbat lease was only “taken up seriously” in 1937, and was abandoned for at least part of the period 1964-1983. CZFR2 pp.282-84. 66 The Commission of Inquiry was formed in 1975 pursuant to Section 11(1) of the Environmental Protection (Impact of Proposals Act 1974, and published a two-volume report: Ranger Uranium Environmental Inquiry, 1977. Ranger Uranium Environmental Inquiry Second (Final) Report. 67 Ranger Uranium Environmental Inquiry, 1977. Ranger Uranium Environmental Inquiry Second (Final) Report, p.288. 68 CZFR p.45. 69 CZFR p.380; Environment Australia, Information on World Heritage Areas: Kakadu National Park. Online: http://www.erin.gov.au/portfolio/dest/wha/kakadu.html, accessed July 1997; The World Heritage Information Network, The World Heritage List. Kakadu National Park. Online: http://www.unesco.org/whc/sites/147.htm, accessed July 1997. 70 CZFR p.380.
25 prospective for the same type of gold-platinum-palladium deposit as already delineated at the hill.
The CHJV was not the first group to explore or mine in the region. The Pine Creek Geosyncline that runs through the area is a highly mineralised geological province.71 Various mineral resources have been identified and exploited in the Geosyncline, including tin, uranium, lead-zinc-silver and gold.72 In 1953 uranium was discovered near the South Alligator River by Dr Walpole.73 In the late 1950s and early 60s a number of small mines operated in the upper South Alligator river valley, including a small uranium mine at Guratba.
In June 1987, the Commonwealth therefore divided Stage 3 of Kakadu National Park into two parts. The first, declared National Park, comprised 65 percent of what had been the Gimbat and Goodparla leases. The second was declared a Conservation Zone, and represented 35 percent of the former leases centred on the El Sherana and Coronation Hill areas and the South Alligator River valley. This zone was in November 1989 reduced to cover just 47.5 square kilometres centred on the mineral claims and leases in the South Alligator valley (Figure 2.4).74
The purpose of the Conservation Zone was to ensure that
a variety of activities, including mineral exploration, are permitted under controls which protect and conserve the wildlife and natural features of the areas until such time as the Governor-General proclaims the area either national park or available for the recovery of minerals.75
The Conservation Zone was thus an interim form of tenure. Like the National Park it was Commonwealth land, but was administered by the Minister for Administrative Services while being managed by the then Australian National Parks and Wildlife Service.76 The Conservation Zone tenure permitted an assessment of the mineral resource potential of the area
71 CZFR2 p.115; White, 1986. Kakadu - A Detailed Assessment of its Mineral Potential. 72 CZFR p.160. CZFR2 p.117. 73 CZFR p.44. 74 CZFR pp.47, 380-81. 75 Resource Assessment Commission, 1990. Kakadu Conservation Zone Inquiry Background Paper, p.8. 76 CZFR p.46; Resource Assessment Commission, 1990. Kakadu Conservation Zone Inquiry Background Paper, p.11. 26
Figure 2.4 The reduced Conservation Zone, as declared in 1989.
Source: CHDEIS. 27 to be carried out prior to making a decision whether to permit mining or declare the Zone National Park.
The CHJV was a typical joint venture exploration project, involving mostly domestic and some foreign capital, distributing the risks and capital demands of exploration and project establishment.77 In December 1988, the project was a joint venture by BHP Gold (45%), Pioneer Minerals (Gold) (45%) and Norgold (10%). The structure of the venture is shown in Figure 2.5.
Figure 2.5 The structure and ownership of the Coronation Hill Joint Venture, 1988.
BHP Co. Pioneer Concrete NBH Holdings Finance
28.4 %
Pioneer Mineral 55.7 % Exploration 63 %
100 %
Pioneer Minerals BHP Gold Mines (Gold) Norgold
45 % 45 % 10 %
Coronation Hill Joint Venture
Source: Coronation Hill Draft Environmental Impact Statement.
BHP Gold’s shareholding was subsequently taken on by Newmont Australia, which later became, in 1991, Newcrest Mining. Pioneer Minerals (Gold) was wholly owned by Pioneer Mineral Exploration, known in 1991 as Plutonic. The principal shareholder was Pioneer Concrete Finance (30.05%) sold in August 1990 to Golden Solitair (Australia), jointly wholly owned by Malaysia Mining Corporation (one third) and Tronoh Mines Malaysia (two thirds). The revised
77 Industry Commission, 1995. Study into Australian Gas Industry and Markets. 28 ownership, showing principal holdings in the controlling companies are shown in Figure 2.6.78
Figure 2.6 The structure and ownership of the Coronation Hill Joint Venture, 1991.
Malaysia Mining Tronoh Mines Corporation Malaysia
33.3 % 66.7 %
BHP Co. Golden Solitair NBH Holdings (Australia) 23.13 %
30.05 % Newmont Proprietary
13.99 % Plutonic Resources Poseidon Gold 63 % 100 % 11.56 %
Newcrest Pioneer Minerals Mining (Gold) Norgold
45 % 45 % 10 %
Coronation Hill Joint Venture
Sources: RAC Research Branch.
78 Disregarding wholly owned intermediaries, the companies directly affected by the Coronation Hill decision therefore: • BHP Gold, subsequently Newmont Australia, subsequently Newcrest Mining; • BHP, as shareholder in BHP Gold and subsequent companies; • Poseidon Gold, as shareholder in Newmont; • Plutonic; • Malaysian Mining Corporation and Tronoh Mines; • Norgold; • NBH Peko; and • a range of funds managers. 29 Exploration by CHJV in 1984 led to the mine proposal in the Coronation Hill area. The Joint Venture drilled over 100 holes in the area, centred on old mine workings.79 It was the only consortium or company exploring in the area, but the high level of mineralization generally was regarded with interest by other companies that became involved in the debate over Coronation Hill. Nevertheless companies with an interest in the area were cautious about development of prospects because of uncertainty about Commonwealth policy and tenure of the lands in the area.80 Furthermore, the mining companies and conservation managers were not the only groups with a significant interest in the Zone. The Jawoyn people, traditional custodians of lands in the region, have traditional ties and responsibilities for parts of what was the Conservation Zone.
The history of the involvement of the Jawoyn is sketched in the next section, while the nature of their interest in Coronation Hill in particular is discussed in more detail toward the end of the Chapter. This account of the role of the Jawoyn is necessary to explain how Aboriginal issues became a key part of the RAC’s work in its Conservation Zone Inquiry. Aboriginal People and the Conservation Zone
The implementation of Land Rights and Sacred Sites legislation in the 1970s and 80s created an institutional and legal setting in which the significance to Aboriginal people of both specific sites and broad areas of country could become contentious and complex matters, wherever development was attempted by non-Aboriginal people.81 Thus the Ranger Uranium Environmental Inquiry Report for example included over 50 pages on the implications of the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act 1976, and made recommendations under that Act.82
79 CZFR2 p.119. 80 Newcrest Mining (WA) Ltd and BHP Minerals Ltd v. The Commonwealth of Australia and the Director of National Parks and Wildlife: (1993) 119 ALR 423 (1993) 46 FCR 342. Online: http://www.austlii.edu.au/do2/disp.pl/au/cases/cth/federal_ct/unrep6453.html, accessed July 1997. 81 Cousins and Nieuwenhuysen, 1984. Aboriginals and the Mining Industry, pp.165-66. Modern institutional land rights reform in Australia began with the Woodward Commission in the early 1970s: Woodward, 1973. Aboriginal Land Rights Commission: First Report; Woodward, 1974. Aboriginal Land Rights Commission: Second Report. For an account of the process of institutional reform undertaken in the mid-1980s, see Ryan, 1989. Aborigines and Islanders. 82 Ranger Uranium Environmental Inquiry, 1977. Ranger Uranium Environmental Inquiry Second (Final) Report, pp.8-9, 235-286. 30 Eleven years later, the Senate Standing Committee inquiry into the potential of the Kakadu National Park region investigated Aboriginal concerns pertaining to Coronation Hill. It suggested, in respect of the impact of exploration or mining on sacred sites, that while “the circumstances surrounding this matter are complex and it is not possible to provide a detailed account here”, nevertheless “the main points... are relatively straightforward.”83 The content and extent of the dissenting report that emanated from that committee, however, indicates that, as the disgruntled Senators stated, “the main points are not in our view as the majority report claims, ‘relatively straight forward’ [sic]”.84 The debate that went on during that committee’s inquiries was continued by its members in Parliament, who accused each other of misrepresenting Aboriginal views and of improperly viewing and reporting evidence.85 The following is an attempt to summarise the main points and the sources of disagreement. Some of the matters in dispute are discussed later, in Chapters 6 and 9.
Detailed research on and documentation of Aboriginal sites and beliefs in the area begins with the work of Arndt, and has been summarised by Levitus.86 As early as 1980, anthropologist Dr Merlan indicated to the Northern Territory Aboriginal Sacred Sites Authority (NTASSA) that “Jawoyn custodians” wanted sacred sites in the Gimbat and Goodparla pastoral lease areas protected.87
83 Parliament of Australia, 1988. The Potential of the Kakadu National Park Region, p.144. 84 Parliament of Australia, 1988. The Potential of the Kakadu National Park Region, p.303. The view that the matter was “complex and confused” was also expressed by Robert Levitus, consultant to the AAPA, in his Appendix to the AAPA submission to the Conservation Zone Inquiry. AAPA Submission 77, p.32. 85 Parliament of Australia, 1988. The Potential of the Kakadu National Park Region, pp.303-305. Senator Zakharov, Commonwealth Parliamentary Debates (CPD), Senate, 5 June 1989, pp.3375-79; Senator Tambling, CPD, Senate, 8 June 1989, pp.3743-44; Senator Zakharov, CPD, Senate, 13 June 1989, pp.3934-35; Senator Zakharov, CPD, Senate, 15 June 1989, pp.4188-4190; Senator Crichton-Browne, CPD, Senate, 15 June 1989, pp.4191-4197. It was not unusual for debate about Aboriginal issues to be conducted at rather high temperatures: Second reading debates for the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Heritage Protection Act, under which the 10(4) Inquiry was conducted, routinely had members calling each other “bloody fascists” (CPD, House of Representatives, 137, p.2695) and “crooks” (CPD, Senate, 104, p.3190) while their arguments were “scaremongering racist claptrap” (CPD, Senate, 104, p.3155) and showing “disgusting disregard” of others (CPD, Senate, 104, p.3163). 86 Arndt, 1962. The Nargorkun-Narlinji Cult; Levitus, 1990. Historical Perspective. 87 Parliament of Australia, 1988. The Potential of the Kakadu National Park Region, p.144. A note on organizations: “In 1989 the Northern Territory Government enacted new legislation which replaced the Sacred Sites Authority [ie. NTASSA] with an Aboriginal Areas Protection Authority.” Resource Assessment Commission, 1990. Kakadu Conservation Zone Inquiry Background Paper, p.75. It was as the AAPA that the Authority made a submission to, and appeared before, the Conservation Zone Inquiry. The acronyms NTASSA and AAPA thus refer to one organization constituted under different pieces of legislation. 31 Coronation Hill was marked on the 1982 land claim, though its status in that claim was a source of disagreement during the Senate Inquiry.88 It was not until exploration by CHJV was drawn to the attention of Jawoyn, after the discovery of the Coronation Hill gold deposit, that the question of the significance of Guratba was directly addressed.
Jawoyn people first discussed CHJV’s exploration activity at a meeting in September 1985. Their concern about the operations, once inspected, led them to request that the NTASSA register Guratba and another site (Niwarditj) as sacred sites under the Sacred Sites Act 1978. A report for registration was compiled, and on 3 October 1985 a sacred site known as the Upper South Alligator Bula Complex, covering an area of around 250 square kilometres, was formally recognized.89 That site encompasses the Sickness Country: the region associated with the Bula story and cult, including Guratba. Under the Sacred Sites Act, permission must be granted by the Aboriginal Areas Protection Authority (AAPA) for non-Aborigines to conduct activities within areas so registered, and that consent must come originally from the Aboriginal custodians.90
In addition to the registered Upper South Alligator Bula Complex, the AAPA also received, on 31 March 1989, an application to register the entire Sickness Country as a sacred site.91 The Authority decided to treat the application as a review of the boundaries of two existing sites (including the Bula Complex) within the area, since Section 51 of the new NT Aboriginal Sacred Sites Act 1989 required all Sites registered under the 1978 legislation to be reviewed within three years. That review was however delayed by the RAC’s own Inquiry.92
Clearly CHJV needed permission under the Act in order to explore at Guratba. The Joint Venture submitted plans for work in the area, and made a site inspection with Aboriginal custodians, both in February 1986. They were involved in a number of meetings with Jawoyn people, the first on 28 February
88 Parliament of Australia, 1988. The Potential of the Kakadu National Park Region. The dissenting report indicated the site was a “named” site, not a “sacred” site. (p.303). This 1982 claim was the Katherine Area Land Claim, heard by Justice Kearney, discussed later. 89 Levitus, 1990. Historical Perspective. This and other sites were registered under the Sacred Sites Act of 1978. It was replaced by the Northern Territory Aboriginal Sacred Sites Act 1989, and under section 51 of the new Act, the Bula Complex remained registered as a Sacred Site. NT Minister Daryl Manzie, 3 October 1989, letter to Commonwealth Minister Gerry Hand. 90 Parliament of Australia, 1988. The Potential of the Kakadu National Park Region, p.145. 91 AAPA Submission 77, p.6. 92 AAPA Submission 77. 32 1986, which culminated in a meeting between CHJV and senior custodians at Barunga on July 1 1986, organised by the Joint Venture, which led to the NTASSA writing to BHP granting permission for certain exploration activities to take place at Guratba.93 CHJV then conducted exploration, including drilling, at the site. This approval process was coincident with an inquiry, commissioned by the Northern Territory’s Minister for Mines and Energy, into the registration of the Bula Complex.94
Whether the permission communicated to BHP was consistent with the views of Jawoyn people was a matter of debate. That permission for exploration was given at Barunga in July 1986 appeared not to be in dispute. It has been challenged however on the grounds that it represented a violation of proper process.95 The grounds on which the Barunga meeting decision was challenged go to the heart of the debate about the Guratba sacred site. They were first, that the meeting was part of an incremental approach, a consultative strategy that was questioned. Second, it was suggested that the composition of Aboriginal attendance at the meeting was not appropriate for decision making about the sacred site in question. Third, the presence of non-Aboriginal people at the meeting may have undermined Jawoyn decision making.
The Joint Venture’s account of the Jawoyn people’s position was as follows:
It is understood that there is still some level of concern about the mining activity in relation to the Bula traditions on the part of a few Jawoyn people. It is also understood that the traditional decision- making process amongst Aboriginal people, especially on important issues, is achieved by consensus. This is a much more complex process than a simple majority vote...
...through the consultations which have been taking place over a considerable period of time between CHJV and Jawoyn people, both directly and through the ASSPA [sic], CHJV believes that the current work has the support of the majority of the Jawoyn people.
93 CHDEIS pp.6-5, 6-6; Jawoyn Association, 1989. Just Sweet Talk, Appendix A p.1; Resource Assessment Commission, 1990. Kakadu Conservation Zone Inquiry Background Paper, p.75. There were several meetings during this time, the first of which apparently recommended against permitting mining. See Parliament of Australia, 1988. The Potential of the Kakadu National Park Region. 94 Levitus, 1990. Historical Perspective. 95 Jawoyn Association Submission 99, p.19. Certainly it appears that another meeting 4 days later led to a request by Jawoyn that the AAPA not approve exploration. The approval had, however, already been issued. 33 With the assistance of the ASSPA, CHJV personnel met representatives of the Jawoyn people at a series of meetings commencing February, 1986, in order to discuss the proposed activities at Coronation Hill...
Drilling and other on-site activities recommenced in August 1986. Consultations and continuing visits to the Project Area have taken place since then, both by senior Aboriginal custodians and by the broader Jawoyn community, to observe CHJV’s ongoing work. In October and November 1986 and June 1987, approval was given by the custodians to carry out investigations on additional areas of the sacred site complex surrounding Coronation Hill...
Since early 1986, CHJV has been dealing directly with members of the Jawoyn Association, an incorporated body representing the Aboriginal custodians concerned with the area. ASSPA originally identified the Aboriginal custodians for the area with whom CHJV should be dealing. This clearly identified group of Jawoyn people, according to traditional custom, has inherited the custodianship of the sites associated with the Bula rite. CHJV has regularly held discussions on the progress of exploration activities with this identified group...
CHJV, whilst continuing its very effective informal communications with members of the Jawoyn people, recognises that the provisions of the Aboriginal Sacred Sites Protection Act require them to obtain formal written approval from ASSPA. At the request of ASSPA, the approval process has been undertaken in an incremental fashion to allow Jawoyn people more time to consider the consequences of each decision.96
The Joint Venture also pointed out that the Barunga meeting was not the only occasion on which they had received approval for work from the custodians, through the AAPA. Such approval had been granted on eight occasions.97
The Joint Venture recognised that the ‘incremental’ approach was being cited as a potential source of tension, but emphasised the AAPA’s responsibility for the method of consultation. This deferral to the AAPA was evident on other matters also:
ASSPA has already advised the Federal Government “that the process (of incremental approval) is not entirely satisfactory for either party.
96 CHDEIS, pp.6-4 - 6-6. Throughout the Environmental Impact Statement the NTASSA / AAPA is referred to as the ASSPA. 97 Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS) Supplement p.74. 34 Such observation is not critical of the Joint Venturers or their bona fides” (ASSPA 1987). Of note, ASSPA have not suggested any other form of consultations.
The incremental approach has allowed exploration and the [Draft Environmental Impact Statement] studies to continue so that the Jawoyn community would know the scope of the Project and possible impacts before they are required to make a decision regarding mining.
Related to the consultation process the Jawoyn Association submission states that there have been conflicting Jawoyn views about the Coronation Hill Project for the following reasons:
• Jawoyn people do not fully understand what CHJV have asked them. In reply to this CHJV observes that it is ASSPA’s role to ensure that adequate information is given before approvals are made and that this has been complied with is evidenced by the fact that a large number of approvals have already been given.
• Agreements have been sought before the proposal is properly explained. Again, CHJV points to ASSPA’s responsibilities in this matter and can confirm that at least one ASSPA representative has always been present at meetings.
• ...Again, ASSPA have prime responsibility to ensure that the Jawoyn do not agree to anything that they do not understand.98
The position taken by the CHJV, through their Environmental Impact Statement, is similar to that taken by other companies attempting to address Aboriginal opposition to proposed projects.99 The Ashton Joint Venture also used a continuous negotiation process and public promotion of its efforts, in conjunction with deference to the responsibilities of the relevant State authority, in the Argyle diamond project in the East Kimberley.100 Opposition to mining was put down to white agitation, just as in the Coronation Hill case it was attributed to intervention of white advisors to the Northern Land Council
98 FEIS Supplement pp.81-82. 99 The most recent example is Energy Resources of Australia (ERA)’s approach to traditional custodian’s concerns regarding the Jabiluka #2 proposal: see Kinhill Engineers and ERA Environmental Services, 1996. The Jabiluka Project Draft Environmental Impact Statement. It is interesting to see that two years after the Noonkanbah controversy of 1980, Berndt wrote “The lessons which could have been learnt from that d bacle were not, even though they were spelt out in considerable detail.” (Berndt, 1982. Mining Ventures: Alliances and Oppositions, p.245.) Fifteen years later little seems to have changed. 100 Boer, 1989. The Legal Framework Affecting Aboriginal People in the East Kimberley; Christensen, 1983. Aborigines and the Argyle Diamond Project. 35 (NLC).101 This perception was also gained by Seaman in the Aboriginal Land Inquiry,102 and was a drama played out in more extreme terms at Noonkanbah.103
The AAPA in its fairly brief submission to the Conservation Zone Inquiry did not discuss the original consultation processes. The AAPA described itself as a body that made expert assessments of the suitability of sites for registration, but that once sites were registered it was essentially an administrative vehicle for implementing custodians responses to external activities that might impinge on a registered site.104 The report by Levitus (contained in the AAPA submission) implies that CHJV’s account of the AAPA’s lead role in negotiations understates the initiatives taken by the Joint Venture in 1986 in attempting to secure approval, but the veracity of this interpretation of Levitus’ words is difficult to evaluate.105
Registration of a sacred site and granting of a land claim are independent processes designed to deal with quite separate concepts. Separately from the registration and protection of the Bula Complex as a sacred site, the NLC on 26 June 1987 lodged a land claim for Stage III of Kakadu National Park on behalf of the Jawoyn people.106 That land claim was in process at the time of the Conservation Zone Inquiry. It had been preceded, however, by another land claim in the region, the Jawoyn (Katherine area) Land Claim lodged in 1978 and investigated by Justice Kearney.107 The results of Kearney’s report, in addition to describing the claimants relationship with lands near the Conservation Zone, drew attention to the Bula Dreaming, and sites associated with it. He also foreshadowed some difficulties that were to be encountered by the Commissioners of the RAC:
101 Christensen, 1983. Aborigines and the Argyle Diamond Project; Dixon, 1990. In the Shadows of Exclusion: Aborigines and the Ideology of Development in Western Australia. 102 Seaman, 1984. The Aboriginal Land Inquiry. 103 Hawke, 1994. The Hawke Memoirs; Kolig, 1987. The Noonkanbah Story; Libby, 1989. Hawke's Law. The Politics of Mining and Aboriginal Land Rights in Australia. 104 AAPA Submission 77. 105 Levitus, 1990. Historical Perspective. 106 That claim was placed in accordance with the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act 1977. DASETT, 1989. Coronation Hill Gold Platinum and Palladium Proposal. Environmental Assessment Report, p.63. The Josif report, which states that the claim was lodged on the same date, but in 1986, appears in error: Josif, 1988. Report on the social and cultural effects of the proposed Coronation Hill project and the Conservation Zone upon the Jawoyn and other effected Aborigines, p.1. 107 CZFR pp.161, 164. Aboriginal Land Commissioner (Justice Kearney), 1988. Jawoyn (Katherine Area) Land Claim. Report by the Aboriginal Land Commissioner, Justice Kearney, to the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs and to the Administrator of the Northern Territory. 36 ...Dr Merlan considered that the Jawoyn were exercising primary spiritual responsibility for Bekluk on Area 4 and Gunlom... on Area 5; however, the basis of that opinion was not stated and I do not give it any weight.
It is nevertheless, I consider, clear on the evidence that the spiritual affiliations of the Jawoyn diminish the further north one goes, with the exception of the Bula sites well to the north-east and the area around Edith Falls.108
The questions about the reliability of anthropological evidence such as that tendered by Dr Merlan, and the location and importance of the Bula site ‘exceptions’ mentioned by Justice Kearney, were both vigorously debated during the RAC’s hearings. They were important because on the answers to these questions hinged the legitimacy of Jawoyn claims that they deserved to determine the fate of the mine proposal.109
In the period prior to the RAC’s establishment, however, it had been the environmental issues that had loomed far larger in the mind of the Federal Government in trying to determine the fate of the Conservation Zone. In fact, it was the ‘environmental’ impact assessment process that brought the possible negative impacts of the mine on Aboriginal people most clearly to light. That process was triggered by CHJV’s decision that they wanted to mine at Coronation Hill. From exploration to mining: the Environmental Impact Statement
The positive results of exploration at Coronation Hill led the CHJV to begin discussions with local Aboriginal people about a mine and to prepare a Draft Environmental Impact Statement, completed by consultants Dames and Moore in December 1988.110 The Environmental Impact Statement was prepared to comply with the Commonwealth’s Environment Protection (Impact of Proposals) Act 1974 and the Northern Territory’s Environmental Assessment Act 1982.111
108 Aboriginal Land Commissioner (Justice Kearney), 1988. Jawoyn (Katherine Area) Land Claim. Report by the Aboriginal Land Commissioner, Justice Kearney, to the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs and to the Administrator of the Northern Territory, p.34. 109 Aspects of this issue are also discussed in more detail in Chapter 7. 110 Discussions with Aboriginal people commenced in February 1986 according to the CHJV. CHDEIS p.6-5. 111 CHDEIS p.1-10. 37 The project was for a gold mine, which would also recover platinum and palladium, constructed to commence operations in 1990.112 Around 1500 kilograms of gold would be extracted.113 The proposal was for an open-cut and underground mine, together with milling and processing facilities on-site: an artist’s impression of the project, prepared for the RAC’s Inquiry, is shown in Figure 2.7. A workforce of up to 180 was to be deployed on a fly-in-fly-out basis.114
The sensitive environmental location of the region in general, and of this exploration focus in particular (just a few hundred metres from the South Alligator River) had meant that even exploration had been the target of criticism by environmental groups like the Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF) and The Wilderness Society. As a consequence, careful environmental studies and strong environmental safeguards were supposed to lie at the heart of the Environmental Impact Statement:
Throughout Project planning, there has been a systematic choice of the most environmentally desirable rather than the lowest cost engineering solution.115
Studies conducted for CHJV by Dames & Moore and other companies included flora and fauna surveys, air and water quality studies, noise pollution modelling, and engineering designs of facilities to meet exacting environmental standards.116 The centrepiece of environmental protection for the project was the ‘no release zone’, which would contain all water from the mine and processing areas, keeping it from entering the South Alligator River.117 In addition to this system, monitoring mechanisms were proposed, not only for water seepage or contamination, but also of erosion, groundwater and river quality, and radiation levels at the site.
In response to the Draft Environmental Impact Statement, CHJV received a barrage of 917 submissions, mostly opposed to the project (88%). Most of
112 CHDEIS Figure 2.3. 113 CHDEIS p.1-5. 114 CHDEIS p.1-5. 115 CHDEIS p.1-4. 116 The studies are listed in the CHDEIS on pp.1-12 & 1-13. 117 CZFR p.96; CHDEIS Figure 2.7. See also FEIS Supplement . 38
Figure 2.7 Artist’s impression of the mining operation at Coronation Hill.
Source: CZFR. 39 these criticised the proposal on the grounds of its location (87% of all submissions); pollution risk (61%); harm to wildlife (61%); harm to Aboriginal people (54%); poor economic benefits (43%); detrimental effects of increased human activity (25%); or BHP’s poor track record on environmental protection (40%).118 Some of the more detailed Submissions also queried engineering proposals, baseline studies, and monitoring proposals.119 In July 1989, the CHJV completed the final Environmental Impact Statement for the Coronation Hill project, incorporating both changes to the Draft, and a defence of that Draft against the criticisms lodged in response.120
The Commonwealth Environment Department (DASETT) performed an assessment of the Environmental Impact Statement. It indicated that the document complied with the requirements of the Environment Protection (Impact of Proposals) Act, but also made thirty-eight recommendations, including some requiring the gathering of further data and extension of environmental monitoring facilities.121 The Department’s recommendations included requiring further data and planning in a range of areas: • accident contingency and prevention plans; • overburden management; • access road development; • water and residue management; • sediment management & site rehabilitation; • wildlife conservation; and • development of an Environmental Management Plan.122
It recommended that granting a lease be contingent on compliance with the thirty-eight recommendations. The report additionally concluded that
118 Calculated from data supplied in the FEIS Supplement Appendix B. 119 Eg. The Wilderness Society Submission on the Environmental Impact Statement (Number 807); CSIRO Submission on the Environmental Impact Statement (Number 918); OSS Submission on the Environmental Impact Statement (Number 919). 120 Dames & Moore, 1989. Coronation Hill Gold, Platinum & Palladium Project Final Environmental Impact Statement Supplement. This document states “This Final Environmental Impact Statement Supplement has been prepared for the Coronation Hill Joint Venture. The Supplement follows on the publication of the Draft Environmental Impact Statement... and the two documents together comprise the Final Environmental Impact Statement.” (p.1) 121 DASETT, 1989. Coronation Hill Gold Platinum and Palladium Proposal. Environmental Assessment Report. 122 DASETT, 1989. Coronation Hill Gold Platinum and Palladium Proposal. Environmental Assessment Report. 40 consideration be given whether additional studies should be undertaken to assess the impact of the project on the ecology of the surrounding area before a decision is made on the area.123
The Environmental Assessment Report was more negative in its assessment of the project’s social impacts on the Aboriginal community than of any other matter on which it commented, stating:
The Department recognised [sic] that the Coronation Hill project will have a significant social impact on the Jawoyn community and possible measures to alleviate this impact have not been identified apart from those that will flow from the employment of Jawoyn at the mine.124
Its principal recommendation on the matter was that
The Minister for Aboriginal Affairs be advised that the project will have an adverse social impact on the Jawoyn community and, prior to a decision whether the project should proceed, his advice should be sought on this impact.125
One of the most persistent myths about the Coronation Hill project was that it had satisfied all the government’s requirements until Cabinet ‘moved the goalposts’ leaving the Joint Venture in the lurch. Participants in the Conservation Zone Inquiry often referred to the Joint Venture’s successful completion of social and environmental impact assessment procedures, arguing that the project should have been allowed to proceed.126 It can be seen however that DASETT, while acknowledging compliance with the Environmental Protection (Impact of Proposals) Act, was not suggesting the results of the Environmental Impact Statement indicated the project was acceptable.
123 DASETT, 1989. Coronation Hill Gold Platinum and Palladium Proposal. Environmental Assessment Report, p.5. 124 DASETT, 1989. Coronation Hill Gold Platinum and Palladium Proposal. Environmental Assessment Report, p.63. 125 DASETT, 1989. Coronation Hill Gold Platinum and Palladium Proposal. Environmental Assessment Report, p.5. The mining industry would later argue that they had met environmental requirements through the Environmental Impact Assessment process. During the Kakadu Inquiry, however, DASETT expressed a view that the mine should not proceed. The Department did not necessarily change its mind between the Environmental Impact Statement and the Inquiry. Rather it was being asked different questions: one a matter of compliance with adminstrative procedures, the other a question of policy. (See also Krockenberger, Transcripts p.927) 126 Chamber of Mines & Energy of Western Australia Submission 41; NT Chamber of Mines Submission 43; NT Government Submission 74; Walsh, 1995. Confessions of a Failed Finance Minister. Even the Industry Commission made this error: Industry Commission, 1991. Mining and Mineral Processing in Australia, V.3 p.519. 41 The Environmental Impact Statement and Cabinet
The Environment Minister, Senator Richardson, appeared as ambivalent as his Department about the project, drawing on its report in making his recommendation to the Minister for Administrative Services. Richardson indicated that he remained concerned about Aboriginal issues, the NT’s attitude to environmental management in the Park, and the content of recent CSIRO research on the wildlife of the area. He went on to state
If the Coronation Hill project was a one-off development I would not recommend against it as a result of the assessment report. However, I am firmly of the view that Coronation Hill cannot be considered in isolation from the other mining and prospecting proposals which are likely to arise in the Conservation Zone. We must look at the potential for cumulative environmental impacts within a clearly defined boundary. Such an examination should take place before the approval of any one project, including Coronation Hill...
I have therefore written to the Prime Minister suggesting that the boundaries of the Conservation Zone be finalised before Cabinet considers the future of the Coronation Hill project and any other mining or prospecting proposals for the area.127
Contrary to the view of many commentators, the Environmental Impact Statement had not created a setting at all conducive to approval of the project. And while Cabinet was moving towards a decision on the fate of the Conservation Zone, political circumstances mitigated against a straightforward approval of mining by Cabinet.128 Environmentalists regarded the Kakadu issue as important, and Senator Richardson as Minister for the Environment supported their position.129 Environmentalists argued that the proposed mine was undesirable for several reasons. First the levels of environmental risks involved were not understood or analysed, which given the proximity of the site to a river in a monsoonal region, was cause for alarm. Second the project set a bad precedent for National Park and World Heritage site management, indicating a willingness to conduct ad hoc boundary and management plan modifications. Third, the environmental groups also emphasized local
127 Letter, Senator Richardson to Minister for Administrative Services Stewart West, 19 Sept 1989. 128 See Kelly, 1992. The End of Certainty, pp.536-543; Ramsay, 1989. How the ambush of BHP took place. 129 Richardson, 1994. Whatever it Takes. 42 Aboriginal opposition, appealing in favour of the interests of what one critic termed their “totemic people”.130
In addition to the increasingly problematic political calculus involved in resolving the Coronation Hill issue, there were also some legal difficulties. There was disagreement about whether, under the NT Aboriginal Sacred Sites Act, the responsible NT Minister could allow work to take place on sacred sites against the wishes of Aboriginal custodians. This raised the possibility that a pro-mining NT Government could legally disregard the advice of its own AAPA, and issue permits for mining on registered sacred sites.131 Because of this ambiguity, in September 1989, the NLC applied under the Commonwealth Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Heritage Protection Act 1984, again on behalf of the Jawoyn people, for the protection of a sacred site: the Bula Complex. Their rationale was that if the NT Minister could over-ride sacred site protection afforded under NT legislation, then the pro-mining policy position stated by the NT Government at that time should legally be construed as a threat within the meaning of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Heritage Protection Act.
Faced with these constraints, on 5 October 1989, Cabinet decided to reduce the Conservation Zone to the strip centred on the Coronation Hill site and the El Sherana prospect, and to refer the problem to the recently formed Resource Assessment Commission for further assessment.132 The Terms of Reference for the Inquiry were signed on 26 April 1990. A schematic representation of the chronology of events from hereon is given in Figure 2.8. The RAC is established
In November 1988, the government announced the formation of a Resource Assessment Commission.133 Its political origins lay in specifically in a dispute about a large pulp mill proposed for Wesley Vale in northern
130 Brunton, 1991. Aborigines and Environmental Myths: Apocalypse in Kakadu. See The Wilderness Society, 1989. Response to the CHJV Coronation Hill Draft EIS. See also ECNT Submission 90. 131 The NT Government rejected this possibility: Submission 74. 132 CZFR p.381. 133 Joint press conference of the Prime Minister, the Minister for Primary Industries and Energy, the Minister for Resources and the Minister for the Environment. 18 November 1988.
44 Tasmania, which failed following lobbying by a range of interests;134 and generally in disatisfaction of both governments and lobby groups with the process of resolving environmental conflict. The role of these factors in providing the impetus for establishment of the RAC are well discussed by Galligan & Lynch, and Economou.135
When the RAC Bill was introduced to Parliament the Minister for Primary Industries and Energy stated that
The Resource Assessment Commission legislation will be in addition to and not in substitution for existing legislation. In particular, an inquiry by the RAC will not affect the need for, or timing of, any Environmental Impact Statement. In general, however, RAC inquiries are expected to relate to industries, regions or issues, in contrast to the processes of the Environmental Protection (Impact of Proposals) Act, which generally apply to a specific project proposal. Inquiries almost always will be into major, complex and contentious resource use issues. They are likely to deal with the resource industries that are of great significance for the economy and the environment...
The Government’s intention, subject to the passage of this Bill, is to refer Australia’s forests and timber resources to the RAC as its first inquiry.136
The modus operandi of the RAC was established in Sections 6 and 8 and Schedule 1 of the RAC Act 1989. Sections 6 and 8 set out the functions of the RAC. They read:
6. The functions of the Commission are to hold inquiries, and make reports, in respect of resource matters in accordance with this Act...
8. In the performance of its functions in relation to a resource matter, the Commission shall, as far as practicable and subject to the terms of the referral of the matter:
(a) identify the resource with which the matter is concerned and the extent of that resource;
(b) identify the various uses that could be made of that resource;
134 Economou, 1992. Problems in Environmental Policy Creation: Tasmania’s Wesley Vale Pulp Mill Dispute; McEachern, 1991. Business Mates: The Power and Politics of the Hawke Era. 135 Economou, 1992. Reconciling the Irreconcilable? The Resource Assessment Commission, Resource Policy and the Environment; Economou, 1993. Accordism and the Environment: The Resource Assessment Commission and National Environmental Policy-Making; Galligan and Lynch, 1992. Integrating Conservation and Development: Australia’s Resource Assessment Commission and the Testing Case of Coronation Hill. 136 John Kerin, CPD, House of Representatives 3 May 1989, pp.1822-23. 45 (c) identify:
(i)the environmental, cultural, social, industry, economic and other values of that resource or involved in those uses; and
(ii) the implications for those values of those uses, including implications that are uncertain or long-term;
(d) assess the losses and benefits involved in the various alternative uses, or combinations of uses, of that resource, including:
(i)losses and benefits of an unquantifiable nature; and
(ii) losses and benefits that are uncertain or long-term; and
(e) give consideration to any other aspect of the matter that it considers relevant.
These functions stand in contrast to the project-based and proponent-conducted environmental impact assessment process which was being increasingly criticised at the time of the establishment of the RAC.137 They are structured along similar lines to the responsibilities of the Industry Commission:
6. (1) The functions of the Commission are:
(a) to hold inquiries and make reports to the Minister in respect of such matters relating to industry as are referred to it by the Minister...
8. (1) In the performance of its functions, the Commission must have regard to the desire of the Commonwealth Government:
(a) to encourage the development and growth of Australian industries that are efficient in their use of resources, self-reliant, enterprising, innovative and internationally competitive; and
(b) to facilitate adjustment to structural changes in the economy and to ease social and economic hardships arising from those changes; and
(c) to reduce regulation of industry (including regulation by the States and Territories) where this is consistent with the social and economic goals of the Commonwealth Government; and
(d) to recognise the interests of industries, consumers, and the community, likely to be affected by measures proposed by the Commission.
137 Institution of Engineers Australia Submission 25; Formby, 1989. Where Has EIA Gone Wrong? Lessons from the Tasmanian Woodchips Controversy; Mercer, 1991. A Question of Balance. 46 (2) In the performance of its functions, the Commission must also have regard to any other matters notified to it in writing by the Minister...
(4) where a matter is referred to the Commission for inquiry and report, the Commission must also inquire into, and, in the same report, report on, the social and environmental consequences of any recommendations it makes.138
Schedule 1 of the RAC Act establishes “policy principles that provide a guide for resolution of competing resource use claims”:139
1. There should be an integrated approach to conservation (including all environmental and ecological considerations) and development by taking both conservation (including all environmental and ecological considerations) and development aspects into account at an early stage.
2. Resource use decisions should seek to optimise the net benefits to the community from the nation’s resources, having regard to efficiency of resource use, environmental considerations, ecological integrity and stability, ecosystem integrity and stability, the sustainability of any development, and an equitable distribution of the return on resources.
3. Commonwealth decisions, policies and management regimes may provide for additional uses that are compatible with the primary purpose values for the area, recognising that in some cases both conservation (including all environmental and ecological considerations) and development interests can be accommodated concurrently or sequentially, and, in other cases, choices must be made between alternative uses or combinations of uses.140
These principles were very broad and presented a substantial challenge for the RAC. Some of the ways the RAC attempted to fulfill its brief are discussed later.
Justice Stewart was appointed the RAC’s first chairperson in July and the Hawke Government immediately commenced planning for a forest and timber industry inquiry, then a coastal zone inquiry, announced as part of the Our Country Our Future statement in July 1989.141 Recruitment of staff commenced.
138 Industry Commission Act 1989, Sections 6 & 8. 139 CZFR p.13. 140 Schedule 1 to the Resource Assessment Commission Act, in CZFR p.14. 141 Hawke, 1989. Our Country Our Future. Statement on the Environment, p.12. 47 The RAC itself then developed a Corporate Plan and mission statement. It regarded its mission as being “to provide independent, impartial and comprehensive advice on the use of Australia’s resources.”142 Within the same plan, it set out four main goals:
1. to provide the Government with timely, well informed, accurate and useful reports on the references it receives;
2. to maximise public participation in its work;
3. to improve the way resource questions are analysed and resolved; and
4. to make best use of our human, financial and organisational resources.143
The Commission was divided into several Branches. Its organisational structure is shown in Figure 2.9. In addition to the principal foci of the organization on its Inquiries, it maintained a permanent research staff, able to both service Inquiry needs for research as well as develop and publish ideas of a more general significance.144
142 Resource Assessment Commission, 1990. Corporate Plan 1990-91. 143 Resource Assessment Commission, 1990. Corporate Plan 1990-91. 144 Resource Assessment Commission, 1992. Resource Assessment Commission Annual Report 1991- 92, p.7. 48
Figure 2.9 The organizational structure of the RAC.
Chairperson / Commissioner
Special Commissioners
Head of Office
Senior Advisor (Sydney)
Forest and Kakadu Coastal Research Corporate Timber Conservation Zone Branch Policy Inquiry Zone Inquiry Inquiry Branch Branch Branch Branch
Source: RAC Annual Report 1990-91.
The staff were located in Canberra, apart from a small office in Sydney. RAC officers were collectively more senior than was typical in the public service, and were highly qualified, reflecting the specialized nature of much of the RAC’s operations.145 For example, including information services staff, the Research Branch was as large as any of the actual Inquiry Branches (Table 2.1).
145 Resource Assessment Commission, 1990. Resource Assessment Commission Annual Report 1989- 90. See also discussion in Chapter 9 of this thesis. 49
Table 2.1 Distribution of staff between branches of RAC.
Year Policy & Research Sydney Kakadu Forests Coastal Total Corporate
89-90 15 9 3 7 11 1 46
90-91 15 7 4 1 11 4 42
91-92 11 13 4 0 0 13 41
92-93 7 16 3 0 0 16 42
Note: some redistribution of functions took place over the four years, in particular moving information services from the Corporate to the Research Branch.
Sources: RAC Annual Reports 1989-90, 1990-91, 1991-92, 1992-93.
Unlike Yes Minister’s Sir Humphrey’s Department of Administrative Affairs, the RAC grew in neither staff nor budget from its inception, the budget actually declining from its first year of full operations (1990-91: Table 2.2). Staff numbers remained stable, but the total and average value of consultancies fell, indicating that the total workforce providing input to the Commission’s work was diminishing (Table 2.3).146
Table 2.2 The budget of the RAC.
Budget, $000 1989-90 1990-91 1991-92 1992-93 1993-94a
Running 3720 5642 4562 4114 2473 budget
Property 1130 600 671 766 581 budget
Total 4858 6242 5272 4880 3054
Notes: (a) Figures for the final period of the RAC’s operations, 1 July - 31 December 1993. All figures denote actual expenditure, which, particularly in the last years of operations, fell significantly below budget appropriations.
Sources: Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet Annual Report 1989-90; RAC Annual Reports 1989-90, 1990-91, 1991-92, 1992-93, 1993-94.
146 For further data and discussion see Figures 9.1 & 9.2 and accompanying text. 50 Despite this narrowing workforce base, the Commission’s reports were nevertheless substantial, reflecting a tendency toward large Inquiry reports evident in the work of other statutory Commissions including the IC and the NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption. Whether this was helpful was questioned by others with experience in the area.147
Table 2.3 The role of consultants to the RAC.
Consultancies 1989-90 1990-91 1991-92 1992-93 1993-94
Number 20a 75 60 57 35
Total value, $ 653 502b 1 469 207 632 736 538 626 282 673
Average value, $ 24 267c 19 589 10 546 9 450 8 076
% total 13.5d 23.5 12.0 11.0 9.3 expenditure
Notes: (a) number valued over $2 000. (b) includes a $192 426 Australian Construction Services contract to fit out the RAC’s new office. (c) calculated excluding the Australian Construction Services fit-out contract. (d) includes the Australian Construction Services fit-out contract (as the budget from which this percentage is derived includes property expenditure).
Sources: RAC Annual Reports 1989-90, 1990-91, 1991-92, 1992-93, 1993-94.
It was not only the reports that were substantial: the RAC dealt with a large number of Consultants’ reports and submissions across its few Inquiries. The numbers of each are shown in Table 2.4, indicating the Commission handled nearly 1500 Submissions across just three Inquiries.
147 Office of the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment (New Zealand) Submission 194. 51
Table 2.4 Reports and submissions to the RAC.
Inquiry Number of Number of consultant’s submissions reportsa
Kakadu Conservation Zone 22 199
Forest and Timber 31 545
Coastal Zone 20 734
Other (Corporate Policy) 2b na
Notes: na - not applicable (a) Does not match the number of consultants, as a range of consultancies did not produce documentation; (b) One on mediation, a second on valuation techniques.
Sources: RAC Kakadu Conservation Zone Inquiry Final Report, RAC Forest and Timber Inquiry Final Report, RAC Annual Report 1993-94.
The preceding data shows that the Kakadu (Conservation Zone) Inquiry had the smallest staff of the three run by the RAC, received the fewest submissions, and reported in the shortest time (dates are in Table 9.1). It was the only one of the Inquiries not originally envisaged by the Government, but it made the biggest impact of any of the RAC’s work. The Conservation Zone Inquiry
The Minister for Primary Industries had expressed a number of hopes for the RAC in his Second Reading Speech, mentioned earlier. Indeed, the government came close to fulfilling these aims: at one point an announcement was drafted naming Professor Roger Kitching and Dr David James as Special Commissioners to the RAC’s first inquiry, that into the forest and timber industries.148 However, as it happened the government barely fulfilled the first of the Minister’s suggestions and none of the others.
Rather than joining Dr James on the planned Forest and Timber Inquiry, Professor Kitching joined Dr Gregory McColl as Special Commissioners assisting the Honourable Mr Justice Stewart, first (and likely only)149
148 Former Special Commissioner Kitching pers. comm. 1994. 149 The RAC Act was not repealed, so the organisation could, however improbably, be resurrected at some future point. 52 Chairperson of the RAC, to deal with its Kakadu brief. Not only was their Term of Reference not to “Australia’s forests and timber resources”, it was not to an industry at all. Rather, it effectively was to deal with the question of mining at Guratba.150 While the Inquiry did not affect the timing of any Environmental Impact Statement, it was to some extent itself precipitated by one. The Coronation Hill proposal turned out not to be of great significance to either economy or environment, except arguably in symbolic terms.151 In all, the first Inquiry conducted by the RAC was the least suited to the stated purposes of that body.
The Commonwealth government had commenced discussion of a forest resource inquiry in early July 1989, and this was quickly followed by the announcement of preparations for an inquiry into coastal zone resources.152 It was the Conservation Zone Inquiry however that quickly came to dominate the RAC’s early activities, and its public image.
The terms of reference of the inquiry, formally handed to the Commission on 26 April 1990, were
to conduct an inquiry into the use of the resources of the Kakadu Conservation Zone, including Coronation Hill and El Sherana.
The scope of the inquiry shall be to identify and evaluate the options for the use of those resources, including an assessment of:
• the environmental and cultural values of the Conservation Zone;
• the impact of potential mining operations in the Conservation Zone on those values and on the values of Kakadu National Park;
150 The fact that the Kakadu Inquiry was highly focussed - in contrast to the intention of the Resource Assessment Commission - became a major source of criticism. See for example AMIC Submission 178, p.2. 151 Christoff, 1994. Environmental Politics; Knapman and Stanley, 1992. The Economics of Mining Coronation Hill. See the CZFR for discussion. 152 CIE (Centre for International Economics), 1989. The Resource Assessment Commission. Issues for Inquiries; Hawke, 1989. Our Country Our Future. Statement on the Environment. The terms of reference were drafted to concentrate some of the Inquiry’s attention on industry policies and strategies formulated by the Forest and Forest Products Industry Council and Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF). On the one hand one might argue that the forest resources brief represented a kind of neo-corporatism, of the sort described by Downes in his work on Ecologically Sustainable Development: Downes, 1996. Neo- Corporatism and Environmental Policy. On the other hand, it may represent the penetration of the state by interest groups and their preferences, as described by Atkinson and Coleman: Atkinson and Coleman, 1989. The State, Business And Industrial Change In Canada. 53 • the national economic significance of potential mining development in the Conservation Zone;
• the interests of Aboriginals affected by any potential mining development.
Just as the enabling legislation for the RAC defined that institution’s scope more broadly than did the IC legislation, so the IC Inquiry into Mining and Minerals Processing had a more narrowly defined responsibility than did the contemporaneous Conservation Zone Inquiry, being mining industry-based (rather than addressing any possible uses of the relevant resources), and efficiency-based (rather than leaving the criteria for assessing losses and benefits unspecified):
(3) specify that the [Industry] Commission report on any institutional, regulatory or other arrangements subject to influence by governments in Australia which lead to inefficient resource use, and advise on courses of action to reduce or remove such inefficiencies.
(4) without limiting the generality of this reference, request that the Commission examine:
(a) factors affecting minerals exploration and development, including allocation of mineral property rights and construction costs in remote sites;
(b) operating costs such as energy, transport and labour costs (including on-costs) and the availability of these inputs;
(c) other factors such as access to technology and the level of research and development which may be impeding the efficiency, international competitiveness and further development of Australia’s mining and mineral processing industry.
(5) Specify that the Commission: (a) have regard to established social and environmental objectives of governments and ongoing processes, including before the Resource Assessment Commission, (b) consider the structure and efficiency of Commonwealth and State Government resource taxation and royalty arrangements, (c) and provide advice on the economic costs of different approaches to those objectives consistent with an appropriate return to the community for the exploitation of public resources.153
153 Extract from the Terms of Reference of the IC’s Mining and Mineral Processing brief, set 18 October 1989. 54 Indeed, the IC Inquiry report, delivered shortly before the final report of the RAC Inquiry, paid considerable attention to the Coronation Hill case - and reached conclusions almost opposing those of the RAC. This is touched on again in Chapter 9. One of the things however that the IC did not address in anything like the depth as did Justice Stewart was Aboriginal issues.
The legal and cultural significance of Guratba and sacred site registrations in the area turned out to be the most complicated matters the RAC had to consider. In fact the material was handled partly by the running of not one but two Inquiries. This was because the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, Gerry Hand had responded to the NLC’s application for the protection of the Bula Complex under the Commonwealth Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Heritage Protection Act by ordering an Inquiry pursuant to Section 10(4) of that Act. This Inquiry, initiated in February 1990, was also chaired by Justice Stewart. Its purpose was to determine whether the Commonwealth Minister of Aboriginal Affairs might need to act under Section 10(1) of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Heritage Protection Act to protect sites that had been identified by the NLC as potentially threatened. Section 10(1) of the Act states
Where the Minister -
(a) receives an application made orally or in writing by or on behalf of an Aboriginal or a group of Aboriginals seeking the preservation or protection of a specified area from injury or desecration;
(b) is satisfied -
(i) that the area is a significant Aboriginal area: and
(ii) that it is under threat of injury or desecration;
(c) has received a report under sub-section (4) in relation to the area from a person nominated by him and has considered the report and any representations attached to the report; and
(d) has considered such other matters as he thinks relevant, he may make a declaration in relation to the area.154
The 10(4) Inquiry was thus intended to handle the legal question of the particular significance of the site to Aboriginals (not whether or not it was a
154 Cited in Stewart, 1991. Report to the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs on the Kakadu Conservation Zone, under the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Heritage Protection Act 1984, p.3. 55 sacred site).155 The Conservation Zone Inquiry in contrast focussed on the impacts of different uses of the Zone, including impacts on Aboriginal people. Ministerial decisions pursuant to either of the Inquiries had the potential fundamentally to affect land use in the area.
Although the RAC was not required to hold public hearings, the Commission considered consultative processes to be central to its effective operation.156 To this end, 16 days of hearings were held, in Canberra, the Northern Territory, Brisbane, and Sydney. The hearings at which representations were made by or on behalf of Aboriginal people included those at Darwin on 19 September, UDP Falls (Sleisbeck) on 20 November, and El Sherana on 21 November 1990.157 199 written submissions were received, while the transcripts of the hearings ran to some 1681 pages. In addition to the submissions and hearings, a range of other meetings and workshops were held to facilitate the RAC’s various tasks. These included meetings with Ministers of the Northern Territory Government, representatives of federal Government departments and other interested parties such as the ACF, extensive consultations with the CHJV, and workshops of relevant specialists and stakeholders on consultancies such as the contingent valuation study.158
The draft report of the Conservation Zone Inquiry was released at a public hearing in Darwin on February 8, 1991. The Draft report primarily presented information gathered by the Commission both from participants in the Inquiry and from research the RAC itself had initiated. It set out points of view expressed by different actors on the issues involved, and concluded with a broad statement of options for the use of the Zone. These were:
for mining to proceed at Coronation Hill, and either [sic]
• the remainder of the Zone to become part of Kakadu National Park, or
155 Stewart gave extensive consideration to the meaning of “particular” in this context and concluded that he was required to report on the significance of the site to Aboriginals, rather than whether there was attached to the site an unusual degree of significance. Stewart, 1991. Report to the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs on the Kakadu Conservation Zone, under the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Heritage Protection Act 1984, Chapter 3. 156 Resource Assessment Commission, 1990. Kakadu Conservation Zone Inquiry Background Paper; Resource Assessment Commission, 1990. Resource Assessment Commission Annual Report 1989- 90. 157 CZFR. 158 CZFR Appendix D. 56 • the remainder of the Zone to remain a conservation zone, but no further mineral exploration to be permitted until experience at Coronation Hill has been evaluated, or
• further mineral exploration to be permitted in the remainder of the Zone, any proposals for mining to be considered when appropriate information is available, including assessments of the impacts of such proposals on the cultural and natural environment, assessment of their economic significance, and evaluation of experience at Coronation Hill;
for mining not to proceed at Coronation Hill, and either
• the whole of the Zone to become part of Kakadu National Park, or
• further mineral exploration to be permitted in the remainder of the Zone, any proposals for mining to be considered when appropriate information is available, including assessments of the impacts of such proposals on the cultural and natural environment, and assessment of their economic significance.159
The RAC then set out a range of key issues to be considered in choosing between the options:
• the economic potential of mining developments;
• the interests of Aboriginal people; and
• environmental issues.
The RAC had been charged to consider several principles in evaluating options, and the Report itself notes,
the breadth of these considerations and the possible trade-offs between them account for much of the difficulty in the task of determining the best choices to make in relation to the use of the resources of the Conservation Zone.160
The RAC nevertheless sent two fairly clear signals: first, it implicitly rejected the argument that Coronation Hill was a litmus test of federal mining policy that would detrimentally affect investor confidence and the future of exploration in Australia. Second, in a brief section on “possible conclusions” the Commission stated
159 CZDR pp.129-130. 160 CZDR p.138. 57 ...a decision to mine would be contrary to the wishes of the senior Aboriginal men with responsibility for the area in which mining would take place and contrary to the wishes of the majority of the Jawoyn people. For these reasons the Australian Government faces the following choice: either it can set aside the strongly held and expressed wishes of the Aboriginal community associated with the area and the risks to the natural environment, and opt for the economic gains that would follow from proceeding with the Coronation Hill project; or it can forgo these economic gains...161
The Commission did not change this view in the three months of revision that led to the release of the final report, on 7 May 1991. That report set out the options more clearly, including an attempt to itemise (if not quantify) the gains and losses in each case. In addition to presenting the government with the options, the Commission also made recommendations about the fate of the Zone, and things that should be done in the case of taking each option.
The only significant changes to the options it presented for use of the Zone were its new Options F and G:
No mining or exploration in the Conservation Zone until the Aboriginal custodians request it.
The Conservation Zone to remain a conservation zone but no further exploration or mining to be permitted until the outcome of the Kakadu Stage 3 Land Claim is known.162
The first of these two new options reflected what NT Senator Bob Collins and others had argued, after the release of the draft report, was the most consistent policy response to Aboriginal opposition, assuming environmental management was not a serious obstacle to mining.163 Both options reflected the RAC’s developing awareness of the legal and institutional obstacles Aboriginal opposition to mining would represent to any attempt to approve mining in the Conservation Zone (explored in detail in Chapter 9).
In its Final Report, the Inquiry repeated its contention that Coronation Hill was a special case, and this position might have reduced the incentive for the government to make a decision in favour of mining. The RAC’s recommendations certainly provided a few reasons to decide against it. The
161 CZDR p.137. 162 CZFR pp.xxxiii-xxxiv. 163 Kim Stanton-Cook Submission 1; anon, 1991. Hard decision on Kakadu required; anon, 1991. Kakadu's prickly puzzle; Grattan, 1991. Senator to challenge report on Kakadu. 58 recommendations included, if mining were to proceed, expediting the Kakadu Stage 3 Land Claim, providing legal and administrative assistance to the Jawoyn, and ensuring that high environmental standards be imposed.164 To do this, the RAC suggested establishing an independent Commonwealth authority to monitor and regulate development, and putting in place a range of mechanisms to do this successfully, steps the CHJV had resisted.165 It also recommended requiring CHJV to backfill the mine pit after operations, an action CHJV had already explicitly rejected as “not an option”.166 These proposals were hardly the kind of green light CHJV would have been hoping for, and a strategy that, if fully adopted, would impose considerable costs on the Commonwealth and the companies.167
The timing of the report’s release was not auspicious. Its content became caught up in leadership and factional tensions within the Labor party. When it went to Cabinet most ministers seemed ready to opt for mining, though whether they supported the range of recommendations put by the RAC is unclear.168 Many remained as skeptical as the mining industry about the sacred significance of the area. But Hawke, normally relaxed in his role of chair of Cabinet,169 was impassioned about the issue and needed a win in Cabinet after the leadership spill earlier in the year.170 He may also have been motivated by a desire to avoid repeating his Government’s failure to achieve important land rights objectives in the 1980s,171 and by a desire to reconcile with his son, an activist for Aboriginal rights during that same period.172 Hawke argued strongly against mining and after several hours, had his way.173 The option favoured by Bob Collins (and the RAC’s option F) - that mining take place only with Aboriginal consent - was abandoned and the Zone transferred to the National Park.
164 CZFR p.xxv. 165 CHJV Submission 49. 166 CHJV Submission 49, p.33. 167 The companies involved clearly saw these costs coming, with Newmont writing down the Coronation Hill asset significantly in its report on operations to December 31 1990. anon, 1991. Coronation Hill write-down snags Newmont. 168 Garran and Kitney, 1991. PM forces Cabinet into Kakadu ban; Hawke, 1994. The Hawke Memoirs. 169 Little, 1989. Leadership Styles: Fraser and Hawke. 170 Parkinson and Downie, 1991. Cabinet likely to back PM on Coronation Hill veto. 171 Kolig, 1987. The Noonkanbah Story; Libby, 1989. Hawke's Law. The Politics of Mining and Aboriginal Land Rights in Australia. 172 Hawke and Gallagher, 1989. Noonkanbah; Trioli, 1991. Coronation Hill may be PM's answer to his son. 173 Garran and Kitney, 1991. PM forces Cabinet into Kakadu ban; Grattan and Peake, 1991. Hawke gets his way on Kakadu; Hartcher, 1991. Bob Versus Bob in Five-Hour Bula Session. 59 The RAC’s first report was not regarded as highly as the RAC would have wished. In a thinly veiled criticism of the treatment of the report, the Commission was later to remark
The Commission’s report prompted considerable discussion. Interested parties continued to express their points of view and made reference to selected parts of the Inquiry’s report to support their cases.174
In June 1995, nearly six years after lodgement, Aboriginal Land Commissioner Justice Peter Gray recommended the grant of the Gimbat and Goodparla leases, now Kakadu Stage III, to the Jawoyn people.175 In so doing he reversed the findings with respect to Areas 4 and 5 of the Jawoyn Katherine Area Land Claim handed down by Kearney 8 years earlier.
On the 31st of January 1996, the Federal government handed the lands back to the Jawoyn people.176 In the same week, CHJV was granted leave to take their appeals for compensation over the affair, which had been fought for years in the Federal Court, to the High Court.177 In 1997 the Court narrowly (4-3) found in favour of Newcrest.178 Unfortunately, of the 25 Mining Leases that were the subject of the successful appeal, the High Court upheld the validity of 23: MLNs 23, 25-28, 78-89, and 751-756. The exact site of the proposed mine, however, lay within MLN19,which along with MLN24 was declared invalid. BHP and Newcrest were left to consider whether they would pursue compensation or the right to mine on the valid leases, while the Commonwealth was left contemplating the implications of the finding for any future land acquisitions, such as those for conservation purposes.179 The Coronation Hill mine proposal, however, was finally defunct.
174 Resource Assessment Commission, 1991. Resource Assessment Commission Annual Report 1990- 91, p.32. 175 Aboriginal Land Commissioner (Justice Gray), 1996. Jawoyn (Gimbat Area), Land Claim no. 111, Alligator Rivers Area III (Gimbat Resumption - Waterfall Creek) (no. 2), Repeat Land Claim no. 142 : Report and Recommendation of the Aboriginal Land Commissioner, Justice Gray, to the Minister for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs and to the Administrator of the Northern Territory. 176 Ceresa, 1996. Tickner returns land to Jawoyn. 177 Lane, 1996. Mine ban case to be reopened. The cases had included: Newcrest Mining (WA) Ltd and BHP Minerals Ltd v. The Commonwealth of Australia and the Director of National Parks and Wildlife: (1993) 119 ALR 423 (1993) 46 FCR 342; The Commonwealth of Australia & The Director of National Parks and Wildlife v. Newcrest Mining (WA) Ltd and BHP Minerals Ltd (1995) 130 ALR 193. 178 Newcrest Mining (WA) Ltd v. The Commonwealth of Australia (1997) FC97/036 Online: http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/cases/cth/high_ct/unrep339.html, accessed November 1998. 179 Lunn, 1997. Kakadu damages payout unknown. 60 Issues discussed in the Inquiries
While the Draft Environmental Impact Statement had raised a wide variety of issues concerning the soundness of the proposed Coronation Hill mine, some of these faded in importance during the course of the RAC’s investigations, while others increasingly exercised the minds of Commissioners and participants alike. This section summarises the most important problems facing the Conservation Zone Inquiry: the nature of Aboriginal interests in the Zone; whether environmental risks could effectively be managed; and the impact of the decision on mining and the economy. Aboriginal interests
The principal concern for the Inquiry became Aboriginal interests in the Conservation Zone. These interests were focussed on the Jawoyn people’s Bula Dreaming. In the Sickness Country, the Jawoyn tell us, lies the ancestral being Bula or Nargorkun.180 Nargorkun, according to Arndt,
made the features of the earth, and the people. He made the ground crack, made fire come out and pushed rocks and ridges up to their present elevations... He then made the trees, animals and people.
Normally, Nargorkun was a short, thick-set man with short arms and legs. He was circumcised... and wore a feather head-dress. He carried a stone axe with which he made lightning... He... put his laws for the people on many rock faces in the form of paintings.
Nargorkun was bitten on the knee by Palmura, the mud-dauber hornet, which caused him to swell up into all manner of monstrous shapes. He became very sick and thirsty and was so badly crippled that he had to crawl on hands and knees to move about... He crawled... to Yeleamukmoo, the Sickness Cave... He left his story and shades on the walls of the Sickness Cave, and a damp rock on the floor, before entering the ground to rest peacefully. He will remain there harmless and peaceful unless disturbed by excessive noise. If disturbed he will wake up and by rising he will split the world and destroy it.181
180 CZFR p.170; Maddock, 1986. Yet Another 'Sacred Site' - The Bula Controversy, p.122. 181 Arndt, 1962. The Nargorkun-Narlinji Cult, p.304. See also Maddock, 1986. Yet Another 'Sacred Site' - The Bula Controversy, p.122. 61 Thus earthquakes for example are attributed to Nargorkun.182 The ‘sickness country’ comprises a range of sites visited by Nargorkun which are connected. They are not isolated locations so much as “smudges” on the map: points out from which radiates the influence of Nargorkun/Bula. Bula is
...an ‘essence’ within the earth. The concept of essence (ngan-mol) is associated with bodily fluids and products: blood, semen, urine and faeces. In the Jawoyn language the term has come to refer to the minerals that non-Aboriginals mine. People are connected to Bula through their bodily essence; through this connection Bula is able to detect wrongdoing and to punish offenders by causing sickness and deformity.183
Coronation Hill is also known as Guratba, a word referring to “the string used by Bula to bind his spear head... [Bula] does not lie there, but only “came through”.” Guratba is a place where Bula made wild rope.184 The gold ore there is linked to the ngan-mol of Bula. To mine Guratba could break Bula’s laws, so Aboriginal people were concerned that to dig there would “ruin our lives - a lot of people’s lives”;185 “If you dig there, something will happen. The people will die.”186 Previous disturbances in the area were claimed to have been detrimental to Aboriginal communities. Specifically, some Jawoyn associated an outbreak of Hookworm anaemia with the disturbance of Bula by blasting at Ngartluk (Sleisbeck) during the period of uranium mining.187 It has also been reported that Jawoyn people associated earth tremors in 1987 and 1988 with more recent exploration.188 Generally, over the period of settlement and mining Aboriginal societies have been weakened by separation from traditional lands,189 by disease, and by alcohol and opium use.190 The most
182 Josif, 1988. Report on the social and cultural effects of the proposed Coronation Hill project and the Conservation Zone upon the Jawoyn and other effected Aborigines, p.10; Maddock, 1988. God, Caesar and Mammon at Coronation Hill; Maddock, n.d. Report on Bula, pp.7-8. 183 CZFR p.170. 184 CZFR2 p.306. 185 CZFR pp.177-8; David Blanthi, Transcripts p.690; see also Josif, 1988. Report on the social and cultural effects of the proposed Coronation Hill project and the Conservation Zone upon the Jawoyn and other effected Aborigines, p.12; Maddock, n.d. Report on Bula, p.8. Roy Anderson stated “We do not want that Coronation Mine... I think very bad for us, you know, people... for the kids... Might get lot of sore, you know, sore. Get sore.” Transcripts p.688. 186 Smith, Transcripts p.710. 187 CZFR p.170; Arndt, 1962. The Nargorkun-Narlinji Cult. 188 Josif, 1988. Report on the social and cultural effects of the proposed Coronation Hill project and the Conservation Zone upon the Jawoyn and other effected Aborigines, p.10. 189 Aboriginal Land Commissioner (Justice Kearney), 1988. Jawoyn (Katherine Area) Land Claim. Report by the Aboriginal Land Commissioner, Justice Kearney, to the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs and to the Administrator of the Northern Territory. cited in CZFR p.160. 190 NLC (1980) Alligator Rivers Stage II Land Claim, cited in CZFR2 pp.283-84. 62 serious claims have been that an increase in the death rate amongst Jawoyn was attributable to the CHJV’s activities at Guratba.191
The Bula story appears very important to the Jawoyn and other Aboriginal people in the Arnhem region.192
The story we believe is not in a little book or a comic, or whatever, not in the video or cassette player. The story is on the mind what has been left from the beginning, earlier, of all people been live that really very important, should not be touched.193
A range of rules were set out by Nargorkun for social organisation, and for the proper government of the country by the Jawoyn. These included guides to the animals available for hunting, guidelines for permissible social interactions, and partial prohibitions on certain places and ceremonies.194 Some ceremonies, including the annual ceremony at the Sickness Place, an important site on the South Alligator,195 were performed every year in memory of Bula, and while the rituals are no longer performed, songs are still sung, and custodians retain familiarity with the sacred sites of the sickness country.
The expressions of belief by Jawoyn people have changed or been stimulated by new experiences and pressures on them:
In recent years an unusually high level of explanation has been both stimulated among and demanded of senior Jawoyn people because of the opportunities and pressures associated with investigations by numerous individuals and groups.196
In particular there was
191 Jawoyn Association, 1989. Just Sweet Talk, p.10; Josif, 1988. Report on the social and cultural effects of the proposed Coronation Hill project and the Conservation Zone upon the Jawoyn and other effected Aborigines, p.10. 192 Robert Lee stated that a wide range of “tribes” are affected by the “Bula dreaming”: “from Arnhem, South Arnhem, Barunga, Beswick, Katherine, Eva Valley, Bulman people...” Transcripts p.672. Lee stated that at a meeting at Barunga (3 October 1990), Jawoyn elders and spokesmen Peter Jatbula, Sandy Barraway and Nipper Brown asked and received the support of around 60 male elders from these groups for opposing the proposed Coronation Hill mine. Transcripts p.672. 193 Willie Martin, Transcripts p.692. 194 Arndt, 1962. The Nargorkun-Narlinji Cult. 195 The site comprises the Sickness Waterhole, Igoilumu, the Sickness Road, Kordabalbal, and the Sickness Cave, Yeliamakmu. Arndt, 1962. The Nargorkun-Narlinji Cult, pp.305-306. 196 CZFR p.174. 63 sustained attention on the meanings and locations of Bula as a totality, instead of with respect to single sites or threats... Mining activity was seen as uniquely threatening, a danger to sites at great distances.197
Senior Jawoyn men have “consistently linked the gold ore to the bodily substance of Bula and his wives”198 and this interpretation, while obviously following the introduction of the concept of mineral ore, “pre-dates meetings between Jawoyn people and CHJV.”199
In the years since land rights and sacred site legislation were introduced and gold was discovered in the region, anthropological investigations and negotiations between mining companies and Aboriginal people became intensive. The fact that the most readily documented features of the cult, the rituals, were no longer conducted made the documentation and assessment of the cult and its sites for legal and development purposes particularly problematic. Controversy surrounding these attempts to make such assessments culminated in the Northern Territory government establishing a review of its own Sacred Sites Authority, and very public attacks by anthropologists on a consultant, Mr Stephen Davis.200 Debate about what constituted sacred sites, who should decide their fate, and on what criteria, became key matters for both the 10(4) Inquiry and the RAC’s Conservation Zone Inquiry.
The mining industry argued that the Bula Cult was not genuine, or that the protection of the Sickness Country under the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Heritage Protection Act was inappropriate.201 They emphasised the Northern Territory’s responsibilities for sacred sites and criticised Commonwealth duplication of activity.202 They considered that the matter had been dealt with
197 Levitus, 1990. Historical Perspective, p.27. See Submission 77 Appendix 1. 198 Stewart, 1991. Report to the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs on the Kakadu Conservation Zone, under the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Heritage Protection Act 1984, p.89. 199 Stewart, 1991. Report to the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs on the Kakadu Conservation Zone, under the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Heritage Protection Act 1984, p.87. 200 Maddock documents these attacks and the media’s response in Maddock, 1986. Yet Another 'Sacred Site' - The Bula Controversy. For example, a front-page story in the Northern Territory News (9 July 1986) ran comments including “Head of anthropology at the South Australian Museum, Dr Petter Sutton, said he knew of no museum or university which would employ Mr Davis as an anthropologist.” 201 Stockdale Prospecting Submission 40; Stockdale Prospecting Submission 83; AMIC Submission 50. AMIC and the NT Government went as far as to imply Aboriginal beliefs were illogical and should be corrected or disregarded - NT Government Submission 195, p.33; AMIC Submission 178, p.18. AMIC later apologised for the remark - the NT Government did not: Subject H, former RAC officer, interviews. 202 CHJV Submission 49; AMIC Submission 50. 64 thoroughly on previous occasions, and that newfound ‘opposition’ to mining was a product of interference in Jawoyn affairs by the NLC, white advisors and experts, Inquiries including the RAC, or conservationists.203 The CHJV were satisfied that they could negotiate adequate arrangements with the Jawoyn people, while deferring to the AAPA about procedural matters.204
Two interpretations of Jawoyn beliefs were set out by consultants to the Inquiry and the Northern Territory Government. That set out by Levitus, Merlan, and Keen was of a process of outlining religious belief and elaborating it in response to pressures on the Aboriginal community.205 Thus the significance of sacred sites, the existence of which was known, at the periphery of areas of interest was seldom discussed. This was why the work of Arndt (centred on art sites and ceremonial structures) and of the Katherine land claim (centred to the south and on the relationship between Aboriginal groups and geographical areas) contained few references to the significance of Guratba.206 The sudden attention to Coronation Hill in 1985 led to explanations and assertions of the significance of this site that had hitherto not been the subject of the particular interest of non-Aboriginal people.207 This analysis leads to the conclusion that the site was of significance to the Jawoyn, and this would in turn have consequences for the findings brought by Justice Stewart.
The alternative interpretation of the increased significance attached to Guratba in the late 1980s was based on the work of geographer Stephen Davis, who appeared as a witness for CHJV.208 Davis argued that Jawoyn were involved in a process of territorial expansion by succession, and the elaboration of ‘new’ sacred sites was part of the process of managing these new territories.209 Thus the importance of sites such as Guratba was not based on long-standing myths and rituals but on a cultural and political process of territorial expansion.210
203 Brunton, 1991. Aborigines and Environmental Myths: Apocalypse in Kakadu; Stockdale Prospecting Submission 40; AMIC Submission 178; CHJV Submission to the Industries Assistance Commission Mining and Mineral Processing Inquiry, March 1990. 204 CHDEIS; CHJV Submission 49. 205 Keen and Merlan, 1990. The Significance of the Conservation Zone to Aboriginal People; Levitus, 1990. Historical Perspective; Merlan, 1991. The Limits of Cultural Constructionism: The Case of Coronation Hill. 206 Aboriginal Land Commissioner (Justice Kearney), 1988. Jawoyn (Katherine Area) Land Claim. Report by the Aboriginal Land Commissioner, Justice Kearney, to the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs and to the Administrator of the Northern Territory; Arndt, 1962. The Nargorkun-Narlinji Cult. 207 Levitus, 1990. Historical Perspective, p.29. 208 Transcripts 8 April 1991. 209 AMIC Submission 178. 210 BCA Submission 183. 65 Those who accepted this interpretation argued three consequences. First, it implied that the Jawoyn could not claim protection of sacred sites in the area, as the status of the sites was not traditional nor of ‘particular significance’.211 Second, that it proved that Aboriginal beliefs and communities were flexible, confirming the CHJV’s argument that they could negotiate a satisfactory agreement with the Jawoyn.212 Third, that if the RAC were to accept Jawoyn claims to the area, it would set a precedent for Aboriginal organizations around the country to use such a process to constantly create new land claims through succession into other areas depopulated in historical time.213
The RAC devoted a great deal of effort to this issue: only contingent valuation was to occupy as much of the Commission’s time and energy. Eventually the RAC, in contrast to the IC,214 accepted the analyses of Keen, Merlan and others, hence its clearly worded comments on this debate, in the final report:
The dilemma facing the Australian Government is clear: should it set aside the environmental risks that cannot be eliminated and the strong views held by the Aboriginal people responsible for the Conservation Zone in favour of securing increases in national income of the order that seems likely from the Coronation Hill project...?215 Environmental protection
An issue that was at the forefront of debate at the time the Inquiry was instigated, but which receded somewhat in significance as time passed, was the protection and management of the environment in Stage III of Kakadu. The area was considered to be one of great environmental value both directly and because of its relationship to the World Heritage area to the north. The area showed high levels of biodiversity, and contained a number of rare or endangered species.216 The problems posed for the RAC were whether the site was fragile or of special merit; whether appropriately managed mining would pose an environmental threat to the site or the Park; how any such mining
211 CHJV Representation to Mr Justice Stewart under Section 10(4) Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Heritage Protection Act 4b. See also CZFR pp.31-2. 212 CHJV Submission 120. 213 AMIC Submission 50. 214 Industry Commission, 1991. Mining and Mineral Processing in Australia, V.3. 215 CZFR pp.xxiii-xxiv. 216 Charles-Edwards, 1990. The Ecological Significance of the Conservation Zone within Kakadu National Park and the Potential Impacts of Mining, Exploration and Tourism; Woinarski and Braithwaite, 1990. The Terrestrial Vertebrate Fauna and Vegetation of the Kakadu Conservation Zone: Results of a Field Survey and Interpretation of Available Data. 66 should be conducted; and how mining should be regulated, monitored and rehabilitated.
Some participants considered that the site was of great biological significance. The AHC pointed out that the area was on the Register of the National Estate for its natural, as well as its cultural values.217 Those values included “demonstrated diversity, faunistic abundance and uniqueness.”218 Others argued that whatever the results of the surveys, too little was known about the region generally to assert the special values of the Conservation Zone.219
Some submissions to the Inquiry considered that the risks associated with mining and transport in the Zone were either unacceptably great, or simply unacceptably uncertain, and that they might adversely affect the other uses, especially tourism, to which the Zone might be put.
The [Australian National Parks and Wildlife Service] believes that the effects of potential contamination, regardless of how remote, must be a vital consideration in any decision taken with respect to mining in the Conservation Zone.220
Several participants and consultants emphasised the lack of data about the region. They considered environmental baseline data to be inadequate for either a comparative evaluation of the environmental merits of the Conservation Zone, or monitoring of developments that might take place within that Zone.221
The mining industry argued that modern mining technologies and techniques were such that a mine could easily be secure and profitable in a location such as Coronation Hill.222 They referred to examples such as Ranger in support of their case.223 OSS, a supervisory agency with primary research responsibility in relation to the impact of Ranger on the surrounding region, concurred that CHJV’s proposal could probably be acceptably managed from an environmental point of view.224 The mining companies emphasized that the
217 AHC Submission 76. 218 CSIRO Submission 192. 219 NT Government Submission 74; CHJV Transcripts pp.1535-8 cited in CZFR. 220 Australian National Parks and Wildlife Service Submission 57, p.4. 221 Eg. CSIRO Submission 47; CSIRO Submission 55. 222 Bruce Webb Submission 13; BCA Submission 183; E.D. Kobay Submission 60; NT Government Submission 74; Conran (Secretary, NT Department of Law) Transcripts p.134. 223 Stockdale Prospecting Submission 40; CRA Submission 65. 224 OSS Submission 71. 67 CHJV had put forward a quite sophisticated ‘no release’ model for the management of liquids in the project area,225 and that the Environmental Impact Statement containing the plans had been approved by DASETT.226 While the use of cyanide compounds in the processing of ore had caused concern, it was repeatedly pointed out that the compounds rapidly degraded in the environment.227 They also argued that Australia was well able to deal with the kinds of environmental stresses that are presented by exploration or mining.228
The RAC had to consider whether the project management plan proposed in the Environmental Impact Statement was adequate for the site, or whether alternative mine development and management strategies needed to be implemented. The RAC subscribed to the latter view, and made a number of recommendations to that effect, a position endorsed by a number of relatively independent participants.229
Finally, effective environmental management meant effective monitoring. Some participants considered monitoring to be the most important part of the management regime, and that it could effectively be done.230 Participants in the Inquiry debated whether and how this should be achieved. Should performance bonds be put in place, and how substantial should they be?231 Should there be a special monitoring agency or could the OSS do the job?232 Should monitoring and enforcement be in the hands of the Northern Territory or the Commonwealth?
The issue of exploration in, and prior to declaration of, National Parks was also discussed. The mining industry, concerned about the declining land area
225 CHDEIS; NT Confederation of Industry and Commerce Submission 18. 226 DASETT, 1989. Coronation Hill Gold Platinum and Palladium Proposal. Environmental Assessment Report; Stockdale Prospecting Submission 40. See my earlier remarks critiquing this position. 227 Dames & Moore, 1988. Coronation Hill Gold, Platinum & Palladium Project Draft Environmental Impact Statement; Dames & Moore, 1989. Coronation Hill Gold, Platinum & Palladium Project Final Environmental Impact Statement Supplement; Stockdale Prospecting, Submission 40. 228 Gould, CRA, Transcripts, p.1102. 229 CZFR; CSIRO Submission 192; OSS Submission 182. 230 Grahame Webb, Submission 48, pp.27-8, BCA Submission 183. 231 Office of the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment (New Zealand), Submission 194; OSS Submission 182. 232 The RAC’s final report recommended that an agency be established; DPIE considered that the monitoring of impacts by the OSS was already an existing statutory requirement (Submission 80, p.11). Mining companies had problems with OSS generally and wanted it disbanded (Fry, OSS, IC Transcripts pp.1292-1295). 68 available for mineral exploration, suggested that multiple-use models of land management for conservation purposes be promoted.233 The South Australian model was repeatedly mentioned in this respect.234 In particular they advocated the conduct of exploration in an area prior to decisions about its future use. This raised a couple of questions in the inquiry: who would conduct the exploration, given the lack of a guarantee of the right to mine in the event of minerals being discovered;235 and how would the decision on whether or not to mine any deposits found be made? The Commonwealth Department of Primary Industries and Energy (DPIE) commented in their submission
The community should be able to decide whether or not it wishes to accept the opportunity cost of not exploiting particular deposits in environmentally sensitive areas.236
As one of the Commissioners asked in response, “let us accept that as a fine point of principle but how are you going to do that?”237
Apart from discussions of conservation values and risk management, the RAC contributed to the environmental debate by commissioning Australia’s most expensive contingent valuation study. Contingent valuation, a technique of microeconomic analysis, was experimented with as a means of filling in some gaps in a cost-benefit analysis of the proposed development in Kakadu. The technique, and the issues it raised, is the subject of analysis in Chapters 4 and 5. Development of the mining industry
The RAC’s Conservation Zone Inquiry was in something of a difficult position in its discussion of mining industry development. On the one hand the industry criticised the Inquiry’s terms of reference as too narrow,238 but at the same time, Coronation Hill was said to be a test case for government policy concerning the ground rules for exploration that would have general effects on investment if the decision went against mining.239 Simultaneously, experts
233 CRA Submission 65. 234 Morozow, 1990. Legislated Multiple Land Use in South Australia; Newland, 1989. Exploring the Multiple Land Use Concept - a South Australian Model; DPIE, Submission 80; Australian Petroleum Exploration Association (APEA), Submission 53. 235 AMIC Submission 50; Hartwell, DPIE, Transcripts p.1022. 236 DPIE Submission 80, p.15, cited in Transcripts p.1026. 237 Kitching, Transcripts p.1026. 238 Ellis, BHP, IC Transcripts p.1348; AMIC Submission 50. 239 Normandy Resources Submission 33; Stockdale Prospecting Submissions 40, 83; NT Chamber of Mines Submission 43; APEA Submission 53; North Broken Hill Peko Submission 54; Adams, NT Department of Mines and Energy, Transcripts p.127. 69 submitted that exploration expenditure was already falling, due to the damage already done before the reference was submitted to the RAC.240 This all made for a difficult range of claims for the RAC to untangle.
The starting point for debate about whether Coronation Hill was needed or desirable was the Joint Ministerial Statement of 1986 that indicated that “only mining projects of major economic significance, not merely economic viability” could expect to be approved in the Conservation Zone.241 Participants were divided on the matter of the “national economic significance” of the mine. Some argued that the average size of the mine, the small proportion of Australian gold production represented by its output, and the minute impact of the project on the national economy, all meant that the project was not of national significance.242 Others argued that the ‘strategic’ value of having an Australian source of platinum group metals warranted granting the mine such significant status.243 Still others considered that the national economic significance stemmed not from the mine’s production value, but from the value of the Cabinet decision and the precedent it would set.244 Some economic analysts argued that any project with a cost-benefit ratio greater than one should be considered significant and proceed subject to appropriate guidelines.245 Finally it was pointed out by some participants that just as choosing “national economic significance” as a criteria of importance was a political judgement, so should be the judgement of whether this particular
240 McIntosh, AMIC, Transcripts p.615; Gould, CRA, Transcripts p.1098. 241 See Joint Ministerial Statement, Stage 3 Extension of Kakadu National Park, 16 December 1986. The interpretation of terms became an issue because in the Ministerial Statement it was indicated that only mines of “major economic significance” would be allowed to proceed in the Zone, while the Terms of Reference required the RAC to make an evaluation of the “national economic significance” of any mining in the Zone. 242 The Wilderness Society, 1989. Response to the CHJV Coronation Hill Draft EIS; Irina Dunn Submission 3; ACF Submission 97; Ellis, BHP, IC Transcripts p.1361. 243 Gregory MacDonald Submission 16; Adams, NT Department of Mines and Energy, Transcripts p.139; McIntosh, AMIC, Transcripts p.612. ABARE’s representatives explicitly rejected this ‘strategic mineral’ argument used by some to support mining the Coronation Hill deposit. 244 Hartwell, DPIE, Transcripts p.1015. DPIE observed that the argument that Coronation Hill would set a precendent was a product of high levels of perceived uncertainty in the industry in the years preceding the inquiry. They did not comment on whether the inquiry did in fact represent such an important precedent. 245 Lawrence, ABARE, Transcripts p.1056. This position does however appear directly to contradict the Joint Ministerial Statement’s point that “merely economic viability” would not be sufficient reason for mining to be permitted. 70 project met that criterion, a view with which Commissioner Stewart appeared to concur.246
The unremarkable economics of the proposal belied the intensity of debates over its fate. CHJV itself was concerned about the profitability of the project, while others agreed it was not a large mine in any sense.247 Jerry Ellis, CEO of BHP Minerals, called it
...a tiny little hill..., a single, small, almost insignificant project. I mean, it has got publicity way beyond its economic significance...248
The reason it attracted such publicity was because of the possibility that the Coronation Hill decision would affect investor confidence and investment in the mining industry nationally. The potential impact on industry and investment was regarded as widespread:
APEA acknowledges that the... present Inquiry may appear, at first glance, to be somewhat removed from the “upstream” petroleum industry. However, any recommendations which the Inquiry may make on general policies and procedures for the determination of environmental and other public resource use issues will have the potential to affect access to prospective areas of land and sea...249
Many mining companies as well as their representative associations submitted that the decision would affect their exploration plans, as well as having already affected exploration expenditure.250 Others suggested the potential for such behaviour was more constrained than was being implied, and may be tactical in function.251 Some participants considered that experience indicated such claims to be of doubtful validity.252 There is an extensive literature that addresses the
246 Conran, NT Department of Law, Transcripts p.140; Stewart, Transcripts pp.140-141. This view was applied more broadly by Gould of CRA, who argued “The industry does not dispute that the government can set particular rules. We would argue that they might not be appropriate, but the community can set certain rules after thinking the issue through.” Transcripts p.1111. Commissioner McColl eventually decided - understandably - that the term “national economic significance” had little analytical significance, if only because of the lack of agreement as to what it denoted. McColl, Transcripts p.1301. 247 CHJV Submission 49; CRA Submission 65. 248 Ellis, BHP, IC Transcripts p.1361 249 Australian Petroleum Exploration Association (APEA) Submission 53, p.1. 250 APEA Submission 53; BCA Submission 183; BHP-Utah Submission 154; CRA Submission 65; MIM Holdings Submission 151 251 Office of the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment (New Zealand), Submission 194; Ledgar, ECNT, Transcripts p.1322. 252 Office of the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment (New Zealand), Submission 194. 71 problem of public policy-making and investor behaviour, and it is the main subject of Chapter 8. Conclusion
This Chapter has set out in detail the history of the Coronation Hill case, locating it in particular in the context of the operations of the RAC. This will allow detailed treatment of the issues raised during the Coronation Hill debate: issues that have been repeated across natural resource conflicts in Australia, and around the world. At the heart of these issues, I argued in Chapter 1, are competing opinions about what policy framework best suits resolution of environmental concerns.
Before I move to considering what the Coronation Hill case can tell us about the use of policy theory to deal with the rise of environmental issues, I need to explain the choice of case study methodology, and the choice of case. I also need to outline the methods of data collection and analysis. It is to these methodological concerns I now turn. 72 Chapter 3 Methods
Political science is a field in which there is a significant “discontinuity between theory and research”253 and a wide range of theories are available even within a sub-field such as business-government relations.254 It may not quite be an area in which “anything goes”,255 but it is certainly taking some significant methodological turns, whether as a result of the encounter with post- structuralist thought or the desire to replace behaviourist and positivist methodologies with others less well defined.256
If this thesis were to be viewed from the perspective of a debate between positivism/objectivism and relativism, it might be thought to fall somewhat between two stools. On the one hand it engages in hypothesis testing and at times utilises quantitative research techniques including descriptive statistics to achieve its objectives. On the other, it is case-oriented and narrative based, using qualitative methods from historical traditions, such as the analysis of archival records and transcripts, and semi-structured interviews. My thesis is positivist in the sense that it is premised on “the positivist assumption that descriptive concepts are simply a first stage toward the test of explanatory hypotheses”.257 Yet it is relativist in its emphasis on contextual interpretation of the case data,258 its central conclusions about the cultural construction of environmental problems, and its emphasis on the importance of institutional design in determining institutional success in specific circumstances.259 In these ways, this thesis might seem methodologically unorthodox.
253 Boynton, 1982. On Getting from Here to There: Reflections on Two Paragraphs and Other Things, p.30. 254 See for example Head and Bell, 1994. Understanding the Modern State: Explanatory Approaches. 255 Feyerabend, 1975. Against Method, p.3. 256 Fischer and Forester, 1993. The Argumentative Turn in Policy Analysis and Planning; Ostrom, 1982. Strategies of Political Inquiry. 257 Silverman, 1985. Qualitative Methodology and Sociology, p.95. 258 Dryzek, 1993. Policy Analysis and Planning: From Science to Argument. 259 Hooker, 1983. On Deep Versus Shallow Theories of Environmental Pollution; Ostrom, 1990. Governing the Commons. The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action. 73 Looked at, however, from the point of view of how theory testing takes place in the social sciences (particularly sociology and political science), my research is clearly located in the case study tradition. It utilises in-depth material to explore significant general questions in the field of public policy, particularly with respect to natural resources policy decision-making. This is done mostly based on a single-case narrative,260 though also using comparative techniques in particular contexts.261 Analytic induction
The case study approach used in this thesis is grounded in the technique of analytic induction, as summarised by Silverman, from the work of Denzin, and prefigured in the writing of Znaniecki.262 Analytic induction is a technique that focusses on a particular case or cases, and is premised on the idea that some case or outcome is in some way “the only really interesting outcome.”263 The origins of analytic induction, such as in the work of Lindesmith on opium addiction, lie in circumstances where it seems worth using a small sample to seek ‘negative cases’ that allow rejection of hypotheses about social phenomena, and the subsequent positing of alternative hypotheses.264 The technique is Popperian or critically rationalist, in its reliance on refutation as the key to advancing scientific explanation.265
Denzin suggested that analytic induction would proceed by using a first case to test and reject an initial hypothesis. Having thus found that first hypothesis wanting, the case study results would be used to revise the hypothesis, which would then be tested against a second case.266 In this way, cases would be investigated serially, in order to improve the explanation of the phenomenon in question. Rather than proceeding serially (in the manner suggested by Denzin), this thesis uses the initial case as one case which allows the rejection or modification of several hypotheses (in this case, contained in the Pigouvian, Coasian, and ecological approaches) about potential avenues for improving
260 Abbott, 1992. What do Cases do? Some Notes on Activity in Sociological Analysis. 261 See, eg, George, 1979. Case Studies and Theory Development: The Method of Structured, Focused Comparison. 262 Denzin, 1970. The Research Act: A Theoretical Introduction to Sociological Methods; Silverman, 1985. Qualitative Methodology and Sociology. See also Znaniecki, 1934. The Method of Sociology. 263 Becker, 1998. Tricks of the Trade. How to Think About Your Research While You're Doing It. 264 Lindesmith, 1947. Opiate Addiction. 265 Popper, 1959. The Logic of Scientific Discovery. 266 Denzin, 1970. The Research Act: A Theoretical Introduction to Sociological Methods. 74 natural resources policy decision-making. This efficient use of the case allows me to rule out some of the suggestions in the literature about how natural resource decision-making processes might best incorporate the issues raised by environmentalism. I then turn to explanations of allocative decision-making that operate at a broader scale (radical and institutional). The case is used to prepare a stronger hypothesis about natural resource allocation institution success or failure for further research. It also allows the refinement of existing explanations of what happened to the RAC.267
One of the advantages of analytic induction is that it requires a theory to contain key testable elements.268 One of Denzin’s reasons for formulating the approach was that some theorists in his field did not do this, creating problems of untestability. It is this problem of untestability, and the conviction that a process of hypothesis refutation is the solution, that links analytic induction to Popper’s approach to scientific method. Popper argued that, in science generally, progress relies on the construction of hypotheses and of tests that attempt to refute them (because a theory can never be conclusively proved, only disproved).269 In political science, this issue underpinned Dahl’s argument in his classic study of power in American decision-making, “Who Governs?”.270 Dahl’s criticism of elite theory as formulated by writers such as Mills was that the elite theory hypothesis “has one very great advantage over many alternative explanations: it can be cast in a form that makes it virtually impossible to disprove.”271
As Denzin and Dahl both suggest, theorists do not always make the key underpinnings of their constructs explicit and amenable to testing. This is true to varying degrees for a number of theories used or challenged in this thesis. I have therefore at times had to take the additional preliminary step of extracting key elements from the work of relevant theorists. Having identified their core claims, I am only then in a position to suggest, and conduct, a test of those claims. To answer the potential criticism that I am setting up a ‘straw man’
267 Becker, 1998. Tricks of the Trade. How to Think About Your Research While You're Doing It. A similar approach is followed by Allison in his work on the Cuban missile crisis, discussed below. Vaughan likewise used the single-case approach in looking at aspects of institutional decision-making in NASA, in relation to the Challenger accident. See eg. Vaughan, 1990. Autonomy, Interdependence, and Social Control: NASA and the Space Shuttle Challenger. 268 Silverman, 1985. Qualitative Methodology and Sociology, p.113. 269 Popper, 1959. The Logic of Scientific Discovery. 270 Dahl, 1961. Who Governs? See also Dahl, 1958. A Critique of the Ruling Elite Model. 271 Dahl, 1958. A Critique of the Ruling Elite Model, p.463. 75 when I identify those core claims, the key points have been drawn from the original works of important authors of the relevant theories. Statements or studies supporting my interpretation of the relevant theories are also outlined from the literature. Again, looking at Dahl’s study, we can see he proceeded in this fashion. He says
First, I shall try to clarify the meaning of the concept “ruling elite” by describing a very simple form of what I conceive to be a ruling elite system. Second, I shall indicate what would be required in principle as a simple, but satisfactory test of any hypothesis asserting that a particular political system is, in fact, a ruling elite system.272
Dahl however was content to accept his own formulation of elite theory. His only citation of elite theorist C. Wright Mills is in discussing some possible “bad tests” of elite theory (in contrast to his own proposed test).273 This study seeks to to be more rigorous, tying the formulation clearly to passages and concepts in the works of the relevant theorists.
In the Chapters which follow the core claim of the theories under discussion are defined using this process, then tested against the case material. Before proceeding to that task, a discussion of the case methodology and the process for collecting information in this thesis is required. Cases The use of cases
How valid are cases? It might be objected that cases are not ‘representative’ in some way. Davis and others for example express concern that public policy study in Australia has been hampered by the extent of case study work that has systematically focussed on “policy change and discontinuity”, thus presenting an inaccurate picture (if any at all) of areas of policy stability and the perhaps more normal operations of organisations.274 This objection is valid only in the trivial statistical sense, because under analytic induction cases are “sampled theoretically”, rather than randomly.275 Wieviorka for example explains how a case may be selected not at random, nor even to be ‘representative’ of something, but because of “what it represents in an abstract or theoretical
272 Dahl, 1958. A Critique of the Ruling Elite Model, p.463. 273 Dahl, 1958. A Critique of the Ruling Elite Model, p.465. 274 Davis et al., 1988. Public Policy in Australia, p.7. 275 Denzin 1970 in Silverman, 1985. Qualitative Methodology and Sociology, p.113. 76 construction.”276 In addition to this ‘sociological’ approach to case selection, to Wieviorka, there is another approach to case study, a historical one, used “to make a diagnosis in history”.277 He argues that these are not mutually exclusive alternatives in constructing a study, but should be recognised as distinct conceptualisations of the case method.
Both historical and sociological explanation emerge out of the work of Wieviorka on terrorism, and Touraine on social movements.278 In my thesis, there is a similar dual function emerging from the analysis of the Coronation Hill/RAC case. Just as Wieviorka’s historical diagnosis posed theoretical questions about the origins of terrorist motivation and behaviour, so the historical analysis of the Coronation Hill/RAC case in turn poses theoretical questions about how established natural resources decision-making institutions deal with new environmental policy pressures.
Two exemplars demonstrate the kind of approach taken in this thesis, both coming from the political science literature (in contrast to most of the methodological texts themselves, which are grounded in history or sociology).
The first is Galligan’s study Utah and Queensland Coal.279 Galligan himself does not explicitly locate his study within the particular methodological framework just described. He sets out a political economy approach, informed by the various theories in political science that emphasise the patterns and significance of business-state relations (neo-Marxism, statism, radical pluralism, and corporatism). This said, however, the construction of his study fits the analytic induction model: it involves case-based analysis to critique theory.
Refutation of conventional theoretical wisdom through in-depth examination of case studies is a theme of Galligan’s work. It is to be found in the Utah study, in which he demonstrates the importance of introducing (neglected) scrutiny of large corporations’ roles in affecting state behaviour (and visa versa). Through such scrutiny, he rejects the ‘resource dependency thesis’ that says that governments in countries like Australia or Canada are beholden to corporate policy preferences.280 He observes instead that from the mineral development
276 Wieviorka, 1992. Case Studies: History or Sociology?, p.161. 277 Wieviorka, 1992. Case Studies: History or Sociology?, p.162. 278 Touraine et al., 1983. Antinuclear Protest: The Opposition to Nuclear Energy in France; Wieviorka, 1992. Case Studies: History or Sociology? 279 Galligan, 1989. Utah & Queensland Coal. 280 Cairns, 1986. The Embedded State: State-Society Relations in Canada; McDougall, 1985. Natural resources and national politics. A look at three Canadian resource industries. 77 process “Queensland has benefited handsomely and has done so by a novel means of its own choosing.”281 He thus proceeds via analytic induction to use the Utah case to reject certain theories of business-state relations (such as traditional Marxist formulations) in favour of other explanations. In that study a statist approach appears more consistent with the case. Similar reasoning is embedded in Galligan’s The Politics of the High Court.282 In this study of judicial review through Australia’s High Court, Galligan likewise uses the case to reject Sawer’s thesis “that Australia is constitutionally speaking a frozen continent”283, and to set out why understanding the Court as an apolitical institution is untenable.
The second exemplar is Allison’s study Essence of Decision. Allison’s study is worth mentioning because, while public policy is a field littered with case- study and small-N comparative studies, Allison’s directly tests and compares the ability of competing theories to contribute to understanding a single case, using the results to then comment on the theories rather than merely on the case itself.284 The study thus, in Wieviorka’s terms, oscillates between making “a diagnosis in history” and illuminating those “theoretical constructions” which led to the choice of case.285
Allison was interested in the Cuban missile crisis because it was “a seminal event”, key elements of which lacked credible explanation.286 Allison pursued in-depth analysis of the crisis to examine whether or not the predominant ‘Rational Actor Model’ of decision-making could explain the important features of the case event. He used interviews and analysis of documentary sources to create a detailed picture of events that led him to conclude that the Rational Actor Model - Model I as he called it - was deficient. He suggested that “although the Rational Actor Model has proved useful for many purposes, there is powerful evidence that it must be supplemented, if not supplanted, by frames of reference that focus on the governmental machine [ie. his Models II and III]”.287
281 Galligan, 1989. Utah & Queensland Coal, p.211. 282 Galligan, 1987. Politics of the High Court. 283 Cited in Galligan, 1987. Politics of the High Court, p.250. 284 Allison, 1971. Essence of Decision. 285 Wieviorka, 1992. Case Studies: History or Sociology?, pp.161-162. 286 Allison, 1971. Essence of Decision, p.1. 287 Allison, 1971. Essence of Decision, p.5. 78 Similarly, this thesis will examine a single case to test several theories about decision-making, in order to suggest some are unsatisfactory, and to explain why. While Allison was studying theories of decision-making processes generally, this thesis examines theories about the organisation of decision- making of particular relevance to environmental issues. As in Allison’s study, this thesis will pursue this analytical inductive approach through the use of interviews and documentary sources. The case, however is quite different: while significant in terms of Australian natural resource decision-making, it is hardly of the importance of the Cuban missile crisis. Why was it chosen? Choice of case
From Allison to Znaniecki, theory-testing through case studies is standard practice, and pivots on the ability of the researcher to choose and defend, as Galligan does at the outset of Utah and Queensland Coal, the theoretical and empirical relevance of the chosen case.288 Why, therefore, Coronation Hill and the RAC?
First, the case needs to be able to be used to expose issues to do with the values underpinning the theoretical frameworks adopted by institutions and actors. Choosing a case that would reveal as much as possible about the bases for conflict between actors would contribute to meeting this need. It would need to expose as far as possible both the value systems upon which the framework for policy making normally relies, and the value systems that may lead to that framework coming under dispute. A relatively open, controversial, public Inquiry initiating or conducting significant research into the issues involved, in an environment where affected parties were claiming the outcome to be a ‘litmus test’ in the policy area, would be likely to approach fulfilling these requirements. The Resource Assessment Commission’s Inquiry was all of these things in a way that is relatively unusual. The majority of materials from the Inquiry are publicly available, including extensive transcripts of discussions between interested parties and the RAC. The issues the Inquiry addressed were as fundamental as:
• when is it ethical to allow market relations to determine distributive outcomes?
288 Allison, 1971. Essence of Decision; Galligan, 1989. Utah & Queensland Coal; Znaniecki, 1934. The Method of Sociology. 79 • what is religion and under what conditions can something be treated as religious belief?
While the fundamental values of actors underpin all of politics, only occasionally are they discussed in so explicit and sustained a manner as occurred over the year of the Conservation Zone Inquiry.
Second, the case needs to typify the nature of debates in the policy area in question. The risk of dealing with an unusual policy problem - such as a national response to the oil crisis of the 1970s - is that a novel policy response that worked in that case might not be generally acceptable. Though interesting, this would be of limited use in addressing the main questions concerning resources decision-making theory posed herein. This is because this thesis is about how different theoretical perspectives can contribute to advancing natural resources decision-making in the context of the rise of environmentalism. It is about the applicability of theories to a certain class of situation, not about the absolute validity of the theories in general. In selecting my case ‘theoretically’, the case study must therefore contain policy problems ‘typical’ of those confronted in the field of natural resources decision-making.
The RAC’s Conservation Zone Inquiry, like its Forests and Timber Inquiry, was suitable for these purposes. One might object that the Coronation Hill controversy was unusual in its persistence and profile. Though the conflict over Coronation Hill was long-running and prominent, the intractability was common amongst natural resources policy problems. Furthermore, several of the resource management debates typical in Australia during the study period were being conducted in connection with Coronation Hill. They included
• whether there was a need for greater economic rationality in environmental decision-making;
• how greater institutionalised predictability in resources decisions could be delivered;
• how resource decision-making could be made more ‘ecologically sustainable’; and
• how important was the connection between resource security and investor confidence? 80 All of these were ongoing and well established issues on the natural resources policy arena in the 1980s and 90s, arising in a whole range of similar contexts.289
Third, the case under investigation needs to be isolated sufficiently from confounding factors in the policy area concerned that uncertainty in interpreting statements, actions and outcomes associated with the particular issue could be reduced. In social studies, achieving such clarity is difficult.290 But it is easier with the RAC’s Conservation Zone Inquiry than with other similar cases. To make clear how unusual the Conservation Zone case is in this respect, it is instructive to compare it with the ostensibly similar Forest and Timber Inquiry.
The Forest and Timber Inquiry was also conducted by the RAC, at a similar point in time, dealing with environmental, economic and industry sustainability issues. Yet researching the Forest and Timber Inquiry would be complicated by several factors. First, forest policy is very much the domain of the States, and there was (and remains) considerable policy development activity at the State level. Contrast this with the Conservation Zone case where, while some actors argued for giving the Northern Territory government greater power, few disputed that the Commonwealth had primary control over and responsibility for policy.291 Second, the Forests and Timber Inquiry was not the only focus of the policy process at the time. There were other federal policy initiatives running concurrently with the Forest and Timber Inquiry that were intended to have a significant bearing on the management of the resource, particularly the Ecologically Sustainable Development Working Groups and the preparation of the National Forest Policy Strategy.292 The interaction of these with RAC deliberations would make interpretation of the actions of major
289 See, for coverage, Doyle and Kellow, 1995. Environmental Politics and Policy Making in Australia; Kelly, 1992. The End of Certainty; Mercer, 1991. A Question of Balance; Walker, 1992. Australian Environmental Policy: Ten Case Studies. 290 See for example Pressman and Wildavsky's study of implementation and the major role it attributes to downstream unenvisaged impacts of actors and policies on policy outcomes. Pressman and Wildavsky, 1984. Implementation: How Great Expectations in Washington are Dashed in Oakland. 291 Including powers over exploration and mining, and powers with respect to protection of aboriginal sites (concurrent with Territory powers in the same respect). Daryl Manzie, 3 October 1989, letter to Gerry Hand; Stewart, 1991. Report to the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs on the Kakadu Conservation Zone, under the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Heritage Protection Act 1984, p.25. 292 Commonwealth of Australia, 1990. Ecologically Sustainable Development. A Commonwealth Discussion Paper; Jolly and McCoy, 1993. Ecologically Sustainable Development and the Fragmentation of Policy: A Critical Review. In fact, the problems with overlapping jurisdiction between the RAC and other institutions, so evident in the Forest and Timber case, becomes a point of discussion in Chapter 9 of the thesis. 81 players more difficult. In contrast in the Conservation Zone case, the RAC Inquiry was really ‘the only game in town’. There was one other Inquiry of relevance at the time, the 10(4) Inquiry. It was however being run by the Chairperson of the RAC and while its terms of reference were quite different, the close relationship between the two293 allows them to be treated together. Third, the Conservation Zone Inquiry had a much clearer focus through its terms of reference294 than did the Forest and Timber Inquiry, making it somewhat easier to interpret actors’ statements.
Finally, using the method of analytic induction, this thesis is concerned with testing theories in a way that requires detailed analysis of institutional procedures and access to evidence about how the application of certain ideas about enviromental issues was undertaken. In terms of documentation, it was therefore useful to be able to deal with an event or events that involved a range of actors, and was visible to and participated in at times by the media and the public. This is not to say that the visible participation of actors is a necessary condition for the establishment or enforcement of, or change in, a policy regime. The very invisibility of debate - and therefore of actors debating - may indicate the presence of a policy regime of significance.295 But good access to people and documents was a necessary condition for the completion of this research, as it was for Galligan, Allison, and for Vaughan, in her studies of the Challenger disaster.296
In addition to following Galligan’s Utah study in the application of the case study method, my choice of case resembles Galligan’s in other ways. Galligan
293 Justice Stewart stated, for example, that “When the Prime Minister announced the [Conservation Zone Inquiry]... he made reference to the overlap between that inquiry and this inquiry. In the conduct of the two inquiries I have been mindful of this inter-relationship, which in my view is of major importance, although it should also be noted that, the overlap notwithstanding, there are certain fundamental differences in the issues under consideration... I have conducted both inquiries as separate but parallel processes. I have made all submissions, representations and evidence from each inquiry available to the other.” Stewart, 1991. Report to the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs on the Kakadu Conservation Zone, under the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Heritage Protection Act 1984, p.x. See also Prime Minister’s statement of 5 October 1989. 294 See Chapter 2. 295 Bachrach and Baratz, 1962. The Two Faces of Power; Crenson, 1971. The Un-politics of Air Pollution: A Study of Non-Decision Making in the Cities. 296 Vaughan, 1989. Regulating Risk: Implications of the Challenger Accident; Vaughan, 1990. Autonomy, Interdependence, and Social Control: NASA and the Space Shuttle Challenger; Vaughan, 1992. Theory Elaboration: the Heuristics of Case Analysis. 82 sketched his choice of the study as having “grown out of a combined research interest in the political economy of mineral resource development and a personal interest in the history and politics of modern Queensland where I grew up.”297 This thesis likewise arose from a research interest in mineral resource development, though in terms of how decision-making in that area ‘coped’ with the rise of environmentalism. This research arose also from a personal interest that flowed from reviewing research connected with the Conservation Zone in the late eighties, and from having had some involvement in early questioning of the integrity of the initial project design. Like Galligan’s study, the Conservation Zone controversy was very much a study in business- government relations and thus useful for studying those relations, but of a different type, and in a different era, to those of the Utah case. Beyond the case
The primary engine driving this thesis is the Coronation Hill case. It is also given impetus by a number of other empirical sources. At several points these are introduced and handled according to the case-study methodology described by George of “structured focussed comparison”.298 Ragin refers to three broad categories of social research: quantitative, comparative, and qualitative.299 Adopting this distinction made by Ragin, structured focussed comparison is to comparative research what analytic induction is to qualitative research. The structured focussed comparison method is used at certain points in the thesis to deal with issues and data particularly amenable to such treatment. These include the evaluation of Dryzek’s analysis of ecological problems in his book Rational Ecology (Chapter 7), and the comparisons of the Ranger and Conservation Zone Inquiries, and of the RAC and the IC, both of which go to the heart of the institutional issues analysed in Chapter 9.
In this case, the choice of comparators once again becomes important. George’s emphasis is on controlling as far as possible the impact of variables in which one is not interested.300 Beyond this quasi-experimental concern, as with analytic induction, theoretical sampling is important to ensure that the results of the analysis ‘speak’ about the theoretical question being confronted in the
297 Galligan, 1989. Utah & Queensland Coal, p.xv. 298 George, 1979. Case Studies and Theory Development: The Method of Structured, Focused Comparison. 299 Ragin, 1994. Constructing Social Research. 300 George, 1979. Case Studies and Theory Development: The Method of Structured, Focused Comparison. See also Kellow, 1988. Australian Federalism: the Need for New Zealand (as well as Canadian) Comparisons. 83 thesis.301 For example, in the Chapter on ecological analysis, the question is whether ecological problems are different to other problems in the manner claimed by Dryzek.302 This can be tested in terms of the ability of institutions to address each type of problem. To test this therefore, one needs examples of an ecological and a non-ecological problem, suitable for comparison in terms of their features (a procedure set out in more detail in Chapter 7). As a result comparison is made between the treatment of an ecological and a non- ecological issue by the one institution (the RAC), in order to eliminate the possibility that variation in the competence of treatment of issues is a result of variation in competence between institutions, while the comparison is made between issues addressed by one Inquiry to avoid such confounding variables as temporal variation in expertise in dealing with issues. Choice of theories
In addition to the choice, the choice of theoretical approaches is also important if analytic induction is to be used. As I outlined in Chapter 1, in this thesis I examine the application of property rights (Coasian), market-based (Pigouvian), ecological, radical, and institutional theories that can be applied to natural resource decision-making processes. Why not others? There are two ways of explaining aspects of cases such as that of Coronation Hill and the RAC’s operations that are prominent in the literature but which do not figure prominently in this thesis. These are classic pluralist argument, and analysis of the impact of Australian federalism on environmental policy issues.
A classic pluralist conception of resources policy interprets policy outcomes as products of the pressure exercised by social interests on the state.303 The ebb and flow of group demands will be reflected in policy responses. The development of this argument ranges from relatively simple behaviouralist test of influences on urban development,304 to the more structurally informed studies of the role of organised interests in influencing American environmental, occupational health and safety, and consumer protection policy.305 There are several reasons this line of analysis is not pursued directly.
301 Glaser and Strauss, 1967. The Discovery of Grounded Theory: Strategies for Qualitative Research; Ragin, 1994. Constructing Social Research. 302 Dryzek, 1987. Rational Ecology: Environment and Political Economy. 303 Dahl, 1958. A Critique of the Ruling Elite Model; Polsby, 1960. How to Study Community Power: the Pluralist Alternative. 304 Dahl, 1961. Who Governs? 305 Vogel, 1983. The Power of Business in America: a Reappraisal; Vogel, 1989. Fluctuating Fortunes: the Political Power of Business in America. 84 First, pluralists need not accept the premise of this study: that there are problems in resources policy making, and that these have not been treated very successfully to date. A pluralist conception of policy processes emphasises the satisfaction of interests rather than the solving of problems, somehow exogenously defined. Second, the failure of environmentalism to follow the kind of issue-attention cycle envisaged by Downs suggests that the environmental challenge to resources policy is not functioning in the same way as many interest group demands: it is possible that groups are themselves regarding it as a problem-solving rather than group satisfaction problem.306 Third, having pointed out that group, particularly business, power fluctuates, Vogel’s study has little analytical importance. Vogel makes important contributions in two ways: he demonstrates the very variable conditions experienced in the policy-making arena, emphasising the historical study of policy; and he helps us think about the nature of business strength and operations.307 But the relatively little attention given to policy impacts, implementation, and the possible significance of structural changes in the economy, constrains the relevance of the technique to a discussion such as this, of the nature of barriers to policy change.
Discussions of the influence of federalism on policy, in contrast, are quite explicitly interested in the process of policy change. As such, federal issues are an intrinsic part of the discussion of institutional accounts of the RAC’s rise and fall. There is, however, a view that the federal system constitutes an inherent problem for making better resources policy.308 This view is dismissed for three reasons.
First, there appears to be no shortage of Constitutional capacity for Commonwealth activity in the resources policy area. A number of cases have confirmed significant powers, particularly under Sections 51, 96, and 109.309 There is little legal constraint on the Commonwealth: any shackles that bind are
306 Downs, 1972. Up and Down with Ecology: The "Issue Attention Cycle". 307 Vogel, 1987. Political Science and the Study of Corporate Power: A Dissent from the New Conventional Wisdom. 308 Toyne, 1994. The Reluctant Nation. 309 Crawford, 1991. The Constitution and the Environment; Galligan, 1987. Politics of the High Court; Gillespie, 1994. New Federalisms; Jaensch, 1992. The Politics of Australia; Kellow, 1996. Thinking Globally and Acting Federally: Intergovernmental Relations and Environmental Protection in Australia; Saunders, 1996. The Constitutional Division of Power with Respect to the Environment in Australia. Just how extensive these powers are will remain constrained by ongoing High Court treatment of the breadth of interpretation of the parts of Section 51, particularly the so-called Trade and commerce (i), Corporations (xx), and External Affairs (xxix) powers. 85 those of the politics of divided power.310 Second, the existence of such constraints is the purpose of a federal system. The conservatism of policy processes in a federal system is not an unwanted side-effect of an evil medicine - it is the purpose of the political prescription.311
Finally, the features of federal systems aside, while there is a plethora of assertions about the impact of federal governance on resources policy, there is a paucity of data on the matter. Certainly, the empirical evidence that federalism is environmentally deficient is lacking. Lloyd’s study of Kakadu, for example, claims that federalism is a problem for environmental management.312 Yet it is a study of a Territory, not a State, issue. Further, Australia is the only country that has presented the World Heritage Committee with conflicting information from different levels of government. Other federal states (eg. Germany, USA) making nominations have not presented any similar difficulties. This hardly suggests it was the federal nature of conflict that caused difficulties. Germany, a federal state, is generally highly regarded as a source of environmental innovation, and is home to the most famous and one of the most successful green parties, while Britain, regarded as the environmental laggard of the European Community, is unitary.313 Likewise, France, a unitary state, would probably be regarded as having less innovative or stringent resources policies than the federal United States. There is nothing about federalism in itself that is an issue: the effects of a federal system are likely to stem from particular institutional arrangements in that system,314 an issue addressed in Chapter 9. Limitations of the case-based approach
Despite the claims of analytic induction proponents, it is difficult to accept the results of single-case studies as in any way definitive. Their persuasiveness depends on the quality of the argument, and the perceived appropriateness of the case. Allison, for example remarked of his own analysis, “A single case can do no more than suggest the kinds of differences among explanations produced by the three models. But the Cuban missile crisis is especially appropriate for
310 Emy and Hughes, 1991. Australian Politics: Realities in Conflict; Solomon, 1988. What the Lemonthyme Forest Ruling Really Means. 311 Galligan, 1989. Australian Federalism; Sawer, 1967. Australian Federalism in the Courts. 312 Lloyd, 1989. The Politics of Kakadu. 313 Héritier, 1996. The Accommodation of Diversity in European Policy-Making and its Outcomes: Regulatory Policy as Patchwork; Sbragia, 1996. Environmental Policy. 314 See Coleman and Skogstad, 1990. Policy Communities and Policy Networks: A Structural Approach. 86 the purposes of this study.”315 Lieberson similarly argues that the results of small-N studies are merely “probabilistic” rather than determining.316 Ultimately the merit of the conclusions from the inductive reasoning in this study is partly dependent on its congruence with other studies (that are discussed in each Chapter), and on the deductive reason that is also introduced. Multiple case studies such as in Ostrom’s work Governing the Commons would likewise strengthen the arguments made herein but were beyond the scope of the research.317
The remainder of this Chapter explains how the case study was researched, and how some issues raised in the course of empirical work were resolved. The following sections discuss the use of documentary sources and interviews in data gathering, and the method of content analysis used in examining the transcripts of public inquiries studied as part of this research. Research methods Documentary sources
A wide range of documents have been consulted in the preparation of this thesis, and the most important sources of information for this study were documentary. Some were generally available, others archived, or in private hands. This material included:
Public Reports and other publications of the RAC (complete list in Appendix B);
The Consultants’ reports prepared for the RAC;
The 199 Submissions to the RAC’s Conservation Zone Inquiry (excluding three that were fully confidential);
Public Reports of the IC;
Public Report of and Submissions to the 10(4) Inquiry;
The transcripts of hearings of the RAC Conservation Zone and the IC Mining and Minerals Processing Inquiries (complete list in Appendix A); and
315 Allison, 1971. Essence of Decision, p.8. 316 Lieberson, 1992. Small N's and Big Conclusions: An Examination of the Reasoning in Comparative Studies Based on a Small Number of Cases. 317 Ostrom, 1990. Governing the Commons. The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action. 87 The Environmental Impact Statement and related documents and reports associated with the Coronation Hill mine proposed by CHJV.
Important secondary sources included
Over 300 reports in several national and regional newspapers, particularly in the period 1989-1991 inclusive (complete list in Appendix C);
Analysis of the Coronation Hill case in the academic literature; and
Comment on the Coronation Hill case, published after the Cabinet decision, by participants such as Commissioners and former consultants.
Access to most RAC material was through public library collections at the University of New England, and Griffith University. In addition I visited the RAC for a month in 1992, allowing access to a range of material and discussions with staff who had been involved in the Conservation Zone Inquiry (and were now working on other Inquiries). Visits were also made to the National Library collection in Canberra. Transcripts of Inquiries, both by the RAC and the IC, were examined during a visit to the Mitchell Repository of Australian Archives. The full archival references for these materials are not used in the footnotes, but the locations are set out both here and in Appendix A.
The Commonwealth Record System (CRS) Number for the RAC Conservation Zone Inquiry transcripts, contingent valuation workshop, and 10(4) Inquiry hearings is A9543/1 KCZT/01-04. Individual sections of the RAC transcripts are not numbered, but are contained in boxes 43 to 45. The CRS Number for the Industry Commission Mining and Minerals Processing Inquiry transcripts is A3218/11. Item Numbers for each passage of the IC transcripts are indicated in Appendix A.
References to the evidence of witnesses and comments by Commissioners during the RAC’s Conservation Zone Inquiry are referred to by surname, institutional affiliation (if any), followed by the term Transcripts and a page number (whether or not an actual quotation is being used). References to the transcripts of the Industry Commission’s Mining and Minerals Processing Inquiry are labelled IC Transcripts; while those of the Inquiry under Section 10(4) of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Heritage Protection Act are labelled 10(4) Transcripts. 88 Submissions to Inquiries were viewed in library collections in some cases, but were also available through access to the collection held by Professor Roger Kitching, who was a Special Commissioner on the Conservation Zone Inquiry. Several thousand pages of material from more than 100 submissions was examined during the course of the research. The structure of submissions was often complex, with attachments to submissions often comprising all or part of other publications. Some sources, identified as publications in this thesis, I examined as appendices to Kakadu Conservation Zone Inquiry submissions, but the full reference to the stand-alone document is generally given where possible.
References to submissions to the Conservation Zone Inquiry are denoted by the name of the submitter (usually an institution), followed by the term Submission, and a number which is an abbreviated form of the RAC’s official submission numbering series. The RAC numbered all submissions as “KA [90 or 91] / xxx”. Of this designation only the final two or three digit code is used in this thesis. Because of the irregular (and sometimes complete lack of) numbering of pages in submissions, page numbers are here used generally only in the case of quotations. References to Submissions made to Justice Stewart for the inquiry under Section 10(4) of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Heritage Protection Act are labelled Submission to 10(4) Inquiry, while references to submissions to other inquiries are given the full title of the relevant Inquiry.
The collection of Professor Kitching also provided access to consultants’ reports (also held in public libraries), and to a wide range of articles and publicly available reports about the Coronation Hill mine, including those that preceded the establishment of the Conservation Zone Inquiry. The inter-Ministerial letters cited in the thesis are not unpublished Cabinet or RAC documents: they can be found as appendices or attachments to the Reports and submissions to the Conservation Zone and 10(4) Inquiries.
An extensive search for newspaper articles was conducted for this thesis. The search sought to locate articles pertaining to the Coronation Hill site and mine proposal, the Kakadu Conservation Zone, the RAC (up to delivery of the Conservation Zone Report to the government), and any business news that had a bearing on CHJV and the gold mining industry. The search covered the period mid-1989 to mid-1991. Some articles from outside that period were also identified, but on an ad hoc basis. Through the RAC, and contact with conservation organisations (ACF, the Environment Centre of the Northern 89 Territory (ECNT) and The Wilderness Society), a number of important original media releases were also obtained.
The results of the search for newspaper articles are found in Appendix C. Over 300 articles were identified. Unlike the Transcripts, these were not the subject of content analysis. The content analysis of Transcripts was conducted with a specific purpose in mind, described below, and the articles were not relevant to this purpose. The media reports were however valuable in establishing the position of major players in the Coronation Hill debate, particularly in the critical period following completion of the RAC Report (late April 1991), but prior to the Cabinet decision (18 June 1991). Wherever feasible, claims in media reports were corroborated with other sources (including interviews). At a number of points this did not prove possible. There were, however, no claims made only in media articles that are critical to the arguments of the thesis, nor any directly contradicted by alternative sources. Interviews
Methods
This project proceeded on the basis that establishing a clear contract with interviewees was central to obtaining reliable and informative material. Appendix D provides the general format of the interviews conducted, including the explanation of the confidentiality protocol delivered at the start of each interview. Providing anonymity to varying degrees is standard in research in political and policy spheres. Atkinson and Coleman protected public officials and political appointees by identifying them by institutional affiliation and sometimes by rank.318 They provide only very limited aggregated data about the interviewees: sex, level of education, professional background and rank. Pusey, in his study of Commonwealth Senior Public Servants, likewise identifies interviewees by department alone, though his much more detailed sociological work involved the provision of detailed aggregate data and cross-tabulations.319
With the passage of time, the need for obscurity can be overtaken by the need for a place in history. Paul Kelly, in his recent revisitation of the events of November 1975 was able to interview and identify many of the participants of the time: Opposition leader Malcolm Fraser, Prime Minister Gough Whitlam,
318 Atkinson and Coleman, 1989. The State, Business And Industrial Change In Canada. 319 Pusey, 1991. Economic Rationalism in Canberra. A Nation-Building State Changes its Mind. 90 wife of the late Governor-General Sir John Kerr Lady Anne Kerr, and so on.320 But while most of Kelly’s interviewees have retired from politics if not from public life, most of the subjects of this study remain ‘paid servants’ of the Commonwealth, their careers vulnerable, and their private views just that. As a result, one of the preconditions essential for securing agreement of officers to be interviewed was the guarantee of anonymity. Conversations were recorded for transcription purposes only, to be erased upon passage of this thesis.
Interviews were held with a number of former officers of the Resource Assessment Commission. In an organisation so small and relatively short- lived, there was little difficulty in identifying the appropriate people. One of the methodological difficulties was however identifying officers of other organisations who might have provided different perspectives on the RAC’s work. In an attempt to generate a list of prospective interviewees from outside the RAC, all RAC officers approached were asked to identify officers from other agencies who might assist the research project. Agencies for which RAC officers were specifically prompted for suggestions were: DASETT, DPIE, the IC, and the Department of Prime Minister & Cabinet (PM&C). In what was an indictment of either the RAC’s inability to liaise with the rest of the bureaucracy or of the rest of the bureaucracy’s lack of interest in the RAC, no names were volunteered. Only in one case did an interviewee eventually identify a possible contact: they had been from ABARE, but were unable to be located.
In addition to this constraint, a number of participants could not be located, were overseas, in hospital, or refused interview. These included three of the four most senior people whom I had intended to interview. As a consequence of all these constraints, interviews in the end formed only a minor part of the study, which is largely based instead on the documentary sources described previously.
Triangulation
Four types of source were concentrated upon in attempts at triangulation to interviews. The first of these was publications written by staff of, and interested parties involved with, the RAC. Partly because of the academic bent of many of the RAC’s staff and participants, and partly because of the RAC’s
320 Kelly, 1995. November 1975. 91 very open processes, this kind of source was available to what is perhaps an unusually great degree.321
The second type of source were RAC internal documents and reports. Access to these was sought from PM&C. PM&C refused a request for access to the files transferred to them from the RAC’s Conservation Zone Inquiry. As I did not know what documents I particularly wanted to access, a request made under the Freedom of Information Act (even if it was approved) was prohibitively expensive. Nevertheless, many issues could be identified or inferred from RAC documents, including examination of differences between the Issues Paper, Draft and Final Reports of the Conservation Zone Inquiry.
The third source to assist triangulation was the Transcripts of Inquiries, in which interactions between participants revealed much about the operation of the organisation. In the absence of identification by former RAC staff of officers from other Departments to interview (mentioned above), the Transcripts became particularly important sources.
Finally, media reports were also used in conjunction with interviews. While not the most reliable of sources, they were nevertheless useful in checking whether interviewees’ assessments of, for example, the role and views of interest groups squared with public positions taken by those groups as represented in both media reports and letters to newspapers. The content analysis of Inquiry hearings
Later in this thesis (Chapter 9) I explore institutional explanations of the Coronation Hill case and in particular, of the demise of the RAC. This involves study of the relationship between institutions and organised interests. This is pursued in a comparative framework (as outlined earlier), examining the structure and operations of the IC and the RAC. Both the IC and the RAC are statutory bodies pursuing inquiries into frequently controversial industrial policy questions. Both organisations have attracted criticism from time to time,
321 RAC publications in which RAC staff reflected on their role and that of the organisation, apart from the annual reports, include: Stewart, 1993. Chairman's Remarks at Manly Beach; Stewart, 1991. National Concerns and the Resource Assessment Commission. Relevant unofficial publications by RAC staff include: Hamilton, 1994. The Mystic Economist; Hamilton, 1996. Generational Justice: the Marriage of Sustainability and Social Equity; Kitching, 1992. Science, Scientists and the Coronation Hill Decision - A Retrospective; Stewart and McColl, 1994. The Resource Assessment Commission: An Inside Assessment. Relevant publications of others include: Carson et al., 1994. Valuing the Preservation of Australia's Kakadu Conservation Zone. 92 about either their independence or competence or both.322 In Chapter 9, I examine the relationship between organised interests and the Commissions, through comparison of the interactions of Commissioners and witnesses during Inquiry hearings, in the hope that this might help explain the role of the Commissions in resources policy processes.
Transcripts from the IC’s Mining and Minerals Processing Inquiry and the RAC’s Conservation Zone Inquiry were compared, in a search for evidence on the nature of any conflict in the interactions between Commissioners and witnesses. This comparison was conducted quantitatively using a form of content analysis.323 The method used here has been described as pragmatical content analysis.324 It involved the classification of certain passages in the transcripts according to the form of conflict between individuals those passages represented.
Two categories of behaviour were searched for. In addition to identifying these discrete instances of conflict, attention was paid to the overall tone of discussion, revealed for example in the choice of words by Commissioners, and whether or not they interrupted evidence. In a few cases, these revealed cases of conflict that for various reasons fell outside the definitions of the two categories, and were recorded under an “other” heading, but there were only four examples of this, and their inclusion does not affect the analysis.
The two categories of conflict that were identified were hostile remarks and disputes of evidence. Hostile remarks were defined as remarks by a Commissioner suggesting either dishonesty or personal incompetence on the part of a witness, or an explicit rejection of the witness’ personal beliefs (as distinct from their professional judgement). Disputes of evidence were defined as occasions on which a Commissioner disagreed with a witness on the soundness of evidence (whether fact or argument) put by the witness, and where no subsequent agreement or modification of the positions of either witness or Commissioner was evident. This latter part of the definition was designed to exclude misunderstandings, points on which negotiation took
322 See, for example, Bell, 1989. State Strength and Capitalist Weakness: Manufacturing Capital and the Tariff Board’s Attack on McEwenism; Warhurst, 1982. Jobs or Dogma? The Industries Assistance Commission and Australian Politics. 323 Jupp and Norris, 1993. Traditions in Documentary Analysis; Krippendorff, 1980. Content Analysis. An Introduction to its Methodology; Rosengren, 1981. Advances in Content Analysis; Weber, 1990. Basic Content Analysis. 324 Krippendorff, 1980. Content Analysis. An Introduction to its Methodology, citing Janis 1965. 93 place, and situations where a Commissioner was playing ‘devil’s advocate’ or posing questions in the form of hypothetical situations.
To make the comparisons between the IC and the RAC, I needed to control for the possibility that the behaviour of the Commissions might be a product of differences in witnesses, rather than differences between the Commissions. This was addressed by creating a list of witnesses who appeared before both Inquiries, and scrutinising only the transcripts of evidence of those witnesses. The resulting list of participants is shown in Table 3.1 below.
Table 3.1 Witnesses to both IC and RAC Inquiries. Australian Conservation Foundation Australian Heritage Commission Australian Mining Industry Council BHP / BHP Gold Company Central Land Council Coronation Hill Joint Venture CRA Company Environment Centre of the Northern Territory Northern Land Council Northern Territory Government Office of the Supervising Scientist Dr Tamblyn (consultant to ACF) Dr Webb (consultant to AMIC)
Sources: RAC Conservation Zone Final Report; IC Mining and Minerals Processing Inquiry Final Report.
The tests were somewhat impaired by two problems with this process of selecting witnesses. First was a lack of involvement by Commonwealth bodies in the IC Inquiry, meaning no direct comparisons could be made for significant sections of RAC transcripts of evidence. The decision of many Commonwealth agencies not to participate in the IC Inquiry was one about which AMIC expressed disappointment, and on which Commissioners concurred.325 Commonwealth bodies that gave submissions or evidence to the RAC but not the IC included ABARE, and DPIE. Others mentioned by McIntosh that might have approached the IC Inquiry but had not by the time of the conclusion of hearings prior to the draft report were the Bureau of Industry Economics, Bureau of Transport Economics, Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Department of Transport, and the Department of Aboriginal Affairs. None of these appeared at hearings.
325 McIntosh, AMIC, IC Transcripts p.1560. 94 Second, having narrowed the field of relevant subjects in this way, the number of incidents involved was small, so statistical tests of the results were limited in their use. They nevertheless provided some valuable information about what was distinctive about the RAC and what were phenomena general to both Commissions of Inquiries. A Table showing the appearances of witnesses used for comparison is contained in Chapter 9, which also explains the way in which witnesses were grouped into a number of categories for testing. Appendix E contains the raw results of the content analyses. Conclusion
This Chapter has outlined the methodological context in which this study has been conducted, and explained aspects of the data collection that allowed the construction and interpretation of the case study. The following Chapters use the case to test, and to some degree reject, several ideas about the resolution of environmental issues in the natural resources area. Each of these tests required theory-specific construction of both core claims and the means to examine those core claims. The first two of these theories are closely related, both forming parts of a neo-classical economic view of policy, and it is to them I now turn. 95 Chapter 4 Neo-liberalism and Environmental Policy Issues
In the previous Chapter I outlined how, using analytic induction, I use a single case to explore and revise theory. The case, described in Chapter 2, is that of Coronation Hill and the RAC. The theories being explored are several. The first approach to addressing environmental concerns, which was outlined in Chapter 1, is neo-liberal. This approach comprises two related elements: the Pigouvian approach which treats environmental policy as a matter of correcting market failures; and the Coasian, or free market environmentalist approach, which is founded on the creation and enforcement of private property rights for environmental goods.326 In the environmental field, however, these approaches tend to have shared foundations in the problem of the commons.327 This logic is exemplified by the well-known work of Hardin on ‘the tragedy of the commons’. Hardin pointed out that under conditions of scarcity, the holding of resources in common (“commonism” as he later termed it328) leads to the over- exploitation of those resources, and thence to ruin.329 Hardin advocates two approaches to solving this problem: the creation and enforcement of private property rights; and the creation of a system of financial incentives and penalties.330 Thus both the approaches discussed in this and the next two Chapters arise out of a neo-liberal, market-oriented response to the problem of the commons.
326 Hodgson, 1997. Economics, Environmental Policy and the Transcendence of Utilitarianism. Some authors simply treat the approaches as one: eg. Breyer, 1982. Regulation and its Reform; Reeve and Kaine, 1991. Ecosystem-Coupled Markets: A Policy Approach for Sustainable Land Management. 327 Doyle and Kellow, 1995. Environmental Politics and Policy Making in Australia; Ostrom, 1990. Governing the Commons. The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action. 328 Hardin, 1994. The Tragedy of the Unmanaged Commons. 329 Hardin, 1968. The Tragedy of the Commons. 330 Hardin himself later appears to opt for the allocation of property rights - privatism as he calls it - over public management, or socialism, on the grounds that “Theoretically, an incompetent manager can be fired. In practice, when ‘the people’ is a nation of many millions, it is all too easy for empowered managers (bureaucrats) to survive by hiding their mistakes.”Hardin, 1994. The Tragedy of the Unmanaged Commons, p.199. 96 Neo-liberal approaches to environmental issues, to the extent that they seek “not to criticise markets but to restore and uphold them”, are a manifestation of the neo-liberal policy environment that has prevailed in most policy domains in the market societies like Australia and Canada since the 1980s.331 The theoretical underpinnings of this direction in policy-making lie in environmental economics and, most of all, public choice theory.
Public choice theory “argues the general beneficience of markets and the many failures of politics.”332 It generally begins from a concern with individual liberty, and the individual as the unit of analysis, with the public or national interest regarded as the product of aggregation of individual preferences.
...the economic theory of politics may be summarised as the ‘discovery’ or ‘rediscovery’ that people should be treated as rational utility-maximisers in all of their behavioural capacities... This... does not lead to the conclusion that all collective action, all government action, is necessarily undesirable. It leads, instead, to the conclusion that, because people will tend to maximise their own utilities, institutions must be designed so that individual behaviour will further the interests of the group.333
Despite the insistence of public choice theorists that such an economic theory of politics does not lead to the conclusion that all government action is problematic, their indictment of the liberal state, of Keynesianism, and of Leviathan makes it clear that government action is frequently regarded as the problem. Thus Moran and others argue
The challenge for government, for bureaucrats and for the community at large, is to devise ‘rules of the game’ to minimise these areas where it is not possible for individuals to express their own preference judgements...
Accurately establishing the relative strengths of wants or ‘needs’ has proven possible only through the use of markets.334
331 Bell, 1997. Ungoverning the Economy. The Political Economy of Australian Economic Policy. See also Bell, 1997. Globalisation, Neoliberalism and the Transformation of the Australian State; Coleman and Skogstad, 1995. Neo-Liberalism, Policy Networks, and Policy Change: Agricultural Policy Reform in Australia and Canada. 332 Self, 1993. Government By The Market? The Politics of Public Choice. 333 Buchanan, 1978. From Private Preferences to Public Philosophy: The Development of Public Choice, p.17. 334 Moran et al., 1991. Markets, Resources and the Environment, pp.3,19. 97 There are a number of areas in which this approach can be pursued, and one of the principal ways has been in the environmental area, for example through an analysis of the nature of, and solutions to, environmental problems such as pollution and national park provision.
This reliance on public choice theory is important to note because it is two of the premises of public choice theory that I challenge in Chapter 6, in order to explain why Coasian approaches to environmental issues were often ineffective in the Coronation Hill case. The two premises (discussed in Chapter 6) are that most politics is about allocation of resources; and that people’s collective interests can be analysed by aggregating the preference curves of individuals for many different goods.
This Chapter therefore sets the RAC’s methods for handling resources issues within a broad policy context of increasing use of economic instruments to achieve policy objectives. In the following Chapter, some of the issues that arose for the RAC - and the wider community - when it pursued the use of Pigouvian instruments are discussed. In Chapter 6, the focus turns from Pigouvian instruments to the related policy strategy based on the assigning of property rights: free market environmentalism. Both Chapters are illustrated using the Conservation Zone contingent valuation (CV) study (described further, below), and the Aboriginal issues associated with the Coronation Hill case, as empirical sources. Using the case study, I address the issue of whether the expansion of the jurisdiction of the marketplace is an important part of the answer to environmental problems, and under what conditions.
Before turning to the neo-liberal context of the RAC, I create a framework within which to organise the analysis that takes place in Chapters 5 & 6. This is based on three criteria formulated from neo-liberal policy studies. Testing the application of neo-liberal instruments Analytic criteria
In this section I set out an analytical framework in which the suitability of economic mechanisms for achieving environmental goals may be evaluated. There are plenty of schemata available to guide policy analysis from within neo-liberal writing. Breyer for example considers a number of criteria for testing the suitability of incentive-based policy systems. They include: the 98 possibility of efficient incentives being developed; the ease of enforcement compared to the alternatives; the political acceptability of incentives; and the appropriateness of available legal and administrative arrangements.335 While important, these criteria are framed in practical terms, to assist public policy professionals solve the problems before them.336 Analytically, identifying a specific policy proposal as ‘politically unacceptable’ does not advance us terribly much in understanding the strengths or weaknesses of neo-liberal instruments.
Mitnick takes a more general, systematic approach to the problem. He develops and applies four functional categories: establishment factors, change factors, administration factors and enforcement factors.337 He uses these to compare and contrast regulations and incentives. These kinds of categories are more useful for my purpose. They are however prospective in scope: they concern the design of a new regulatory framework rather than the evaluation of an existing policy instrument. A case such as Coronation Hill, however, concerns evaluation of an existing regulatory schema rather than the establishment of a new one. For this reason, Mitnick’s establishment and change factors are here conflated to a single category of ‘definition’ factors. Mitnick’s concern with administration is primarily to do with operational issues within a regulatory schema. In contrast, Breyer’s concern with political acceptance and institutional arrangements are more relevant to this inquiry. I have favoured a broad category concerned with the allocation process, therefore, over Mitnick’s narrower concern with “administration”.
The three factors used here are thus definition, allocation and enforcement.338 The following paragraphs explain what is meant by these in a little more detail, before they are investigated using the case study. The application of the criteria to Pigouvian approaches - the internalisation of externalities – is sketched first, followed by their application to private property rights-based approaches.
335 Breyer, 1982. Regulation and its Reform, pp.275-282. 336 The OECD has worked with a similar set of criteria, with the same limitations for the purposes of this analysis: OECD, 1991. Environmental Policy: How to Apply Economic Instruments. 337 Mitnick, 1980. The Political Economy of Regulation, pp.348-49. 338 These analytic categories are not specific to analysing environmental management goals. That is simply the purpose to which they are here being put. 99 Analysing Pigouvian policy instruments
The first factors to be considered are definition factors. In Pigouvian terms, this means examining the question of whether the nature of externalities can clearly be defined. For example, one CV researcher concluded that the goods being purchased by respondents in some surveys were not environmental benefits (such as clean rivers) but moral satisfaction.339 The superficially obvious externality (pollution of waterways) turned out not to be the actual externality identified by respondents at all, who defined it instead as the violation of some moral principle. Where the nature of the externality is established, there is also the question of whether its magnitude can be determined. For example, if the health costs of lead pollution are to be internalised through, say, petrol prices, the magnitude of that health cost must be defined. Otherwise there is no basis on which fuel prices may be set. One of the questions that needs to be asked about economic instruments for guiding policy, therefore, is to what extent can they successfully be used to define the nature and magnitude of the externalities in question?
The second set of considerations is allocative. How can responsibility for externalities be allocated? The definition of an externality and its allocation are quite different matters. It might be possible to determine the number of victims of homicide annually, to enumerate the relatives and friends of victims, the number of work years lost through the premature deaths and to determine in some cases the individuals responsible for the tragic loss of life. But it is quite another matter to allocate the costs and the responsibilities associated with these negative externalities of murder. Should all economic costs be borne by perpetrators directly? When should compensation be paid to victims? Should that be through user-pays insurance schemes, or should there be a state-funded victim compensation fund? Is the act of murder entirely the responsibility of the perpetrator or must some blame be allocated to parents and upbringing, genetic factors, society, or the media? These are familiar questions, and they stem from the problem of allocating the costs of homicide, not from any ambivalence about the nature, or uncertainty about the prevalence, of the phenomenon. They are allocation, not definition, problems.340
339 Kahneman and Knetsch, 1992. Valuing Public Goods: The Purchase of Moral Satisfaction. 340 The classic environmental policy exposition of allocative problems in policy design is Stretton, 1976. Capitalism, Socialism and the Environment. 100 The third group of analytical questions concern enforcement issues. In Pigouvian terms, these concern how successfully internalisation of hitherto external costs can be enforced. In some situations, it is easier to enforce a system of incentives than it is to ensure compliance with a prohibitive regulatory framework. In others the reverse may be true. For example while it may be theoretically desirable to charge entry to National Parks to cover the cost of running them, this will only be feasible where there are limited entry points to a Park and substantial rates of visitation. Otherwise, enforcement costs would be higher than compliance benefits, and the scheme would not be economically feasible. In NSW such a strategy is possible for some Parks, including Ku-Ring-Gai Chase and Kosciusko, but not for many others. In other situations there may be legal barriers favouring one approach over another from an enforcement point of view. Reliance on tort law to prosecute polluters may fall foul, as it were, of the burden of evidence required in such cases.341 In such situations it is possible that some form of incentive scheme might achieve higher rates of compliance.342 Each policy option therefore has its own enforcement strengths and weaknesses, depending on the circumstances. Analysing private property rights approaches
How do the three analytical categories apply to private property rights approaches to policy-making for natural resource management? Definition factors concern whether the nature of the property right is clear. As Moran points out,
Private property does not confer any absolute rights. Ownership of property merely offers an entitlement to a stream of benefits (and obligates owners to a stream of liabilities) from some specifically delineated tangible or intangible piece of capital. Property rights are in constant collision.343
If those collisions are to be adjudicated the rights in question must be reasonably clearly defined. This necessitates ascertaining under what conditions a right exists, who is entitled to the right, who defines its nature and adjudicates disputes about it, who assesses the value of the right (if value is not
341 Ramsay and Rowe, 1995. Environmental Law and Policy in Australia. Text and Materials. 342 Bates, 1995. Environmental Law in Australia. 343 Moran, 1991. Property Rights and Efficiency - Ownership of Innovations and Mineral Prospects, p.118. This is another example of the phenomenon, noted in the first Chapter, of private property being seen as constituting all property. It would be equally true simply to say that “property does not confer any absolute rights”. Either Moran thought this would complicate his argument, or he overlooked his conflation of the two concepts. 101 determined solely in exchange), and so forth.344 In the case of forests being allocated to consumptive uses, definition of the property right may be relatively simple: it might involve the state auctioning the land to individuals or corporations who may possess the land as freehold, trade it freely, with the right to cut timber coming, subject to obeying relevant laws, with the land. In a very different situation, it may be almost impossible to define a private property right to clean air because the property is non-excludable and very definitely jointly held.345
If a property rights approach is mooted, there is also the question whether the privileges and liabilities of ownership can be allocated to appropriate individuals or entities. With whom would it be best to vest the rights to enjoyment and management of a National Park? Even if the right has been defined as the right to earn an income from a property on which the attendant responsibility is to manage in perpetuity a natural area for community enjoyment as a place of high conservation value, determining an adequate allocation process may be difficult. If rights are not to be vested in State or Commonwealth governments, should they rest with a publicly listed corporation? Perhaps with a non-government community organisation? Should those rights be simply conferred by the state, or should they be auctioned?346 Should it be on a first-come first-served basis as are some mineral exploration rights?347 Or should allocation be based on an assessment of competency and financial feasibility as with some radio frequency licenses?348 Can the rights be conferred on some private actors on a one-off basis, or might the state need regularly to redefine them by some non-market process, as Reeve and Kaine propose for farm fertiliser use rights?349
344 These kinds of questions are routinely asked about property rights with respect to oversight of 'natural' monopolies such as pipelines, electricity grids and so forth. 345 Baden and O'Brien, 1997. Bringing Private Management to the Public Lands: Environmental and Economic Advantages. 346 There are too, of course, many ways to auction, and many combinations of auctions ‘up- front’, and taxation of the stream of benefits earned subsequently. Mead, 1977. Cash Bonus Bidding for Mineral Resources. 347 Emerson, 1988. Issues in Mineral Policy. The IC looked in some detail at the allocative problems of mineral exploration and mining property rights. See Industry Commission, 1991. Mining and Mineral Processing in Australia. See also Lee, Western Australian Farmers Federation, IC Transcripts pp.260-265. 348 In mineral exploration the equivalent system - quite common - is work program bidding. See Bergstrom, 1984. Property Rights and Taxation in the Australian Minerals Sector; Erickson, 1977. Work Commitment Bidding. 349 Reeve and Kaine, 1991. Ecosystem-Coupled Markets: A Policy Approach for Sustainable Land Management. Exploration easement rights are also repeatedly allocated by governments, particularly under work-program and first-come-first-served systems, which generally 102 Examination of these kinds of questions should reveal those conditions under which property rights can be allocated outside the state - among organisations and individuals - and those where state custodianship and management of the right in question is most appropriate due to the absence of an acceptable, authoritative and efficient allocation technique. It should also be possible to discriminate between circumstances in which allocation appears possible, and those in which allocation may be troublesome or contentious.
Enforcement issues concern whether property holders who feel others are detrimentally impinging on the exercise of their rights can prevent that infringement or seek compensation. Can a swimmer who contracts a streptococcal infection from beach pollution for example identify the rights holder from whom to seek restitution? Enforcement issues can form one of the most difficult areas for property rights reform.350 Reeve and Kaine, examining how to develop enforceable private property markets in the rights to use farm fertiliser, conclude that the necessary rights regime would involve a centralised storage and distribution facility for fertiliser, to which farmers would have to come and show proof of their property right in order to obtain their entitlement.351 To create effective property rights, laissez faire arrangements for fertiliser use would be abolished.352 In terms of instituting a system of private property rights, this would be logistically and culturally impossible to achieve.
To summarise, there are three things that determine whether a neo-liberal policy strategy is best in a given situation: whether value can be defined, whether it can be allocated, and whether policy based on those values can be enforced. In discussing the Pigouvian and Coasian (property rights) the prevalence of definitional problems, revealed in Chapters 5 & 6, can be
require the surrender of tenements after a certain period of time unless a production (ie. mining) lease is sought. Emerson, 1988. Issues in Mineral Policy. 350 Firmin-Sellers, 1995. The Politics of Property Rights. 351 Reeve and Kaine, 1991. Ecosystem-Coupled Markets: A Policy Approach for Sustainable Land Management. 352 As Polanyi noted, economic liberalism is the organizing principle of a society in which industry is based on the institution of the self-regulated market... For as long as that system is not established, economic liberals must and will unhesitatingly call for the intervention of the state in order to establish it, and once established, in order to maintain it. (Polanyi, 1975 [1944]. The Great Transformation, p.149.) It can be extremely difficult to enforce such a market place where the institution has not historically existed. Polanyi emphasises this difficulty, and the extreme measures that may be necessary to achieve a ‘free market’, by describing the American civil war in terms of a liberal North fighting to abolish laissez-faire slavery in the South, in favour of a ‘free market’ for labour. 103 construed as indicating fundamental difficulties in using these neo-liberal policy mechanisms to resolve environmental questions. Before however I make this case in detail (primarily with reference to contingent valuation) I need to demonstrate that the RAC did indeed represent a neo-liberal policy response to natural resources policy problems. I also explain what contingent valuation is and how it was used in the Conservation Zone Inquiry, so that the more detailed discussions of Chapter 5 make sense. A neo-liberal environment: the RAC in context
Market-based resource management policies had not always been prevalent, either in natural resource exploitation, or in conservation management. Until the 1980s, more direct state interventions of one sort or another had predominated.353 Some of these involved system modelling and planning, others regulation by directive, others the raising of prices of environmental goods by the state, and some all three.354 Few however discussed either the extension of property rights, or the development of markets in environmental goods. In order to understand how market-based approaches became a significant part of both the RAC’s research and of the controversy surrounding its Conservation Zone Report, it is necessary to understand their intellectual foundations, and the political setting in which the RAC had to conduct its inquiries. The task facing the RAC was as much an economic as an environmental task. There were reasons for this both general to policy making under the Labor Government, and particular to the natural resource management problems which were the RAC’s responsibility.
353 Bryner, 1997. Market Incentives in Air Pollution Control; Christoff, 1995. Market-Based Instruments: The Australian Experience; Jacobs, 1995. Financial Incentives: The British Experience. 354 Gregory, 1972. Conservation, Planning and Politics: Some Aspects of the Contemporary British Scene. Exceptions included the preferred approach of the OECD Environment Committee (See Eckersley, 1995. Markets, the State and the Environment: An Overview. ) Note that the raising of prices by the state, though an economic instrument, may or may not be market- based. Whether it is depends on the method for establishing the artificial price. Pigouvian techniques such as CV and hedonic pricing seek to determine the market values of non- traded goods, or the environmental component of the benefits encapsulated in the price of a traded good (such as housing). These are market-based pricing techniques. Taxing petrol to reduce lead or other air pollution in order to reach a pre-determined acceptable level of pollution is not market-based because the pricing is unrelated to market values or economic criteria of efficiency. Whether this means such techniques lead to policies that are ‘inefficient’ in some broader sense is of course a debate that is the subject of this Chapter. 104 The Hawke and Keating governments were committed to pursuing policies oriented toward opening the economy, and preoccupied with restructuring and reform in both the public and private sectors.355 These were the product of a fundamental strategy designed for “making the cake bigger rather than fiddling around arguing about who gets what piece of the same-size cake”.356 In theoretical terms, Australian governments of the 1980s and 1990s were amongst many seeking to implement ‘neo-liberal’ policy and economic strategies.357 A wide range of problems were considered inimical to the government’s goal of economic growth, including international competition in ‘traditional markets’, declining investment, recession, and expanding regulation. A basic dynamic of politics therefore became reconciling the goal of fostering a growing and open economy with other goals and exogenous influences that challenged it.358 One such potentially conflicting goal was environmental protection.
A variety of mechanisms were used by the Government for dealing with such conflict. These included withdrawal from areas of hitherto public sector activity or production,359 and the promotion of competition in areas of the economy in which monopoly, either private or public, had prevailed.360 Policies implementing fundamental changes to the macroeconomic policy and policy-making environments through deregulation,361 and consensus-based prices and incomes policies designed to reduce disruptions (whether macro- economic or sectoral in extent) to the engines of production and growth were also pursued.362 Beyond these areas of reform, the Government was also
355 Codd, 1988. Recent Changes in the Machinery of Government; Harris, 1989. Corporate Management: A Departmental View; Holmes, 1989. Corporate Management: A View from the Centre. 356 Paul Keating, speaking during the Whitlam government period. Cited in Carew, 1992. Paul Keating, Prime Minister, p.38. 357 Bell, 1997. Ungoverning the Economy. The Political Economy of Australian Economic Policy; Coleman and Skogstad, 1995. Neo-Liberalism, Policy Networks, and Policy Change: Agricultural Policy Reform in Australia and Canada. 358 Economou, 1992. Reconciling the Irreconcilable? The Resource Assessment Commission, Resource Policy and the Environment. 359 Independent Committee of Inquiry, 1993. National Competition Policy. 360 Such as electricity generation and distribution, telecommunications and service provision. See Forsyth, 1992. Microeconomic Reform in Australia; Independent Committee of Inquiry, 1993. National Competition Policy; King and Maddock, 1996. Unlocking the Infrastructure: Reform of Public Utilities in Australia; Productivity Commission, 1996. Stocktake of Progress in Microeconomic Reform. 361 Bell, 1997. Ungoverning the Economy. The Political Economy of Australian Economic Policy; Stewart, 1994. Government and Business Relations in Australia. 362 Bennett and Cole, 1989. Industrial Relations; Deery and Plowman, 1991. Australian Industrial Relations. 105 committed to containment of policy proposals, whether originating within or outside the government, that might prove damaging to economic development.
Environment and natural resources policy was an example of a policy arena in which emerged difficulties for a government seeking to maximise economic growth. The responses tended to be, as on a range of other occasions, to experiment with institutional mechanisms of a neo-liberal nature.363 During the Conservation Zone Inquiry Levitus had seen the Jawoyn’s response to increased interest in their lands as involving “sustained attention on the meanings... of Bula as a totality, instead of [on] single sites or threats...”364 And so similarly, in response to the intensification of community interest in environmental policy, the government shifted towards the treatment of the environment as part of a broader (usually economic) policy-making framework into which major social groups could be drawn:
The decision by the Government to formulate a sustainable development strategy reflects growing community recognition that, in pursuing material welfare, insufficient value has often been placed on the environmental factors that also contribute to our standard of living.
It also reflects a recognition that economic growth and a well- managed environment are fundamentally linked.365
The reception afforded this position was mixed.366 Some argued that the government, like the Brundtland Commission, was misguided in connecting, indeed declaring a positive relationship between, growth and good environmental management. They considered that growth may be to some extent a dangerous goal, and therefore to associate growth with environmental
363 Beilharz and Murphy, 1992. Labor and the State; Downes, 1996. Neo-Corporatism and Environmental Policy; McEachern, 1986. Corporatism and Business Responses to the Hawke Government; Singelton, 1994. Accord VII: Collective Bargaining in a Labourist Framework; Young, 1993. A Consideration of ‘Environmental Accordism’ - its Theoretical Utility and Limitations. But see also McEachern, 1991. Business Mates: The Power and Politics of the Hawke Era. 364 Levitus, 1990. Historical Perspective, p.27. 365 Commonwealth of Australia, 1990. Ecologically Sustainable Development. A Commonwealth Discussion Paper, p.1. See also Department of Primary Industries and Energy, 1992. Recent Developments in Resource Pricing and Allocation Policy; Parliament of Australia, 1987. Fiscal Measures and the Achievement of Environmental Objectives. Minister Kerin argued “The Government strongly supports economic growth based on sustainable development and protection of the environment”. Kerin, 1989. Resource Assessment Commission Bill, Second Reading, p.1824. 366 Foster, 1997. Introduction: Environmental Value and the Scope of Economics. 106 protection was erroneous.367 Consequently they considered that integrative policy frameworks, such as Ecologically Sustainable Development or the RAC, were tools for the political management of environmentalism rather than for the environmental management of politics. Others however considered that such a sea-change amongst governments indicated the acceptance of environmental protection as a priority and that establishment of the linkage between the economy and the environment boded well for the future.368
It has thus been in the context of implementing the principles of sustainable development that market-based policy instruments have become more prevalent in Commonwealth environmental policy making.369 This has presented a dilemma for some of the participants in the policy process, particularly environmentalists for whom the ability of economic tools to encompass the sources of value to which they subscribe seems limited. Some green groups have become very involved in economic arguments, and embraced such a framework to a certain extent.370 Others have rejected them and the co-option into policy processes with which they appear to be associated.371 Environmentalists have been criticised for this rejection:
Greens suffer from the problem of ‘misplaced concreteness’. This leads them to attack specific problems without a coherent framework specifying the objective that is being pursued...
The strength of economics is in establishing criteria: a given activity should be extended up to a point beyond which the activity provides benefits smaller than the alternatives being sacrificed.372
But, as will be demonstrated, miners and bureaucrats have also shown ambivalence about the use of comprehensive economic assessment procedures.
When the RAC was established, commentators immediately suggested that it should adopt rational economic principles to guide it in its attempts to escape the emotionalism that had hitherto characterised environmental debate.373 In a
367 Beder, 1993. The Hidden Messages Within Sustainable Development. 368 McCormick, 1989. The Global Environmental Movement. 369 See for example Department of Primary Industries and Energy, 1992. Recent Developments in Resource Pricing and Allocation Policy; Parliament of Australia, 1992. National Greenhouse Response Strategy. 370 Primarily the ACF. See, eg, Grey, ACF, IC Transcripts pp.548-550. 371 anon, 1990. It's no to the RAC. 372 Chant et al., 1991. The Economics of the Green Society, p.65, order modified. 373 For example, CIE (Centre for International Economics), 1989. The Resource Assessment Commission. Issues for Inquiries; Cuthbertson, 1990. Commissions for Industry Assistance and Resource Assessment. Some Comparisons; Potts, 1989. The environment may be facing RAC or 107 discussion paper put out by the neo-liberal think tank the Centre for International Economics for example, five explanatory factors are offered for the abuse of environmental resources: • environmental assets are neither priced nor accounted for; • many resources are common property: “they belong to everybody and nobody”; • perverse government incentives and bad policy; • lack of information; • high population density and poverty.374
The Centre for International Economics suggested the RAC should seek to address these issues. The RAC’s enabling legislation placed it firmly within such an economic framework, requiring the new organisation to deal with the resource uses before it in terms of costs and benefits.375 The RAC thus pursued an approach that attempted to “optimise the net benefits” of resource use, using strategies which necessitated placing the national interest ahead of sectional interests, in much the same way as the Industries Assistance Commission sought to do.376
There were thus historical and political factors driving the increased use of economic instruments to achieve environmental policy objectives. This section has indicated that these factors significantly influenced the agenda of the new institution. Having demonstrated that the RAC was established with an economic approach in mind, what were the results? A neo-liberal environment: the work of the RAC
The RAC did not necessarily see the extension of economic techniques in policy making as its mainspring. The RAC was always at pains to emphasise its
ruin. Cuthbertson argued “If markets have served the environment badly, governments will do no better unless they redress the matter where markets fail and that failure is due in large part to not being able to settle a “price” on the environment.”(p.61) 374 CIE (Centre for International Economics), 1989. The Resource Assessment Commission. Issues for Inquiries. pp.1-2. 375 RAC Act 1989 S.8. The Act also points out that intangible benefits and costs were to be taken into account, but the underlying principle is nevertheless that of economic calculus. Economou, 1992. Reconciling the Irreconcilable? The Resource Assessment Commission, Resource Policy and the Environment. 376 Resource Assessment Commission, 1990. Resource Assessment Commission Annual Report 1989- 90; Stewart, 1991. National Concerns and the Resource Assessment Commission. 108 principle virtues as openness and objectivity.377 An economic epistemology was merely one element of the RAC’s operation. It was from the need to develop credible policy solutions as options to be presented to governments that the strong economic emphasis may have emerged. This was perhaps least true for the Conservation Zone Inquiry, where other cultural and social criteria and policy principles predominated. Yet even in that Inquiry, economic approaches to policy questions and policy solutions played a large part in the Commission’s work.
The economic focus is evident from the operations of the RAC as much as from its legislation. Economic research formed a key part of the Research Branch’s work, and 15 of the publications of the RAC could be classified as research oriented.378 Of these research publications, eight pertained primarily to matters of environmental economics, and another three contained substantial discussions of economic issues, leaving only four that were not directly addressing economic matters.379 The techniques reviewed or used included cost-benefit analysis, hedonic pricing, travel-cost research, and contingent valuation (CV).380 Policy options looked at in Inquiries included market liberalisation, privatisation, export taxes, tax concessions, performance bonds, tradeable permits and user charges for public goods.381 Similarly, at the time of the Conservation Zone and Forest and Timber Inquiries (September 1990) the Research Branch, while nominally having three arms - social, environmental and economic - had in fact only developed the latter two,382 and of these the economic was most productive and fully staffed,383 with the head of the Research Branch being an economist. Most of the formal visitors to the Commission were economists, the joint Australian National University-RAC
377 See for example the introductions to every annual report and Inquiry report; also Subject E, former RAC officer, interviews; Mills, 1992. Letter to the editor; Mills, 1994. The Resource Assessment Commission: Policy Advice and Who to Believe; Stewart and McColl, 1994. The Resource Assessment Commission: An Inside Assessment. 378 These are the documents listed in Appendix B as Occasional Publications (6) and Research Papers (9). Consultant’s reports are excluded from this analysis. 379 The economic papers were mostly in a Pigouvian mould, in contrast to much of the public criticism of environmentalism, which emphasised property rights. See the discussion in Chapter 1. 380 Carson et al., 1994. Valuing the Preservation of Australia's Kakadu Conservation Zone; Imber et al., 1991. A Contingent Valuation Survey of the Kakadu Conservation Zone; Knapman and Stanley, 1991. A Travel Cost Analysis of the Recreation Use Value of Kakadu National Park; Streeting, 1990. A Survey of the Hedonic Price Technique; Wilks, 1990. A Survey of the Contingent Valuation Method. 381 CZFR; Resource Assessment Commission, 1992. Forest and Timber Inquiry Final Report (volume 1); Resource Assessment Commission, 1993. Coastal Zone Inquiry Final Report. 382 RAC corporate structure chart, 22 September 1990. 383 Based on authorship of the published RAC studies, and the corporate structure chart. 109 conference of October 1990 was on “the economics of environmental policy”,384 and most public seminars were co-organised with the Environmental Economics Unit of the Commonwealth Environment Department.385
Given a choice between attempting to internalise external costs and benefits, and opting for Coasian property rights-driven options, the RAC chose largely Pigouvian approaches to market ‘failures’. As public choice theorists would expect, the bureaucracy opted for bureaucratic rather than juridical oversight of the marketplace.386 The reasons for this choice will be discussed later. The first question to be considered, however, is how successful were these Pigouvian approaches in dealing with the policy issues the RAC was chartered to address? These approaches are divided into two groups: CV, the main subject of this Chapter, which concentrated on assessing existence values through a hypothetical market; and travel-cost and hedonic pricing techniques, based around the estimation of use values through analysis of existing markets.387
Contingent valuation has become infamous for raising as many questions about social choice mechanisms as it has answered. From a public policy perspective, attention was drawn to the valuation issues with which it is designed to deal because of President Reagan’s Executive Order 12291 of 1981 which required government agencies to consider all new activities in a benefit-cost framework.388 This Order was seen by many as an attack on welfare and conservation agencies because benefits were poorly defined in economic terms while the costs were very apparent to the administration. This perception that environmental benefits were not being recognised prompted renewed interest in the CV technique as a tool for evaluating costs and benefits in areas of environmental policy.389
384 Resource Assessment Commission, 1990. Resource Assessment Commission Annual Report 1989- 90; Resource Assessment Commission, 1991. Resource Assessment Commission Annual Report 1990-91; Resource Assessment Commission, 1993. Resource Assessment Commission Annual Report 1992-93. 385 Resource Assessment Commission, 1993. Resource Assessment Commission Annual Report 1992- 93. 386 Niskanen, 1971. Bureaucracy and Representative Government. 387 These are by no means the only available techniques. Sinden enumerates nine techniques for valuing unpriced benefits and costs. He places these in three categories: those using observed data from actual market exchanges (including the travel cost technique), those based on observed data from related markets (including hedonic pricing) and that using questionnaire data (CV being the only such technique). Sinden, 1992. A Review of Environmental Valuation in Australia, Table 1. 388 Cummings et al., 1986. Valuing Environmental Goods. An Assessment of the Contingent Valuation Method. 389 This has led to a number of expert assessments of the technique, including the ‘state of the art’ assessment conference and book by Cummings and others (1986), and Arrow et al., 110 Perhaps because interest in the CV technique arose in the context of implementing such ‘market-based’ public policies, there has until recently been little discussion of CV in general, with respect to its public policy implications. Most treatments of the technical aspects of CV have been couched in terms of the implications of economic theory for the better conduct of CV studies,390 while some of the public policy-oriented discussion that emerged during the Conservation Zone Inquiry was directed at either criticising or supporting the particular study in question and the results thereof.391 The aim here will be to pay particular attention to the public policy implications of the CV method and its problems. Contingent valuation
In addition to researching Aboriginal issues, an important part of the Conservation Zone Inquiry’s work was assessing the environmental costs of the proposed development at Coronation Hill: it did this using CV.392 CV is a process whereby people are interviewed to find out what they would spend on a good for which there is no actual market, and for which it is unlikely to be possible to construct one.393 To quote the RAC
1993. Report of the NOAA Panel on Contingent Valuation: Natural Resource Damage Assessments Under the Oil Pollution Act of 1990. 390 This is particularly true for the work of Cummings and others. See also Bateman and Turner, 1993. Valuation of the Environment, Methods and Techniques: The Contingent Valuation Method; Cummings et al., 1986. Valuing Environmental Goods. An Assessment of the Contingent Valuation Method; Hanemann, 1991. Willingness To Pay and Willingness To Accept: How Much Can They Differ?; Harrison, 1992. Valuing Public Goods with the Contingent Valuation Method: A Critique of Kahneman and Knetsch; Kahneman and Knetsch, 1992. Contingent Valuation and the Value of Public Goods: A Reply; Kahneman and Knetsch, 1992. Valuing Public Goods: The Purchase of Moral Satisfaction; Knetsch, 1993. Environmental Valuation: Some Practical Problems of Wrong Questions and Misleading Answers; Mitchell and Carson, 1989. Using Surveys to Value Public Goods: The Contingent Valuation Method; Sinden, 1992. A Review of Environmental Valuation in Australia; Smith, 1992. Arbitrary Values, Good Causes, and Premature Verdicts. 391 Brunton, 1991. Will Play Money Drive Out the Real Money? Contingent Valuation Surveys and Coronation Hill; CIE (Centre for International Economics), 1991. The Economic Contribution of the Proposed Coronation Hill Mine. A Critique of Some Issues Raised by the Resource Assessment Commission in its Draft Report on the Kakadu Conservation Zone; Imber et al., 1991. A Contingent Valuation Survey of the Kakadu Conservation Zone. One exception to this assessment would be Sagoff’s work The Economy of the Earth, especially pp.84-89. That work however is much broader in scope than this study and does not treat CV in great depth. 392 The study was not literally the first in Australia. See Sinden, 1992. A Review of Environmental Valuation in Australia. The technique was, however, novel to those questioned, to the wider public exposed to the process through the media, and to many of the interested groups participating in the inquiry. 393 Mitchell and Carson, 1989. Using Surveys to Value Public Goods: The Contingent Valuation Method; Pearce et al., 1989. Blueprint for a Green Economy; Wilks, 1990. A Survey of the Contingent Valuation Method. 111 The contingent valuation method is designed to estimate the value that people place on the preservation of an area because they believe that they would suffer a decrease in their well-being if the area is despoiled by human activities. No markets exist in which people can express their preferences for preserving such areas, so the contingent valuation method uses surveys of samples of the population to ascertain the amounts of money people would be prepared to pay.394
The survey technique was thus focussed in this case on the preservation value, or non-use value, also known as existence value. As such it differs from travel cost and hedonic pricing techniques, which focus on revealing use values for which there are no discrete markets, but for which there are existing markets that could reveal the value of environmental goods to users.395
In the initial stages of its inquiries, the RAC saw CV as a technique that might assist the evaluative comparisons requested of it, particularly under Section 8(c) and (d) of the RAC Act (cited in Chapter 2). It had some support in this exercise, though ironically enough not particularly from the environmental movement.396 The Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics (ABARE) had considered that, when it came to assessing conservation benefits of the Zone,
Of the two methods [travel cost and contingent valuation], contingent valuation appears the more useful as an empirical aid to decision making in this particular case because of its ability to deal with off-site values.397
The commentary by the Centre for International Economics mentioned above had in fact advocated the method, and this call was taken up in the press.398
394 CZFR, p.149. 395 CV does not have to examine existence value. It may be used to value consumptive uses for which there are no existing markets, such as nature for bushwalking, or wildlife for hunting. See Hamilton, RAC, CV Workshop Transcripts pp.6-7. 396 Even when the results of the CV survey were criticised by the mining industry, ACF’s limited defence of the technique contained a caveat: “While conservationists would never agree that placing dollar values on the environment is a single appropriate method for making resource allocation decisions, contingent valuation is at least a method that puts economics into the broad picture.” Krockenberger, ACF, letter to the Australian Financial Review, cited in CV Workshop Transcripts p.30. 397 ABARE, 1990. Mining and the Environment: Resource Use in the Kakadu Conservation Zone. Submission to the Resource Assessment Commission, November 1990, p.31. ABARE’s support continued up to the publication of results. See for example Waring, ABARE, Transcripts p.1051. 398 CIE (Centre for International Economics), 1989. The Resource Assessment Commission. Issues for Inquiries. 112 For example, Potts commented “the RAC’s terms of reference effectively compel it to adopt an economic approach” and went on to give a precis of the Centre for International Economics’ report, concluding that “for once the Government’s dithering should result in better economics than politics.”399
The RAC used the CV method in both the Conservation Zone and the Forest and Timber Inquiry.400 In the Conservation Zone Inquiry the RAC ran what was to that time the largest CV study performed in Australia, bringing consultants in from across the world in a project that cost over $186 000 in consulting fees, and probably consumed around 5% of the RAC’s operating budget at that time. Table 4.1 shows the breakdown of the consultancies.
Table 4.1 RAC Consultants working on Kakadu Contingent Valuation study. Consultant Consultancy Cost, $ ERA Associates Report on potential usefulness of CV 17 800 Dr Carson Advice on use of CV 11 248 Dr Krutilla Advice on non-market techniques 11 603 Prof Western Advice on questionnaire design 800 Dr Pirie Editorial work 750 AGB McNair CV survey 116 415 ERA Associates Joint consultancy Kakadu/ Forests on 22 384 valuation techniques Prof Sinden Reviewer 1 000 Prof Hanemann Reviewer 1 000 Prof Loomis Reviewer 1 739 Dr Jones Sampling, selection procedures 1 500 Ms Gerrans Editorial work 400 TOTAL 186 639
Notes: Some editorial costs that formed part of editing consultancies that extended beyond the CV study are excluded.
Sources: RAC Annual Reports 1989-90, 1990-91.
The purpose of the Kakadu study was to discern the public’s willingness to pay for the exclusion of mining from the Conservation Zone in order to secure the preservation benefits of the area. Much of the work on the survey was done in the RAC’s Research Branch, though AGB McNair did the interviewing of around two thousand people for the study.
399 Potts, 1989. The environment may be facing RAC or ruin. 400 See Imber et al., 1991. A Contingent Valuation Survey of the Kakadu Conservation Zone; Resource Assessment Commission, 1992. Forest and Timber Inquiry Final Report (volume 2b), Appendix U. 113 The information given to survey respondents was based on two scenarios for the impact of mining on the conservation zone: one envisaging high impacts from mining, the other, low impacts. The impacts covered included: • mine related traffic; • chemicals used to extract minerals; • mine process water and waste rock material; and • impact on wildlife.
The reasons two impact scenarios rather than one were developed were two- fold: scientific and technical uncertainty about the impacts; and disagreement amongst interested parties, consulted during the design phase of the study, about what could be presented to respondents as reasonable descriptions of the possible impacts.
Having presented information about Kakadu and the possible impacts of mining on the Park, respondents were then asked whether they would be willing to pay certain amounts nominated by the interviewer in order to avoid the effects of mining.401 Respondents were asked to offer an individual payment (rather than household), to be made through a reduction in take-home pay over a ten year period.
The valuation questions were placed within a ‘frame’ of statements designed to remind respondents of the importance of budget constraints. A range of other questions were also asked to secure demographic and attitudinal information about respondents. The answers to these questions were used to cross-check the reliability of individual responses and assist in interpreting the results of the study.
As would be expected, the two environmental impact scenarios came out with different results.402 The median willingness to pay to avoid the impacts described in the low-risk scenario was $52.80 per annum for 10 years. This translated as a willingness to pay for the Australian adult population of $647 million dollars per annum, over ten years. The valuation by individuals in the
401 This method of eliciting a response is called the discrete choice model. The alternative is to ask respondents themselves to nominate the amount they would be willing to pay. For details on this and all other methodological issues, see Cummings et al., 1986. Valuing Environmental Goods. An Assessment of the Contingent Valuation Method; Imber et al., 1991. A Contingent Valuation Survey of the Kakadu Conservation Zone; Mitchell and Carson, 1989. Using Surveys to Value Public Goods: The Contingent Valuation Method. 402 The RAC’s researchers subsequently discounted the high-risk scenario as the less realistic, as well as arguing that using the low-risk scenario valuations ensured a conservative valuation result. Remaining discussion in this thesis is confined to the low-risk scenario. 114 Northern Territory sub-sample was lower, with a median of $14.50 per annum.403
How were these results distributed amongst respondents? Figure 4.1 shows the frequency of values respondents gave, for the national sample. The results shown in Figure 4.1 were bi-modally distributed. This indicated that some people did not value the Kakadu Conservation Zone as a preservation good. The bimodal distribution was also used as evidence that people were voting on rather than valuing the good in question, an issue taken up later in this Chapter. Most of the data gathered on reported behaviour, attitudes and demographic characteristics of the respondents was consistent with the results of the survey, with however the significant exception that the level of willingness to pay was not significantly correlated with income.404
What did the results mean? In the Draft Report the RAC presented the results of the CV study, stating: The results suggest that Australians are willing to pay much more to prevent mining at Coronation Hill than the net benefits from mining as indicated by the cost-benefit analysis of the project. This suggests that national welfare will be increased if mining is not allowed to proceed. However, since this is the first occasion on which a major survey of this kind has been carried out in Australia, the Inquiry is seeking further comments before taking the survey results into account in considering the options for the use of the resources of the Conservation Zone.405
403 The exact figures varied quite considerably with the analytical technique used. These figures are medians for the non-parametric analysis of the data. The figures given by the parametric analysis were somewhat higher, as would be those produced if the mean was chosen rather than the median. 404 See Carson et al., 1994. Valuing the Preservation of Australia's Kakadu Conservation Zone for the formulation of a valuation function and discussion of the significance of the attitudinal variables. 405 Resource Assessment Commission, 1991. Kakadu Conservation Zone Inquiry Draft Report (volume 1), pp.xxvii-xxviii. As was pointed out to the RAC, the correct interpretation was that national welfare will be reduced if mining is allowed to proceed, not that it will be increased by preventing it. The error appears to be repeated in Carson et al., 1994. Valuing the Preservation of Australia's Kakadu Conservation Zone. 115
Figure 4.1 The Conservation Zone CV study results: low impact scenario.
35
30
25
20
15 % respondents
10
5
0 $0-$2 $2-$5 $5-$20 $20-$50 $50-$100 $100-$250 more than $250 Range
Source: Imber, D., Stevenson, G. and Wilks, L., 1991. A Contingent Valuation Survey of the Kakadu Conservation Zone, Resource Assessment Commission, RAC Research Paper 3. 116
Even before the completion of the initial CV study, the RAC came under pressure first, to dilute the conclusions drawn from the study and second, to distance its Final Report from the study performed by the Commission’s Research Branch. This pressure came from a wide range of sources. These included not only the mining industry, but also members of the federal Ministry including the Minister for Resources, Mr Griffiths, and Senator Collins.406 There was also ambivalence within the RAC, some staff taking the view that it was an interesting exercise, but not reliable in some contexts such as the Conservation Zone case.407 Some government agencies that might have been expected to lend the technique some support rejected it. After their initial interest, both ABARE and the IC opposed the use of CV.408 Possibly this opposition was in response to the results of the Conservation Zone survey rather than general: a year later the IC was arguing, concerning water quality,
Regulators, before setting standards, should undertake an assessment of benefits and costs, including an assessment of alternative technologies. This process should explicitly canvass consumers’ willingness to pay for improved environmental outcomes...409
At the centre of the controversy were three issues. First, there was the question of whether it is possible or appropriate to attempt to make a monetary assessment of environmental value.410 Some actors (notably environmental groups) considered that such a process was inconsistent with the fact that non- human species (and hence non-valuers) placed a value on the environment, and
406 Summary of discussion with Justice Stewart at the meeting of Australian Minerals and Energy Council, 1 March 1991; Subject B, former RAC officer, interviews. (Subject E, former RAC officer, did not appear to agree with this understanding of the Ministers’ positions.) 407 Subjects C, E, former RAC officers, interviews, reported the presence of such views. 408 RAC Minute, 16 April 1991. Assistant Secretary Research Branch to Commissioners. This minute states in part: “I spoke recently with a senior officer of DASETT who was surprised that I should not be ashamed to mention it [the CV study]. ABARE has taken a strong institutional position against it.” Also letter, Head Of Office, IC to Head Of Office, RAC, 26 March 1991; Subject B, former RAC officer, interviews. 409 Industry Commission, 1992. Water Resources and Waste Water Disposal Inquiry Report, p.170 emphasis added. 410 This question can be asked of the use of cost benefit calculus in public policy generally. Though this was not a theme in debate about the Kakadu CV study, it does arise in subsequent discussion in this Chapter. (It was raised in at least one submission to the Conservation Zone Inquiry: P Fitzgerald Submission 20). See particularly Blamey and Common, 1994. Sustainability and the Limits to Pseudo Market Valuation; O'Neill, 1993. Ecology, Policy and Politics. 117 that some values are not quantifiable.411 There was also the problem of system maintenance functions that ecosystems provide that are very difficult to value, and which cannot be valued in a technique that looks only at existence values.
Second, there were questions about the reliability of the contingent valuation technique itself.412 A number of empirical tests have raised questions about whether respondents contextualise questions and respond within a budget constraint. The possibility that respondents were thus over-stating their willingness to pay was raised by Inquiry participants.413
Third, it was possible to consider that the technique had merit, but that this particular application was flawed. The Australian Mining Industry Council (AMIC) submitted that the situation was unsuited to such a survey.414 Some participants said that they were willing to accept that the methodology might have some legitimacy, but argued that the results could not meaningfully be compared with other economic assessments such as that of the net present value of the proposed mine.415 One reason for this was that politically contentious proposals may generate unreliable responses to the survey.416
The RAC eventually responded to these problems by abandoning the comparison between the results of the CV and economic valuations of the benefits of the mine, instead treating the survey as a public opinion poll.417 In its Final Report, the Conservation Zone Inquiry stated
For the reasons given in Appendix Q, the Inquiry accepts the conclusion that the values revealed by the study are most probably too high and that it is not possible to estimate the true value of
411 ACF Submission 97; Krockenberger, ACF, Transcripts p.1338. See also Goodin, 1992. Green Values and the Buying of Environmental Indulgences. 412 Kahneman and Knetsch, 1992. Valuing Public Goods: The Purchase of Moral Satisfaction; Knetsch, 1993. Environmental Valuation: Some Practical Problems of Wrong Questions and Misleading Answers. 413 Young, CSIRO, CV Workshop Transcripts p.52. See also Sinden’s referee’s comments in Appendix VIII of Imber et al., 1991. A Contingent Valuation Survey of the Kakadu Conservation Zone. 414 AMIC Submission 178. 415 Reported by subject E, former RAC officer, interviews. 416 McLennan, Roy Morgan Research, CV Workshop Transcripts p.47. See Cummings et al., 1986. Valuing Environmental Goods. An Assessment of the Contingent Valuation Method. 417 The treatment of the survey as any sort of opinion poll, it should be said, would first represent a waste of money. Polling is far more straightforward and does not need to be done face to face as this survey was done. But more importantly CV does not rank each respondent’s preferences equally, which is essential to opinion polling, because CV, unlike polling, seeks responses made within budget constraints. 118 preservation in order to compare it with the estimated net benefits from mining.418
However that Appendix (prepared by the RAC’s Research Branch, outside the Kakadu Inquiry Branch) states:
It should be stressed that at each stage of the study the most conservative estimates of willingness to pay were chosen - the use of the median rather than the mean, the choice of willingness to pay rather than willingness to accept compensation, the preference for non-parametric rather than parametric estimates...
Although many critics expressed the view that the estimates from the CV study are ‘too high’ (that is, higher than the subjectively determined ‘true’ value), the study provides the only direct estimate available of the monetary value of the preservation of the Conservation Zone.419
The Appendix thus in fact offers no reasons why the values from the study were “probably too high”, though it certainly reviews a number of limitations of the CV technique. The strategy for dealing with these limitations was based on instituting a number of conservative decision rules rather than on determining the magnitude and direction of errors in the responses. In the circumstances, this was probably a wise approach. The Inquiry therefore never did explain the basis of the decision to set aside the results of the survey.420 Conclusion
The RAC’s neo-liberal heritage makes it an ideal vehicle for examining how successful this approach to policy can be for dealing with emerging environmental issues. While the policy framework in which the RAC operated, as expressed in its enabling legislation, was generally economic in nature, the principal vehicle the RAC used to operationalise this was contingent valuation. The controversial outcome of the Conservation Zone Inquiry’s attempts to use CV immediately posed questions about the use of economic or incentive-based policy instruments. The next two Chapters seek to analyse why there were
418 CZFR p.149. 419 CZFR2 p.278. 420 Subject B, former RAC officer, interviews. There are some indications of grounds (other than lobby group pressure) for the Inquiry’s conclusions. Hamilton argued that respondents were probably responding to “green cues that were given” and that despite the revisions after pre-testing and reliance on the minor-impact scenario there were still some framing problems. The novelty of the survey may also have been an issue. Hamilton, RAC, CV Workshop Transcripts pp.16-17. 119 difficulties with extending the neo-liberal agenda to deal with environmental issues. 120 Chapter 5 Pigouvian Techniques
I turn now to using the RAC’s work in the Coronation Hill case to discuss the use of the Pigouvian techniques of environmental economics to deal with the rise of environmental issues in the resolution of natural resources policy problems. In calling these Pigouvian I am not referring to Pigouvian taxes in the strict economic sense, but to Pigou’s argument that environmental problems such as factory pollution result from the divergence of private cost and social cost.421 As I noted in Chapter 1, the recognition that environmental damage is caused by people not having to bear the full costs of their actions leads to the pursuit of policy strategies that ensure that, as the phrase has become, the ‘polluter pays’. The tools used to pursue these strategies (which include ‘Pigouvian taxes’) are designed to introduce into either existing or new markets prices that capture the environmental cost of human activities. One of the most popular but controversial of these tools has been contingent valuation (CV). This Chapter uses analysis of the CV study performed in the Conservation Zone, and of the benefit-cost framework within which it was located, to discuss the suitability of such an approach for dealing with environmental concerns about natural resource use decisions. The problems of externalities
As was noted in the previous Chapter, a range of specific criticisms of the Kakadu Conservation Zone CV study have been made. Many are discussed, rather briefly, in the consultants’ report, as an appendix to the Final Report of the Conservation Zone Inquiry.422 Several of these relevant to this analysis are reviewed below. They give rise to some interesting policy issues, and lead into
421 Pigou, 1920. The Economics of Welfare. 422 The critiques discussed by the consultants covered novelty, framing, embedding, the ‘moral free lunch’ phenomenon, strategic bias, hypothetical bias, the suggestion that the valuation represented a land valuation, bimodality, basis of payments (household versus individual), and the question of whether respondents were making an economic or a political response (CZFR2 Appendix Q, p.268). Other questions concerning options in the design of the study had been considered earlier. These included choice of willingness-to- pay or willingness to accept compensation as the valuation vehicle, whether to use a discrete choice or continuous choice of payments in the study, and other matters concerning the structure of the statistical analysis. Imber et al., 1991. A Contingent Valuation Survey of the Kakadu Conservation Zone. 121 a more general discussion of the difficulties of using economic mechanisms for social governance. The ‘moral free lunch’ and the voters
One issue raised by critics of CV concerned people’s behaviour as morally concerned individuals. Critics questioned what survey respondents might do when confronted with issues they saw as having a moral dimension. Rather than simply answer the questions truthfully, they might instead take what one critic called a moral ‘free lunch’.423 The moral free lunch is a situation where, quoting the researchers,
respondents may have felt a desire to appear environmentally conscious in the presence of the interviewer; they may have been influenced by cues arising from the fact that the survey stressed the environmental aspects of the Coronation Hill issue and not the traditional economic ones.424
Thus, given the interviewees were dealing with a hypothetical situation, they may have overstated their willingness-to-pay for protection of the Conservation Zone. This would have given them a ‘warm inner glow’ of satisfaction at having done the ‘right’ thing: to have taken a moral position on the issue, but to have taken it for free. The researchers’ defence against this is a fascinating piece of hypothesis construction and testing.425 It is ingenious, but is also of doubtful validity. The RAC’s researchers began by supposing that people might be seeking a ‘moral free lunch’. They then posed the question: what might we hypothesise about the behaviour of ‘free lunchers’? If people were salivating at the prospect of a free ethical feast rather than thinking about their budget constraints, the RAC reasoned, then presumably the higher the amounts they were asked to pay for preservation the more willing they would
423 The main critics on this front were the Tasman Institute, Ron Brunton and ABARE. See Brunton, 1991. Will Play Money Drive Out the Real Money? Contingent Valuation Surveys and Coronation Hill; ABARE Submission 163; NT Government Submission 195. A related issue, the embedding effect and its implications, was examined elsewhere. It however requires testing involving the embedding of a good in a larger class of goods. This kind of test could have been run in the Kakadu CV, by asking some respondents questions about willingness-to-pay for preservation of all World Heritage Areas or National Parks from the impacts of mining. This was not done, though admittedly the variability and uncertainty about impacts would have made scenario design very difficult. See Kahneman and Knetsch, 1992. Contingent Valuation and the Value of Public Goods: A Reply; Kahneman and Knetsch, 1992. Valuing Public Goods: The Purchase of Moral Satisfaction; Smith, 1992. Arbitrary Values, Good Causes, and Premature Verdicts. For some contrary arguments see Carson et al., 1994. Valuing the Preservation of Australia's Kakadu Conservation Zone. 424 CZFR2 p.271. 425 CZFR2 p.271. 122 be to agree to pay. Just as an open window might be an invitation to a burglar, so the opportunity to agree to pay large amounts of money to preserve the Conservation Zone (while not really having to do so) should tempt respondents to dine with the economic devil. Such behaviour, however, leads to an upwardly sloping demand curve. The demand curve of respondents exhibiting true willingness-to-pay under budget constraints should be downwardly sloping. This, the RAC reasoned, should allow them to distinguish the moral free lunch hypothesis from the conventional willingness-to-pay one: the response curves, of price versus quantity, would have opposite slopes, as in Figure 5.1.
Statistical analysis of respondents valuations, however, showed a normal willingness-to-pay curve (ie. downward-sloping), which led to the rejection of the moral free lunch hypothesis That is, statistically, the results of the CV study that were shown in Figure 4.1 better fit the willingness-to-pay curve in Figure 5.1 than the ‘moral free lunch’ curve.426
The problem with the RAC’s test of the moral free lunch hypothesis lies in its assumptions about the workings of the human mind. In particular it assumes that our moral frailties are simply more easily exploited by offering increasing amounts of money. There are however other possible ways in which the criminal mind may work, and the most obvious alternative to that put forward by the RAC creates problems for their supposed test.
Suppose, instead, that the person who decides to take a ‘moral free lunch’ will act like anyone who tries to have something for nothing: they will try not to get caught. This is hardly a surprising hypothesis: it would at least seem to be just as plausible an argument as that testing by the RAC’s researchers. One obvious way to evade detection is to ‘act normal’: emulate the behaviour of an honest person. Like a fisherman in a public bar, the ‘free luncher’ exaggerates rather than going for a brazen lie. They will nevertheless draw a line, a point at which they sense that to agree to the amount proposed as their willingness-to-pay would seem improbable.427 Beyond that point, they decline the proposed payment, but not before having in Kahneman and Knetsch’s terms “purchased some moral
426 CZFR2 p.272. 427 The surveyors in fact applied logic tests in an attempt to exclude the most extremely inconsistent responses: Imber et al., 1991. A Contingent Valuation Survey of the Kakadu Conservation Zone, p.132. 123
Figure 5.1 Taking a moral free lunch: the RAC’s model.
moral free lunch willingness to pay amounts (units) Number of respondents responding 'yes' to
Amount asked of respondent
Source: the author. 124 satisfaction” without really paying.428 According to this hypothesis, their demand curve will be higher than that of an ‘honest’ respondent, but remain downward sloping, as shown in Figure 5.2.
By adopting this strategy, ‘free lunchers’ are able to gain the utility of free moral satisfaction, but their behaviour will result in what would be regarded as a normal, downward-sloping, demand curve. And this means in turn that the two alternative behaviours - honest expression of willingness-to-pay, and ‘moral free lunch’ - cannot be distinguished by examining the demand curves of the interviewees. Contrary to the assertions of the research team, any attempts by respondents to have lunch at the RAC’s expense cannot be detected using such a test of internal consistency.
This case is one of a number of examples of where economic approaches to policy fall foul of the need for reliable knowledge about human behaviour, and models of that behaviour that are robust. The RAC’s inability to effectively model strategic behaviour meant that the Kakadu CV results could not be effectively tested to determine whether respondents were taking, as critics had claimed, a ‘moral free lunch’.
This was not the only case where respondent behaviour called into question the ability of CV to define a good in order for valuations of that good to be incorporated into decision-making. A similar problem arose with the possibility of respondents engaging in voting rather than valuing behaviour. As can be seen from Figure 4.1 in the previous Chapter, the willingness-to-pay of respondents had a bimodal distribution. According to one view, bimodality in the results of CV is not inherently damaging: “the bimodal pattern in responses does not present a problem for the contingent valuation as long as respondents answered truthfully, and indications are that on the whole they did.”429 The irregular distribution is simply taken to reflect consumer preferences, particularly the fact that some consumers had no desire to purchase the good in question.
However, an alternative interpretation of the data is that respondents were voting rather than valuing when surveyed: they were expressing a political opinion about, rather than their monetary valuation of, the resource in
428 Kahneman and Knetsch, 1992. Valuing Public Goods: The Purchase of Moral Satisfaction. 429 Imber et al., 1991. A Contingent Valuation Survey of the Kakadu Conservation Zone, p.93. 125
Figure 5.2 Taking a moral free lunch: an alternative hypothesis.
moral free lunch willingness to pay Number of respondents responding 'yes' to amounts
Amount asked of respondent
Source: the author. 126 question.430 This would seem quite a feasible explanation, given the highly polarised and ongoing debate about the issue, coupled with the objections many people might have to being asked to pay for something they thought was theirs anyway - Crown land.431 In such circumstances, respondents may have ignored monetary values and made statements according to their overall policy position: for or against mining.
The RAC’s researchers - defending their study against this accusation - correctly pointed out that to confirm or reject such a hypothesis would require a mathematical model of voting behaviour that differed from the model of valuing behaviour. They also pointed out that even if ABARE was correct in determining that just over half of respondents were voting, the valuations of the remaining 47% were presumably valid and could still therefore be analysed, whereas ABARE attempted to use the critique to reject the study as being “a survey of public opinion”.432 But the RAC then admitted that the hypothesis that respondents were voting could not be disproved, and were able only to say that statistical analysis of the results did not indicate one model (voting) was a better model than the other (valuing).433 They were thus effectively claiming that it was not possible to tell whether the responses subjects made to the survey were a product of political or economic calculations by the respondents. Given that the signal was meant to be ‘purely’ economic, this seemed hardly satisfactory.
430 ABARE Submission 163. 431 This is a property rights-related issue, and is later examined in the context of argument over the use of willingness-to-pay versus willingness-to-accept-compensation measures. See in general Hanemann, 1991. Willingness To Pay and Willingness To Accept: How Much Can They Differ?; Kahneman and Knetsch, 1992. Contingent Valuation and the Value of Public Goods: A Reply; Kahneman and Knetsch, 1992. Valuing Public Goods: The Purchase of Moral Satisfaction; Smith, 1992. Arbitrary Values, Good Causes, and Premature Verdicts. 432 ABARE Submission 163, p.26. The RAC went on to do this analysis and found the median willingness-to-pay for the minor scenario of these 47% was $56, very similar to the original result of $53. They also found that of the 53% who were voters, anti-mining respondents outnumbered pro-mining respondents by nearly three to one (though Sinden subsequently argued a more balanced ‘vote’ in overall attitudinal terms - Sinden in Imber et al., 1991. A Contingent Valuation Survey of the Kakadu Conservation Zone, p.201.) But this still does not deal with the possibility that the technique was not eliciting economic choices. Had the results of the two forms of analysis produced more divergent results, the researchers might have appeared in a more difficult position. The existence of a significant number of voters (whose valuations we might reasonably expect to be different to those who feel less strongly about the issue) nevertheless undermined the attempted assessment of total social value. 433 CZFR2 p.277. 127 Several years before the Conservation Zone survey was run, Kahneman and Knetsch had expressed concern about the “contamination” of the valuation process with measures of ideological preferences and the strengths of opinions. Kahneman and Knetsch found such contamination associated with ‘starting point bias’ and the ‘embedding effect’, but voting behaviour is another example of it.434 At least two phenomena - the ‘moral free lunch’ problem, and voting behaviour - therefore emerged in the Kakadu CV study to add to the problems scholars had come to associate with using this technique to value unpriced externalities.
But perhaps the greatest concern is not that there may be “contamination” of the results, but that the expression of ideological preferences is considered contamination. While Kahneman and Knetsch worry about getting the uncontaminated results, a far more appropriate concern is whether there are any results to be obtained at all. Surely the obvious conclusion to draw from finding voters and moral free lunchers is that drawn by O’Neill:
The existence of protest bids shows individuals to have a healthy commitment to certain goods and an understanding of the limits of markets. Protests reveal neither irrationality nor strategic rationality, but decent ethical commitments.435
In summary, the possibilities that respondents were either having a moral free lunch or voting rather than valuing places government in a difficult position if it wants to use economic techniques to reveal community preferences. To define the nature and magnitude of the externalities the surveyor must have a robust model of human behaviour capable of incorporating these sorts of behaviours (and the underlying concerns) into the valuation process. It seems clear from the ambiguities in both of the areas just discussed that such a model was unavailable, despite quite intensive research.
434 See Kahneman in Cummings et al., 1986. Valuing Environmental Goods. An Assessment of the Contingent Valuation Method, pp.190-92. Of course there are other forms of contamination than the introduction of certain biases. To quote Edelman: In part at least, opinion research findings reflect the pointlessness of trying to ascertain and measure the opinions of people about issues that have little salience or meaning for them except the salience created by the measurement effort itself. (Edelman, 1971. Politics as Symbolic Action. Mass Arousal and Quiescence, p.5.) 435 O'Neill, 1993. Ecology, Policy and Politics, p.120. See also Fisse and Braithwaite’s discussion of economic calculus: Fisse and Braithwaite, 1993. Corporations, Crime and Accountability, pp.83-85. 128 The high frequency of near-zero valuation responses in the Kakadu CV survey, and the pro-mining voters that that may reveal, are of interest for other reasons, to which I now turn. Bimodality and non-use benefits
One problem arising from the Conservation Zone study is raised by the RAC’s own definition of the survey technique (see above). The definition states that CV “is designed to estimate the value that people place on the preservation of an area...” General definitions of CV point out that it is a technique appropriate to goods where there is no market, or clearly related market, from which values could be determined (by hedonic pricing for example).436 It is particularly useful for revealing non-use values. The way however that CV is defined by the RAC implies that non-use values are confined to preservation benefits of the good in question.
This definition, however, is merely an artefact of the terms of debate about the environment. It is inherent in neither the CV technique itself, nor the non-use benefits that members of the community may cherish. As Sinden rightly notes, the CV technique values consumer surplus or total benefit, and there is no reason to suppose that such benefits will be particularly associated with preservation goods in cases such as that of the Kakadu Conservation Zone.437
Of the possible total use benefits that are generally pursued using CV, the commonest are non-use benefits or benefits without obvious markets. What are the non-use benefits? Particularly when it comes to natural resources policy, the concept has come to be associated with the benefits people gain from knowing natural places exist, even if they never use those areas.438 CV studies are overwhelmingly concerned with environmental benefits of one sort or another - either in suggesting an appropriate level of provision of a good, or an appropriate level of compensation or punishment where an environment is damaged or destroyed. This focus on environmental goods has developed to the exclusion of all other forms of non-use benefit. For example, the only non- environmental good mentioned in Wilks’ review was one survey on government support for the arts.439 Similarly, when I analysed 101 classifiable
436 Eg. Mitchell and Carson, 1989. Using Surveys to Value Public Goods: The Contingent Valuation Method. 437 Sinden, 1992. A Review of Environmental Valuation in Australia. 438 ABARE Submission 163. See Krutilla, 1967. Conservation Reconsidered. 439 Throsby in Wilks, 1990. A Survey of the Contingent Valuation Method. 129 CV studies summarised in Appendix A of Mitchell’s 1989 study, this revealed that all but nine concerned environmental goods.440 Even of those nine, six were in related areas (health and recreational services).
Yet there is no reason we should confine the concept of non-use benefits to natural places. Hugh Morgan of Western Mining, talking about the mining industry, considered that “...our orebodies, and the equipment we use to mine them, are part of the divine order.”441 What is Morgan saying to us when he considers development, including mining, to be part of a divine order? 442 Surely he is saying that there is value in development beyond that extracted for himself and his shareholders. Where one considers something to have value that is not value in use for oneself, is that not a non-use value?443 In this sense mining by companies other than Western Mining, has for Mr Morgan a component of non-use value. To argue otherwise is to suggest that somehow people are capable of being motivated by things other than self-interest when it comes to the environment, yet for some reason abandon all such altruism in other fields. This would hardly be a plausible account of human nature. What of all the charitable acts and donations people engage in to help the starving in Africa, people with disabilities, amateur sports?
Yet in the case of the Coronation Hill study, the researchers declined to survey the full range of possible willingness to pay for non-use benefits. They did not ask Hugh Morgan, for example, how much he might be willing to pay for the mine to go ahead even though he would receive no benefits from that mine. The Commission’s only comment on such matters sidesteps the issue of non- preservation non-use benefits. The researchers at one point state:
440 Mitchell and Carson, 1989. Using Surveys to Value Public Goods: The Contingent Valuation Method. 441 cited in Honner, 1984. The Theology of Hugh M. Morgan, Miner. 442 This kind of attitude is not uncommon, and has a long heritage. Former Labor Premier of Tasmania Eric Reece, talking about hydroelectric development in that State, said: “We have got to keep developing... It seems to me absolutely criminal that there should be non- use of the water resources that are now running out to sea... God gave us the earth to use and to care for.” (interview in Green, 1983. Battle for the Franklin, pp.30-33.) Similarly, Agricola writes in the 16th Century: “In the first place, it is indispensable that [miners] should worship God with reverence, and that they understand the matters of which I am going to speak, and that they take good care that each individual performs his duties efficiently and diligently. It is decreed by Divine Providence that those who know what they ought to do and then take care to do it properly, for the most part meet with good fortune in all they undertake.” Agricola, 1556. De Re Metallica, translated from the latin by Hoover, H.C. and Hoover, L.H., Book II. 443 This issue was almost completely ignored during the Conservation Zone debate, though it was raised once by Roger Rose of ABARE: Rose, CV Workshop Transcripts p.36, and outlined in ABARE’s Submission 163, p.10. 130 The CV study did not attempt to estimate the value of mining or the value of preservation after taking account of the value of mining. The value of mining was the subject of a study by the ABARE...444
This is incorrect. The use benefits of mining to the corporations involved, and the revenue benefits to the public purse, were both discussed by ABARE, as well as the National Institute of Economic and Industry Research.445 But neither of them examined the non-use benefits to individuals of the mine proceeding. And while these outside studies did not pursue this issue, neither did the RAC’s researchers show interest in creating a market for the non- consumptive values to Australians of, for example, regional development, ‘progress’, Aboriginal employment, or Northern Territory economic independence.
We should not suppose, as is the current fashion, that it is only environmental goods that are undervalued because of non-excludability or because they provide non-consumptive benefits. The irony is that it is the very ideological, almost religious, nature of the development ethic decried by environmentalists that is likely to generate those non-use values for people who hold such beliefs. Just the existence of mines and infrastructure, and the option values that they bring, are of importance to some people. The range of non-use values is considerable, and must be either incorporated in valuation, or set aside.446 By choosing to do neither, the RAC demonstrated how difficult it is to extend markets in such a way without introducing all sorts of methodological difficulties. Far from eliminating subjective and sectional interests, the extension of the market place simply brought with it new opportunities for ideological contest. Devising the benefit cost analysis
Just as there were problems with defining the nature and magnitude of environmental externalities through CV, similar sorts of troubles beset the conduct of the several benefit cost analyses that were pursued during the course of the Coronation Hill debate.
444 CZFR2 p.262. 445 ABARE Submissions 103, 163; National Institute of Economic and Industry Research (NIEIR), 1990. The Economic Significance of the Proposed Coronation Hill Mine Project. 446 Laver, 1986. Social Choice and Public Policy, pp.58-60. 131 ABARE performed a costing of the proposed mine.447 An assessment of the economic value of the mine could be made by using benefit cost analysis, however the exclusion of a number of steps and factors from the calculation performed by ABARE means it cannot be considered to be a cost-benefit analysis in the orthodox sense of the term.448 As it excluded externalities from consideration, the ABARE estimate can be considered to be of what one consultant termed “gross” benefit.449 That study concluded with an estimate of the net present value of the mine of $82 million.450
One of the interesting features of the costings of the project was this exclusion of externalities. It was entirely appropriate, indeed essential, for the CHJV to do a valuation of the proposal from the corporate perspective. The surprising feature was the development of ‘benefit-cost analyses’ by independent parties that did not treat external costs or benefits. ABARE acknowledged the place of externalities in the process, and stated
Some possible approaches to the quantification of such costs [conservation and cultural services foregone] are outlined, but not attempted, in chapter 5.451
In chapter 5 of their submission is a page on the travel cost method and the CV method, in which they suggest CV to be the most appropriate technique to assess the non-market cost or benefit of not mining.452 While thus addressing very briefly the value of environmental services, however, ABARE does not treat ‘cultural services’ in any of its assessment of costs and benefits: it does not deal with the values of the Zone for Aboriginal people.453 Even when
447 ABARE Submission 103. 448 ABARE claimed that it was: see for example Submission 163 p.3. Cost-benefit analyses are generally considered to require identification, and where possible an attempted costing, of all costs and benefits associated with a project. Harris, 1991. Cost Benefit Analysis: Its Limitations and Use in Fully Privatised Infrastructure Projects; Pearce, 1983. Cost-Benefit Analysis: “A ‘benefit’ is any gain to any individual included in the group in question... Similarly, a ‘cost’ is... anything that imparts a loss of utility or welfare.” (p.12. Emphasis in original) 449 National Institute of Economic and Industry Research (NIEIR), 1990. The Economic Significance of the Proposed Coronation Hill Mine Project, p.2. 450 That estimate of the net present value of the mine of $82 million was based on a number of assumptions not discussed in detail here. All of them are subject to significant variation. They included values and projections for: the discount rate, the price of gold, the exchange rate, the processing cost, mine reserves and mine design. 451 ABARE Submission 103, p.20. 452 ABARE Submission 103, p.31. 453 ABARE state in their second submission: “There are also potentially important aboriginal cultural values associated with 132 examining existence values454 the discussion is confined to conservation-related services.
ABARE’s second submission to the Inquiry titled Valuing Conservation in the Kakadu Conservation Zone,455 was essentially a detailed critique of the RAC’s CV survey, based on an analysis of the results of the survey as well as discussion of methodological problems posed by attempting to incorporate values such as existence values into a benefit-cost framework. Having initially favoured CV, ABARE now opposed it, despite having earlier argued that
It is important to go as far as is reasonably possible to resolve the benefit-cost comparison quantitatively. Classing too many factors as ‘uncertain’ will erode the strengths of the decision making framework.456
The treatment of opportunity costs was likewise problematic. Unlike the mine valuation performed by ABARE, the National Institute of Economic and Industry Research developed an analysis that included resource reallocation adjustment strategies for the Joint Venture. The Institute argued that the net cost of forgoing the mine should not be calculated as the difference between the benefits of the mine and of doing nothing, but should represent the opportunity cost of the mine being cancelled and the company proceeding with the next- best investment opportunity.457 Contrary to the impression that would be gained from the debates about Coronation Hill, an opportunity cost approach is normal cost-benefit analysis practice.458 It necessitates, however, that the
various physical features and broader aspects of the environment of the Conservation Zone. However, these issues are not considered explicitly in this submission.” (ABARE Submission 163, p.5) 454 Existence values are economic values that consumers may place on the existence of something, such as a National Park, independently of its use. 455 ABARE Submission 163. 456 ABARE Submission 103, p.35. 457 National Institute of Economic and Industry Research (NIEIR), 1990. The Economic Significance of the Proposed Coronation Hill Mine Project, p.55. 458 Pearce, 1983. Cost-Benefit Analysis, p.25. See also ACF Submission 97, p.73. There seemed to be considerable misunderstanding about what an opportunity cost approach meant. CIE for example asserted that “The ACF submission to the RAC (undertaken by the NIEIR) puts the view that the cancellation of the Coronation Hill mine would not significantly affect gold production and therefore the welfare of Australians... The ACF argument seems to imply that Australia’s gold mine managers do not operate their mines at a profit maximising level.” CIE (Centre for International Economics), 1991. The Economic Contribution of the Proposed Coronation Hill Mine. A Critique of Some Issues Raised by the Resource Assessment Commission in its Draft Report on the Kakadu Conservation Zone, p.13. This is not an accurate interpretation of the argument in either the National Institute of 133 benefits should be similarly treated, making the assessment acutely difficult. The primary benefits associated with the proposal are generic while the costs are site specific. To the markets, an ounce of gold is an ounce of gold from any mine,459 but a disturbed Bula complex or exposure of the Kakadu World Heritage Area to environmental risk represent costs that would be difficult to compare with the costs of the next-best investment proposition.460
Concerns about defining the magnitudes of benefits and costs also arose from the Ministerial statement about the Conservation Zone, and from problems determining the sample population for the CV study. As mentioned in Chapter 2, Resources and Energy Minister Evans and Heritage and Environment Minister Cohen had in 1986 indicated that only mines of “major economic significance” would be permitted in the Conservation Zone,461 a phrase that became “national economic significance” in the RAC’s terms of reference. To the extent that the policy decisions and debates about Coronation Hill were essentially national policy decisions and national debates,462 it would seem most appropriate to interpret the joint Ministerial statement from a national perspective, and thus to examine the mine from a national economic perspective.
But what did this mean? On the one hand it led to arguments that minimised the significance of the mine, implying it failed to meet the government’s criterion and should therefore be abandoned. A comparison of the proposed mine with total Australian economic activity and exports not surprisingly indicated the mine would form a tiny part of the total economy - as would any
Economic and Industry Research Report, nor the ACF Submission. The Institute merely pointed out that corporations have in place strategies for production activity and the reallocation of capital that attempt to optimise on certain key variables affecting the company’s long-term welfare, such as known mineral reserves, exploration budgets and total production across the company’s mine portfolio. Of course managers maximise profits, but they do so taking account of certain constraints and managing for certain risks. Incidentally, the Centre for International Economics was in error on another point: the ACF Submission was not undertaken by the National Institute of Economic and Industry Research, and that is quite clear from the documents themselves: only the Report was. 459 This is not to suggest that the benefits would be equal. Production costs vary from mine to mine, for example. The benefits however are substitutable between mine sites, while the costs are not. 460 See, eg, ACF Submission 97, p.74. 461 Joint Ministerial Statement, Stage 3 Extension of Kakadu National Park, 16 December 1986. 462 For example, the CHJV received over 90% of comments on the Draft Environmental Impact Statement from outside the Territory. This was not confined to opposition to the project: about half of the minority who supported the project came from outside the Northern Territory. Dames & Moore, 1989. Coronation Hill Gold, Platinum & Palladium Project Final Environmental Impact Statement Supplement, Table 2.1-1. 134 project.463 The mine’s supporters, and eventually the RAC, rejected this approach.464 As the RAC noted, however, what that exercise brought out was that the Coronation Hill mine would be a relatively small project even within the mining sector.465 It also highlighted the minor role Coronation Hill would play in the gold sector. Figure 5.3 shows the contribution the Coronation Hill mine would have made to Australian gold mine production over the years of its life up to peak production. Looked at in these comparative terms it is again difficult to see the proposed Coronation Hill mine as significant in terms of its contribution to the national economy.466
On the other hand, some macroeconomic modelling of the role of the project in the mining sector (by participants from both sides of the debate) served to identify the indirect as well as direct effects of the project.467 Mensuration conducted on this basis resulted in much larger statements of benefits of the mine, between a fifth and twice as much again as the base scenario value produced by ABARE of $82 million.468 Amongst economists, however, such a technique is controversial, as it makes questionable
463 CZDR volume 2 p.181. 464 NT Government Submission 195; CHJV Submission 120; AMIC Submission 178; CIE (Centre for International Economics), 1991. The Economic Contribution of the Proposed Coronation Hill Mine. A Critique of Some Issues Raised by the Resource Assessment Commission in its Draft Report on the Kakadu Conservation Zone; CZFR2. 465 CZFR2 p.245. 466 Sensitivity testing of the project valuation emphasises this outcome. Under some less favourable scenarios than ABARE’s ‘base case’ for exchange rates and gold prices, the project actually was projected to make a loss. See, eg, Knapman & Stanley’s sensitivity testing of the discounted stream of benefits. Knapman and Stanley, 1992. The Economics of Mining Coronation Hill; Dunstan, 1991. So much ado over tinpot gold mine. 467 CIE (Centre for International Economics), 1991. The Economic Contribution of the Proposed Coronation Hill Mine. A Critique of Some Issues Raised by the Resource Assessment Commission in its Draft Report on the Kakadu Conservation Zone; National Institute of Economic and Industry Research (NIEIR), 1990. The Economic Significance of the Proposed Coronation Hill Mine Project. 468 ABARE Submission 103; CIE (Centre for International Economics), 1991. The Economic Contribution of the Proposed Coronation Hill Mine. A Critique of Some Issues Raised by the Resource Assessment Commission in its Draft Report on the Kakadu Conservation Zone; National Institute of Economic and Industry Research (NIEIR), 1990. The Economic Significance of the Proposed Coronation Hill Mine Project. 135
Figure 5.3 Coronation Hill gold production and all Australian gold production estimates.
350 Other Australian production Coronation Hill production
300
250
200
150 Production (tonnes)
100
50
0 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 Year
Sources: ABARE Submission 103; Cairns, J., 1993. Gold, Agriculture and Resources Quarterly 5, p.523. 136 assumptions about the deployment of resources within the economy, and the RAC rejected its use.469
The remaining options for defining the significance of the project were: a simple test of whether benefits exceeded costs; “sustainable development evaluation”, proposed by the ACF; or using the sovereign risk criterion to test the strategic economic significance of the project in a broader context.470
ABARE opted for the first of these options, arguing that the project was significant if benefits exceeded costs. ABARE representatives considered that what
Ministers Evans and Cohen in 86 were driving at there was to say that the fact that a mining project is profitable is only going to be part of this story... The mine will have to be better than that, it will have to generate sufficient national economic benefits to outweigh the costs associated with its existence in that location, contained in this park...
...in our view a project which is of sufficient national economic significance, we might suggest, and one that should attract your attention would be one which was able to compensate for those sorts of environmental and other trade-offs, irrespective of size.471
What they were advocating was that a positive result from a full cost-benefit analysis, rather than private profitability, should be the criterion for allowing the project to proceed. The unusual aspect of this is that the Environmental Protection (Impact of Proposals) Act 1974 and its State equivalents were intended to implement such criteria for all development proposals defined as significant for the purposes of the Acts. It seems improbable that with the Environmental Protection (Impact of Proposals) Act over a decade old, the Ministers for the Environment and for Resources would make a special Ministerial statement if it were meant to indicate nothing more than the routine application of the Act.
Just as participants in the Conservation Zone Inquiry found the concept “national economic significance” problematic, there was some dissatisfaction with the RAC’s delineation of groups affected by the project, in the CV study particularly, and in the consultative process generally. While ABARE had been
469 CZFR2 p.242. 470 On the second option, see ACF Submission 97, pp.77-79. The third strategy is separately treated in Chapter 6. 471 Tom Waring, ABARE, Transcripts p.1056. This is a different argument to that of the project’s proponents who tended to argue from the investor confidence position. 137 consulted about the design of the CV study, they appeared unhappy with the sampling strategy. They commented that the RAC had decided “the whole of the Australian population is the relevant market for the potential benefits of preserving the Kakadu Conservation Zone” but that it was “not clear on what basis that conclusion was arrived at”.472 Others wanted to emphasise the results of the CV survey for the Northern Territory, as these people were to be more affected by the project and had better local knowledge.473 Some mining companies were of a similar view. BHP had commented that “parties not affected by the project at Coronation Hill could “intrude” into the inquiry process.”474 Without some consensus on just who constituted this ‘affected’ population, aggregation of costs and benefits for an analysis of net economic impact would not be possible.
Devising the cost-benefit analysis, let alone executing it, was thus by no means as simple as it may initially have appeared. Throughout the RAC’s inquiry, parties debated where the boundaries of the analysis were to be set, what key terms (such as economic significance) meant, which of the external costs and benefits were to be quantified, and how that would be done. There were thus many definitional hurdles the RAC had difficulty clearing in its attempt to implement Pigouvian policy instruments in this case. It had been unable to get stakeholders to agree on what constituted the externalities in the Conservation Zone case, and had been unable to give economic expression to important values in a cost-benefit framework. Paying for goods: willing or able?
In addition to some of the definitional problems previously outlined, there is an allocative problem raised by the CV technique. The measure of ‘willingness’ to pay is in an important sense a misnomer: what is actually measured is ability to pay. That is, responses are elicited within the context of a constrained budget.475 As in all techniques developed within conventional microeconomics,
472 ABARE Submission 163, p.18. Given their comments elsewhere implying the results were much too high (eg Fisher, 1991. Australian Commodities - Short and Medium Term Prospects), the implication was that the sample was too broad. They did mention the opposite possibility: that with global tourist appeal and cinematic familiarity, and possible impacts on sites of World Heritage status, the appropriate population might be broader than just Australia. 473 AMIC Submission 178, NT Government Submission 195. 474 cited by Cleary, 1990. Mining Body Slates Kakadu Inquiry. 475 So much so in fact, that in the revised version of the study, people whose responses to demographic questions indicated they were poor but who were also indicating a high willingness-to-pay were actually discarded from the sample as being inconsistent 138 producers and consumers make choices to allocate their finite resources amongst potentially unlimited ends or desires.
In such a framework, poorer people cannot pay as much to protect a wetland as can rich people. But is that appropriate to the task at hand? In any country with progressive taxation (such as Australia), the community has made an important policy judgement that suggests that whatever might be the pre- existing distribution of wealth is not necessarily just. All market-based analytical techniques, in contrast, assume that people spend their own money, and operate entirely within their own budget constraints. But since this is not the basis of Australian economic policy, it may not be an appropriate way of adjudicating either government expenditure or the pricing of collective public goods.
Progressive income transfer schemes suggest that we expect the poor to be spending the money of others than themselves. But if a person believes they have a moral claim on part of the income of the wealthy, will CV permit them to express their “willingness to pay” including claims on others’ incomes besides their own? It will not, because that would be the end of the liberal market foundation of the method. CV is a market-based technique, and is based on spending one’s own (and only one’s own) income.
It is possible to counter that it is the job of cost-benefit analysis to examine costs and benefits without regard to such factors:
A benefit cost analysis seeks to point out the efficiency consequences of a decision. The equity of that decision, in who gains and who loses, is another issue which lies outside the realm of benefit cost analysis.476
Yet while that might be said for cost-benefit analysis generally, the same principle cannot be simply applied to CV. The process of framing a CV study - of setting up a realistic scenario for the payment vehicle - impresses upon citizens that their answers may be used by the government in making a decision with financial implications for the state and for them as taxpayers. Indeed this is fundamental to the technique. This could (indeed should, if the CV is to elicit accurate responses) create a perception amongst respondents that the payments they each offer to make for a good will be aggregated to determine the total value of that good to the community. This implies that the
responses. See Carson et al., 1994. Valuing the Preservation of Australia's Kakadu Conservation Zone. 476 Glyde, CPD Senate Estimates Committee A, 23 September 1992, p.A269. 139 government will not be playing its normal income redistributive role such as it does through the tax system. Faced with this scenario, respondents might choose to factor income redistribution into their own responses. This might not be a particularly explicit calculus. An unemployed respondent for example might frame their willingness-to-pay in the context of having a job (particularly if the payment vehicle is portrayed operating over a ten year period). Another person might respond on the basis of what they regard as an ‘average’ income rather than their exact current income. The temptation amongst students of CV is to classify this as strategic behaviour on the part of the respondent simply aimed at maximising their impact on the result. I am arguing rather that this is ‘rational’ economic behaviour by respondents who assume on the basis of economic policy knowledge and experience that income redistribution should take place.
The dilemma thus created is this: we do not know whether none, some, or all, CV respondents engaged in income redistribution within their responses. If all the people surveyed responded only for themselves as the method requires, the results then have to be subsequently manipulated by the analyst to take account of preferences after income transfers. This would necessitate the coupling of attitudinal variables with willingness-to-pay measures for lower socio-economic groups, to determine what proportion of the incomes (or taxes) of wealthier people should be used to purchase the good in question (in addition to the wealthier respondents’ own willingness-to-pay).477 This would be a very difficult - and inevitably contentious - procedure.
If however respondents are giving willingness-to-pay values that include what they believe they should be spending of other people’s money, then the whole theoretical foundation of CV, and of cost-benefit analysis generally, is violated.478 Furthermore, there would have to be a test of whether poorer respondents had ‘correctly’ assessed the proportion of the incomes of wealthier respondents over the spending of which the poorer respondents should have some say.479 And finally, it is likely that the many respondents would exhibit a
477 The reason a simple multiplier (reflecting the proportion of the incomes of the wealthy to be spent by the poor) cannot be used to determine the magnitude of the extra payments by the rich (due to income transfer effects) is that it would necessitate two infeasible assumptions. First, that the nature and ordering of preferences was the same for the two groups; and second, that the income elasticity of demand was the same for poor and rich alike. 478 A related argument concerning social welfare assessments, is made in ABARE Submission 163, p.15. 479 By ‘correct’ is meant the amount of the wealthy’s income available for spending by the 140 mixture of these two valuation strategies. Disentangling the two types would necessitate determining both the proportion of respondents that were using each basis for their calculations, and knowing their socio-economic distribution.
It may therefore be difficult to allocate costs and benefits of provision of public goods such as National Parks. The theoretical problem is that CV expects people to express personal preferences that (they are told) may be directly implemented by government action, against a background in which income transfers from rich to poor are part of most citizens’ expectations. The methodological problem is that there are few if any techniques that will elicit, or data that will indicate, the extent to which respondents are taking this into account by spending ‘other people’s money’. Without a detailed picture of what respondents are doing in this respect, any results are invalidated by income redistribution problems.
The experiences of the RAC in its Conservation Zone Inquiry, analysed above, lead to conclusions on two scales. The first concerns the specific issue of the application of a technique like CV. At a broader scale, this analysis raises questions about the use of economic instruments in environmental policy- making and indeed in policy generally. When does contingent valuation work?
The preceding analysis has looked at some problems with the conduct of CV. These included the problem of the ‘moral free lunchers’; the difficulty of identifying voters (rather than valuers); questions about the full extent of non- use benefits; failures in the design of the cost-benefit analysis particularly in relation to the incorporation of environmental costs; and doubts about the true nature of “willingness” to pay measures in CV. Because of these problems, it was not possible reliably to distinguish between explanations of the meaning of the CV results: to be confident whether respondents were valuers, voters or moral free lunchers for example.480
poor that is sanctioned by the community as a whole, measured for example using the difference between the bottom and top marginal tax rates. 480 ABARE Submission 163; Bateman and Turner, 1993. Valuation of the Environment, Methods and Techniques: The Contingent Valuation Method; Kahneman and Knetsch, 1992. Contingent Valuation and the Value of Public Goods: A Reply; Kahneman and Knetsch, 1992. Valuing Public Goods: The Purchase of Moral Satisfaction; Knetsch, 1993. Environmental Valuation: Some Practical Problems of Wrong Questions and Misleading Answers; Mitchell and Carson, 1989. Using Surveys to Value Public Goods: The Contingent Valuation Method; O'Neill, 1993. Ecology, Policy and Politics; Smith, 1992. Arbitrary Values, Good Causes, and Premature Verdicts. 141 To understand the reasons for this failure of CV to meet operational requirements, it helps to consider the evidence in terms of the analytic criteria outlined in the previous Chapter. There, I pointed out that policy proposals experience different sorts of problems: they may be merely enforcement problems; there may be problems with the allocation of values or resources; or there may be definitional problems. When considered in those terms, CV is seen to be particularly vulnerable to definitional problems. Most of the problems described were not about the allocative procedure or the enforceability of the payment vehicle, but about defining both the good in question and the way in which citizens should behave in considering the nature and level of provision of that good. This is exemplified by the inability of the study to distinguish hypotheses about respondent behaviour.
The critical role of definitional factors is consistent with Cummings et al’s emphasis on the importance of Reference Operating Conditions for the conduct of CV.481 Similarly the design criteria for valuation studies set out by Fischoff and Furby are almost exclusively concerned with definitional issues, with respect to the nature of the goods and the nature of the payment vehicle.482
Contrary then to what Pearce et al argue, the CV method is not “applicable to most contexts of environmental policy.”483 Their optimism has been rejected by others such as ABARE, which abandoned the incorporation the main costs of the Coronation Hill project into a cost-benefit analysis. In many ways the incoherence of ABARE’s arguments about “national economic significance”, and their sudden willingness to abandon CV after the results were publicised,484 both reveal something of the nature of the weakness in Pigouvian approaches to policy. ABARE’s nonsensical approach to “national economic significance” reflected the inappropriate nature of a classical economic framework for addressing moral questions or political allocative matters. Yet the organisation’s willing abandonment of CV ironically reflected a commitment to a welfare economic approach to policy. The results were so controversial it was easier to protect the ‘hard core’ of ABARE’s economic
481 Such a set of preconditions are described by Cummings et al., 1986. Valuing Environmental Goods. An Assessment of the Contingent Valuation Method. as Reference Operating Conditions (ROCs). The Tasman Institute’s paper critical of the Kakadu CV study argued, as I have, that that study failed to meet certain of the ROCs. 482 Fischoff and Furby, 1988. Measuring Values. 483 Pearce et al., 1989. Blueprint for a Green Economy, p.70. See also Jacobs, 1997. Environmental Valuation, Deliberative Democracy and Public Decision-Making Institutions. 484 See, as well as ABARE’s submissions and appearances in transcripts, Fisher, 1990. Australia's Commodity Sector: Issues for the 1990s. 142 theory from broader incredulity by abandoning the ‘protective belt’ that comprised the less vital method of CV.485 It was also easier for them to continue in their role of advocate for the resource industries by rejecting those elements of cost-benefit analysis that did not favour the sector,486 a rejection which simultaneously opened up a front on which they could attack the RAC as an institutional rival.487
ABARE’s behaviour highlighted how Pigouvian techniques may fail to address important policy questions. Why does this failure arise? Why are Pigouvian techniques of limited utility?
What is the problem here? Criticising the Pigouvian approach of environmental economics, Foster argues that
we want to reveal the whole neo-classical approach to environmental concern for the dangerous misrepresentation which we think it is - and we want to do this in the service of what we take to be the more appropriate kinds of regard for nature and for each other.488
Rather, these critics argue, in matters such as environmental protection, the polity, not the economy, is the appropriate site for the determination of community preferences.489
Most analysts trace the problems of environmental economics to either the definition of value (in the cases of Goodin, Keat, O’Neill, or Sagoff) or to the allocation of values (in the cases of Laver, or Pearce).490 The ‘definitional’ critics question the assumption that market-based approaches are necessary to benefit estimation. They argue that much of the terrain of politics suggests that we do not wish public policy judgements to be based on individuals’ purchasing
485 Lakatos, 1974. Falsification and the Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes. 486 Subject B, former RAC officer, interviews. See also Fisher, 1991. Australian Commodities - Short and Medium Term Prospects. 487 This allegation of ABARE’s partisan role is also supported by analysis of forecasts they have made of the impacts of government policies on the resources sector - see Chapter 6. 488 Foster, 1997. Introduction: Environmental Value and the Scope of Economics, p.8. 489 O'Neill, 1993. Ecology, Policy and Politics; O'Neill, 1997. Value Pluralism, Incommensurability and Institutions. 490 Goodin, 1992. Green Values and the Buying of Environmental Indulgences; Keat, 1997. Values and Preferences in Neo-Classical Environmental Economics; Laver, 1986. Social Choice and Public Policy; O'Neill, 1995. Public Choice, Institutional Economics, Environmental Goods; Pearce and Turner, 1990. Economics of Natural Resources and the Environment; Sagoff, 1988. The Economy of the Earth. 143 power: we organise elections - and many other things - on the basis of one vote one value, not on citizens’ ability to pay. Goodin’s defence of this position is that
...surely some of [the components of human well-being] are tradeable, at the margins, for one another... The question is whether environmental quality is of that character. On at least some [arguments], it is not: it is more fundamental; it is a precondition for valuing, rather than merely a source of values which can be set alongside and traded against other values.491
Only those environmental qualities that do not form preconditions for valuation can be traded, and thus only they are suitable to the application of economic frameworks, whether Pigouvian or Coasian.
The ‘allocative’ critics in contrast expect the problem to be one of correcting market failure, and this means a focus on allocative issues:
Modern conventions in market theories of economics picture a proper political system as forgoing most issues concerning the allocation of scarce resources. Within such a conception, politics may properly be involved in decisions about the distribution of wealth (and other initial resources) and in setting the rules of the game, but it is not properly involved in allocative problems except to correct imperfections in the functioning of the free market...492
If the first, definitional, analysis is correct, most problems with CV and so forth should be definitional. If the second analysis is the more sound, the difficulties should tend to be allocative. As we have seen, the empirical evidence from the Conservation Zone Inquiry shows the problems encountered were mostly definitional. The key obstacles to environmental valuation were not in performing allocations as market failure corrections.493 They were the kinds of definitional problems highlighted by Quiggin during one of the RAC’s workshops when he said
the general consensus would seem to be [that] the fact that no dollar figure can be obtained is a bad thing; my view is that it is not a bad thing. My view is that there has to be a limit... [to] attempting to extend economic calculations, of aggregate willingness to pay in the political domain...494
491 Goodin, 1992. Green Values and the Buying of Environmental Indulgences, p.23. 492 March and Olsen, 1986. Popular Sovereignty and the Search for Appropriate Institutions, p.362. 493 March and Olsen, 1986. Popular Sovereignty and the Search for Appropriate Institutions. 494 Quiggan, CV Workshop Transcripts p.64. 144 As Betjamin argued many years earlier,
One cannot assess in terms of cash or exports and imports an imponderable thing like the turn of a lane or an inn or a church tower or a familiar skyline.495
Foster (cited above) had argued that Schumacher’s critique of economics supported his argument that the “whole neo-classical approach to environmental concern” was “dangerous”.496 But, contra Foster, I would argue that Schumacher was not only correct in highlighting the risks of a discipline transcending its limits, he was also correct to say that “economics operates legitimately and usefully within a ‘given’ framework which lies altogether outside the economic calculus”.497 Even critic of neo-classicism Goodin implied that those environmental qualities that do not form preconditions for valuation can be traded, and can therefore be subject to Pigouvian policy approaches. What I have demonstrated is that cases such as Coronation Hill involve qualities that do form preconditions for valuation: there are fundamental definitional issues involved, and these are not suited to the use of techniques such as CV, nor to the placement of the results of such techniques in a cost- benefit framework. Conclusion
We need to recognise that Laver is wrong when he suggests that “failure to conduct the analysis” for the making of social choices is the alternative to cost- benefit analysis. This is the fear that proponents of techniques such as cost- benefit analysis call upon to defend their particular approach.498 But there are in fact other alternatives: they simply are not techniques of such precision, and they are not grounded within the economy. If they are less precise, however, they at least pay proper regard to “the frail character of the knowledge that [social] research produces”.499
495 Sayings of the Week, The Observer, 20 July 1969. 496 Foster, 1997. Introduction: Environmental Value and the Scope of Economics, p.8. 497 Schumacher, 1974. Small is Beautiful, p.38. 498 Take for example the inference implicit in ABARE’s comment “the [cost-benefit analysis] method does provide a discipline that is important where there are many uncertainties and distractions which could lead decision makers away from the central issue.” The greatest irony, serving to emphasise the argument, is that cost-benefit analysis led ABARE away from what the RAC and Hawke in the end concluded was the “central issue”: Aboriginal issues. These did not even rate a mention in ABARE’s concluding comments which were directed exclusively at conservation and mining services. 499 Weiss, 1977. Introduction, p.9. 145 Only by abandoning faith in the discursive processes of democracy and in the capacity of citizens to engage in political reflection could one conclude that the most sound analytical calculus is that of the dismal science. It is a poor grounds for public policy: surely it is “the cogency of the arguments, not how much partisans are willing to pay... that offers a credible basis for public policy.”500 The importance of reason and politically constructed decision- making is ironically traceable to Aristotle, who also argued the merits of private property
Not being self-sufficient when they are isolated, all individuals are so many parts equally dependent on the whole... The man who is isolated - who is unable to share in the benefits of political association or has no need to share because he is already self-sufficient - is no part of the polis, and must therefore be either a beast or a god.501
To reduce public policy to an individual calculus bereft of any place for reason or rhetoric means we discard the legitimacy of the polis: we accept that the citizen is a beast, and that the beast should reign as god:
“the willingness-to-pay approach to public policy removes the basis of legitimacy from the political process... [C]ost-benefit approaches deal only with the values or preferences already extant in society. A political process - a process of debate and compromise - is supposed to be creative. The ability of the political process to cause people to change their values and rise above their self-interest is crucial to its legitimacy.”502
Unless we are able to define the scope of economic analysis for public policy, we will be oblivious to the question of just whose preferences matter most in policy-making, a question that will be effectively answered by the allocative process, whether someone thinks to ask it or not.503 This in turn will encourage “the tendency of economic analysis to abstract itself from non-market but nonetheless essential features of social life.”504
The question of just what is that scope is returned to in the final Chapter. First, however, private property rights approaches to environmental policy will be discussed, because while they tend to be either embraced or rejected along with
500 Sagoff, 1988. The Economy of the Earth, p.95. 501 Aristotle, 1981. Politics 1253a, 26-9. 502 Sagoff, 1988. The Economy of the Earth, pp.95-6. 503 Simeon, 1976. Studying Public Policy, p.23. See also Foster, 1997. Introduction: Environmental Value and the Scope of Economics. 504 Fisse and Braithwaite, 1993. Corporations, Crime and Accountability, p.79. 146 Pigouvian instruments, they are in fact a distinct category, requiring distinct analysis. 147 Chapter 6 Property Rights
Private property rights are a discipline thought desirable by sceptical observers of the profligacy of public jurisdiction. To public choice theorists and their colleagues, property held in common is property not held but relinquished, handed through neglect to an opportunistic few. Like rights of way that by neglect are allowed to lapse, so the management of commons of every sort is allowed to lapse by commoners who pay too little attention to their charge.505 We are all selfish, and thus pay more attention to that which is exclusively ours than that which we must share with others.
For these theorists, one of the key problems of political life is how to design institutions “so that individual behaviour will further the interests of the group.”506 One means to achieve this is to make each individual’s rights concurrent with their responsibilities and with society’s collective interest. This approach is a longstanding one in politics, with Locke for example arguing
The great and chief end, therefore of men’s uniting into commonwealths, and putting themselves under government, is the preservation of their property.507
In the modern, environmental setting, this has come to mean that manufacturing corporations are made responsible for the rights and responsibilities for their polluting emissions;508 park managers own, and therefore maintain the qualities of, their parks;509 owners of valuable tradeable
505 Aristotle, 1981. The Politics; Hardin, 1968. The Tragedy of the Commons. 506 Buchanan, 1978. From Private Preferences to Public Philosophy: The Development of Public Choice, p.17. 507 Locke, Second Treatise of Civil Government, ch.9, s.124. 508 DiLorenzo, 1991. Does Capitalism Cause Pollution?; United States General Accounting Office, 1982. A Market Approach to Air Pollution Control Could Reduce Compliance Costs Without Jeopardizing Clean Air Costs. 509 Bennett, 1995. Protecting Nature... Privately; Chisholm et al., 1993. Conserving Native Flora and Fauna: Application of a Property Rights Approach in the State of Victoria. 148 irrigation permits will not waste their water entitlements;510 holders of auctioned exploration leases will not waste money on unnecessary work programs.511 Property rights and the RAC
The former Chapter reviewed the RAC’s use of Pigouvian techniques and discussed the implications of its experiences in this area. This Chapter explores the significance of issues that arose for the RAC - and the wider community - in the area of property rights.
The RAC’s Conservation Zone Inquiry confronted some complex and emotionally charged issues about the rights of individuals, corporations, groups and communities to land and to the goods associated with the land.512 The rights in dispute were very diverse, ranging from the contractual property rights associated with mining and exploration leases that pre-dated declaration of the region as Park and Conservation Zone, through traditional aboriginal affiliations, to the problem of who ‘owned’ the rights to the stream of costs and benefits associated with the natural values of the site for which the mine was proposed.513
As both proponents and critics alike acknowledge, private property rights must be conferred by the State, require the rule of law, must be designed and allocated, and will nevertheless come into conflict with one another.514 None of this is to say that private property rights are deficient in any way. But we must somehow evaluate the appropriateness of rights, and discern whether and under what conditions they will improve the management of natural
510 Industry Commission, 1997. A Full Repairing Lease: Inquiry Into Ecologically Sustainable Land Management. Draft Report. 511 Bergstrom, 1984. Property Rights and Taxation in the Australian Minerals Sector. 512 The IC’s Mining and Mineral Processing Inquiry also spent considerable time on property rights issues, seeing questions of definition and allocation of property rights as central concerns. See Commissioner Blandy, IC Transcripts p.262. 513 The resolution of property disputes as Coronation Hill continued on far beyond the ‘resolution’ reached in the June 1991 Cabinet decision. See Ceresa, 1996. Tickner returns land to Jawoyn; Lane, 1996. Mine ban case to be reopened; Lane and Rickson, 1997. Resource Development and Resource Dependency of Indigenous Communities: Australia's Jawoyn Aborigines and Mining at Coronation Hill. 514 Moran et al., 1991. Markets, Resources and the Environment; Waldron, 1988. The Right to Private Property. 149 resources.515 As George McGovern argued, “[t]he free market should not include the right to pollute our environment”.516
There are several possible approaches to such an evaluation. O’Neill, in his essay “Public Choice, Institutional Economics, Environmental Goods” analyses the public choice approach to consumer preferences, and its philosophical base.517 His primarily deductive critique of this theory is based on the problems of rejecting institutional economic factors in environmental policy decision making, and on questions about the ethics of certain types of preference expression. But O’Neill also concedes there may be situations in which actors behave in the particular egoistic manner on which the work of Buchanan, Anderson and Leal, and others is based.518 In such circumstances, the best way to protect natural resources of any sort might indeed be to vest them in individuals. In the following pages therefore I examine whether and when it is possible and appropriate to use the vesting of private property rights better to manage the environment. This is done using the criteria outlined in the Chapter 4: an examination of whether property rights can be defined, whether they can be allocated, and whether enforcement costs and methods are feasible and efficient. Contingent valuation: willingness-to-pay and willingness-to-accept compensation
The key property rights issues explored during the Conservation Zone Inquiry were CV, and aboriginal rights. In the case of the CV study, one of the first problems that had to be resolved in the Conservation Zone case was the fundamental definition of the property rights: were respondents to a CV survey the owners of the Conservation Zone, or prospective buyers?519 This is an important issue for proponents of a private property-rights approach, and proved difficult to resolve.
The design of a CV study is affected by the good it is about. Some goods already belong to people, while others are being offered to them. Some goods
515 Jacobs, 1993. 'Free Market Environmentalism': A Response to Eckersley. 516 George McGovern, US Congressman & Senator (dem - Sth Dak), PBS, Firing Line, 13 Sept 1989. 517 O'Neill, 1995. Public Choice, Institutional Economics, Environmental Goods. 518 Anderson and Leal, 1991. Free Market Environmentalism; Buchanan, 1978. From Private Preferences to Public Philosophy: The Development of Public Choice. 519 This initial allocation is an essential precondition for the operation of Coasian bargaining: Coase, 1960. The Problem of Social Cost. 150 involve essentially a one-off decision or one-off expenditure, while others involve recurrent expenditures. Some goods are public others privately held. The nature of these goods affects what should be asked of the valuing population, and in particular whether they should be asked to pay for a good, or to accept compensation for its provision (or its loss).520
In debate about the Conservation Zone CV study there was little discussion of whether the payment vehicle should be willingness-to-pay for the good in question or whether it should be based on willingness-to-accept compensation for loss of a good. This is despite it presenting a major methodological question:
contingent valuation researchers continue to be faced with a dilemma: asking people to accept payment for a degradation in the quantity or quality of a public good simply does not work in a CV survey under many conditions, yet substituting a [willingness-to-pay] format where theory specifies a [willingness-to-accept-compensation] format may grossly bias the findings.521
Economists had generally believed that willingness-to-accept-compensation was the appropriate measure in a range of cases where agents had “the right to sell the good in question” in contrast to those where agents would have to buy the good.522 So for example if people are, through the government, the holders of rights with respect to the air, then proposals that would reduce air quality should lead to a willingness-to-accept-compensation question.
An alternative framework, however, was developed because of the problems associated with the willingness-to-accept-compensation measure.523 This approach redefines the property rights in terms of whether or not regular payments are necessary in order to provide a good. If they are then
520 Kahneman and Knetsch, 1992. Valuing Public Goods: The Purchase of Moral Satisfaction. 521 Mitchell and Carson, 1989. Using Surveys to Value Public Goods: The Contingent Valuation Method, p.37. 522 Mitchell and Carson, 1989. Using Surveys to Value Public Goods: The Contingent Valuation Method, p.30. 523 Kahneman dealt with the willingness-to-accept-compensation problem by rejecting the use of contingent valuation altogether in situations where willingness-to-accept-compensation is the appropriate measure: situations which have a “compensation structure”: where people expect compensation in return for a loss of amenity. See Cummings et al., 1986. Valuing Environmental Goods. An Assessment of the Contingent Valuation Method, p.186. He does not make it clear why he rejects CV altogether rather than recommending willingness-to-accept-compensation in appropriate cases, except to agree with other commentators that willingness-to-accept-compensation is somehow more of a problem that willingness-to-pay. 151 respondents should be asked about their willingness-to-pay, since their property rights exist in the context of having to make regular payments (through the tax system) in order to keep them. Thus emergency services and national park provision, both of which cost respondents money on a year-to- year basis, become appropriate targets for willingness-to-pay rather than willingness-to-accept-compensation questions. In this way, the scope of willingness-to-pay measures is significantly widened.
There are, according to this model of property rights, only two situations in which willingness-to-accept-compensation remains the appropriate format for contingent valuation. They are first, public goods for which annual payments need not be made for the good to be provided; and second, where the rights to a public good are already held by individuals (through permits for example), and the question concerns a possible reduction in utility from current levels.
While this extends the range of goods for which willingness-to-pay questions can be asked, it was difficult to fit the Kakadu case into this format. Carson and others did not address this problem in much detail. They commented that
Typically, willingness to accept (WTA) compensation would be the appropriate property right in this case. However, previous mining in the [Kakadu Conservation Zone] and the history of creating [Kakadu National Park] cloud the picture. In any event, WTA questions are extremely difficult to reliably implement in CV surveys.524
The first qualifier presumably refers to two possibilities. Perhaps the implication is that unless willingness-to-pay was used, a reduction in contributions to the Park manager, the Australian National Parks and Wildlife Service, would be the consequence. This would then lead to a deterioration of environmental quality in the Conservation Zone, as the history of mining necessitates management intervention. It is also possible that the authors thought that the exploration permits held by companies constituted a property right for which they would need to be compensated if mining were not to go ahead. Neither of these points are sound.
First, the contingent valuation question concerned a new mine and its impacts, not the willingness-to-pay for conservation management of existing mine sites. Such management constitutes a separate good. Previous mining is therefore not a reason to use willingness-to-pay rather than willingness-to-accept-
524 Carson et al., 1994. Valuing the Preservation of Australia's Kakadu Conservation Zone, p.731. 152 compensation as a measure. Second, exploration licences not only do not constitute a right to mine, but even where a right to mine is sought, it is subject to satisfaction of approvals processes.525 Given the critical assessment of the project by DASETT in the Environmental Assessment Report, those processes had not been satisfied at the time of referral to the RAC. There is nothing therefore about the creation of Stage III of Kakadu to suggest that people should have been asked to ‘pay’ mining companies for the reallocation of property rights to preservation purposes. Carson and others are mistaken about the nature of the rights in this case, and should not have avoided the fact that willingness-to-accept-compensation measures were the appropriate ones.
It should also be noted that the literature indicates not that willingness-to- accept-compensation questions are more difficult to implement than willingness-to-pay, only that the results are generally higher than for willingness-to-pay in the same circumstances. Of particular relevance in the Kakadu case is Hanemann’s explanation for this.526 He shows that the two measures will diverge as the substitutability of the public good in question falls. In other words, the more unique respondents consider a good to be, the higher their willingness-to-accept-compensation will be relative to willingness-to-pay. Given the World Heritage status of Kakadu National Park Stages I and II and the high regard in which the site was held by the public generally, it is likely that the substitutability of other goods for Kakadu National Park would be treated as low by consumers. The large ‘protest bids’ observed by critics of the survey support the conclusion not only that willingness-to-accept- compensation remained the theoretically correct contingent valuation measure in this case, but that it would have resulted in significantly higher estimates of the value of preservation benefits. The critics complained that the protest bids were non-market behaviours, but they simply represented consumers correctly assessing the substitutability of the goods in question, and reacting accordingly.
It is in fact possible to take the argument regarding the problem of substitutability of goods further than does Hanemann. The divergence of willingness-to-accept-compensation and willingness-to-pay is due to falling substitutability of goods. But it can also be argued that at the point at which there is no substitutability between the goods in question, there is no longer a
525 Smith and Ulph, 1982. Property Rights Issues in the Extraction of Australia's Exhaustible Resources. 526 cited in Mitchell and Carson, 1989. Using Surveys to Value Public Goods: The Contingent Valuation Method, pp.36-37. 153 utility curve for the consumer. At that point, CV becomes an invalid technique, because it relies on the existence of a utility function for the environmental good in question and other goods.527
Regardless of the measure that was pursued, however, the entire process of CV assumes that holders of property rights go to a market place to put their wares on sale. But what if they want to stay at home? Sagoff notes that the use of techniques such as contingent valuation actually over-rides any property right in the sense that it removes the voluntaristic nature of exchange. 528 It assumes the holder of a property right is willing to make a transaction:
This [contingent valuation] approach to valuation does not have to confront the possibility that individuals may refuse to sell easements to their kidneys, livers, houses, and so on. It does not confront the possibility that people may wish their political representatives, rather than economic analysts, to make the major decisions regarding social regulation. Respondents who refuse for these reasons to cooperate with the contingent valuation vehicle - who refuse to exchange property for profit - would simply be noncooperative and would be excluded from the survey. Why should they have property rights?529
This is not merely a problem with CV: it applies to all aspects of a cost-benefit calculus. And it describes exactly what happened in some analysis of the results of the survey. Outlying data points were discarded as inconsistent,530 and extreme valuations were construed as noncompliant responses invalidating the survey.531
These decisions to use willingness-to-pay measures, and to remove the voluntaristic nature of exchange, endangered the legitimacy of the property- rights-based approach to the Coronation Hill issue. The use of the less appropriate willingness-to-pay measure of consumer surplus came about for
527 Blamey and Common, 1994. Sustainability and the Limits to Pseudo Market Valuation. See the conclusion for further the discussion related to this point. 528 Sagoff, 1988. The Economy of the Earth. 529 Sagoff, 1988. The Economy of the Earth, p.186. Sagoff seems here to be imagining that it would not be the political representatives that would themselves be using CV. Yet that is really what happened with the Conservation Zone study: the political representatives set in train a process that utilised this technique to help social regulation. It is somewhat ironic that those elected representatives were keen to dispose of the technique. While Sagoff would endorse such a rejection, the motives of contingent valuation’s opponents had little to do with abandoning economic analysis as the means for making social regulatory decisions, which was the reason Sagoff thought techniques like contingent valuation were inappropriate. 530 Carson et al., 1994. Valuing the Preservation of Australia's Kakadu Conservation Zone. 531 Imber et al., 1991. A Contingent Valuation Survey of the Kakadu Conservation Zone, p.204. 154 three closely related reasons: it suited the politics of the particular case; it suited the practitioners in the field; and it helped to avoid confronting the theoretical implications of the problems of CV. The more conservative measure was chosen on subjectively assessed political rather than economic grounds: it would yield results more likely to be accepted in debate.532 The implications of the good in question having low substitutability were overlooked for the sake of satisfying the parties that were being consulted on the research design (who included AMIC and BHP).
Second, the use of willingness-to-pay avoided having to question whether the Conservation Zone case was a situation where for technical reasons, as Kahneman wanted to insist, CV should not be used at all.533 Two years later, the RAC tentatively reached just such a conclusion, declining to use CV in the Coastal Zone Inquiry, or to plan its use in other situations.534
Finally, the willingness-to-pay measure was also adopted following a trend amongst practitioners using CV.535 This trend has been designed to allow governments and companies taking decisions with respect to environmental goods to avoid facing the likely high incidence of rejection of the transaction by participants in CV surveys. Avoiding confronting individuals' refusal to exchange in turn avoids the implication identified by Sagoff and others: that citizens expect their elected representatives to make decisions outside the market.536 Sacred site, Aboriginal land
We Europeans, with our Torrens Title, our survey pegs and our maps, imagine we know just where a piece of land is, and precisely to what a property right
532 See CZFR2 summary of critiques of the CV study, discussed in Chapter 4 above, for details of this view. 533 In Cummings et al., 1986. Valuing Environmental Goods. An Assessment of the Contingent Valuation Method, p.186. 534 Glyde, CPD Senate Estimates Committee A, 23 September 1992, p.A268; Resource Assessment Commission, 1992. Methods for Analysing Development and Conservation Issues: The Resource Assessment Commission's Experience. In this paper, the RAC noted “In both [the Kakadu and Forest and Timber Inquiry] cases it was considered that the technique, in its present state of development, cannot provide results which are sufficiently precise to incorporate into or compare with estimates of the value of the net benefits of development obtained from cost-benefit analyses.” (p.34) Note that in this comment, once again, the RAC incorrectly characterises cost-benefit analysis. 535 Cummings et al., 1986. Valuing Environmental Goods. An Assessment of the Contingent Valuation Method. 536 Foster, 1997. Valuing Nature? Ethics, Economics and Environment; Sagoff, 1988. The Economy of the Earth. 155 pertains. But as the NLC patiently and unsuccessfully tried to explain to the IC’s Commissioners, “you must recognise that by its very nature the traditional ownership of aboriginal land is very fluid.”537 Discussing the work of anthropologists amongst the Territory communities, NLC representative Jackson explained they would record “...any changes in relationships between clan groups - where clan groups have disappeared, who is now responsible for that country.”538 What are we to make of property rights amongst these people?
The nature of Aboriginal property, and property rights, were certainly vexing matters for the RAC. During the Resource Assessment Commission’s inquiry into the proposed Coronation Hill mine, contradictory claims were made about the rights of Aboriginal people with respect to the resource development process. Aboriginal custodians and a number of consultants argued that the sacred sites within the Conservation Zone were longstanding and vital elements of their culture, that their disturbance would result in disaster, and that a pro-mining decision would feed the already significant social disintegration of the Aboriginal community.539 Through these claims, they sought to assert rights to the sites as places over which they should properly exercise control.
In contrast, mining companies and their representative associations challenged first the authenticity of Aboriginal attachment to this particular place, second the wisdom of acting on Aboriginal preferences, whatever the authenticity of that attachment, and third the reliability of sources available to the Inquiry.540 The nature and implications of these disputations has been discussed in detail,541 and only a number of points related to property rights are outlined here.
537 Jackson, NLC, IC Transcripts p.2144. 538 Jackson, NLC, IC Transcripts p.2144, emphasis added. 539 Keen and Merlan, 1990. The Significance of the Conservation Zone to Aboriginal People; Lane et al., 1990. Social Impact of Development: An Analysis of the Social Impact of Development on Aboriginal Communities of the Conservation Zone Region. 540 CHJV Submission 120; Keen, 1993. Aboriginal Beliefs vs. Mining at Coronation Hill: The Containing Force of Traditionalism. 541 Brunton, 1991. Aborigines and Environmental Myths: Apocalypse in Kakadu; Brunton, 1991. Letter; Keen, 1993. Aboriginal Beliefs vs. Mining at Coronation Hill: The Containing Force of Traditionalism; Keen and Merlan, 1990. The Significance of the Conservation Zone to Aboriginal People; Keen and Merlan, 1991. The Validity of Aboriginal Beliefs about the Conservation Zone; Lane and Rickson, 1997. Resource Development and Resource Dependency of Indigenous Communities: Australia's Jawoyn Aborigines and Mining at Coronation Hill; Merlan, 1991. Letter [In reply to Ron Brunton]; Merlan, 1991. The Limits of Cultural Constructionism: The Case of Coronation Hill. 156 CHJV, commenting on the RAC’s draft Conservation Zone Inquiry Report, encapsulated the policy implications, as they saw them, of the debate about the authenticity of belief thus:
...Justice Stewart told the National Press Club...
“The Jawoyn people are just as entitled to their beliefs - and we have come to the conclusion that they are genuinely held by certain elders - as anyone else in this country... That's the question in our opinion, whether it's a genuine belief...”
However, “genuine belief” is not enough...
Beliefs can be mistaken. Thus, Justice Stewart must establish grounds for the “genuine belief” he has described. He cannot simply accept assertions about belief at face value. If he does, he opens the way to assertions of “genuine belief” about the religious significance of anything. This would be an invaluable tool in establishing “territoriality” and the spiritual grounds for land claims.542
CHJV was thus implying first that sincerity of religious belief requires some kind of independent verification and second that CHJV envisaged Aboriginal people using statements of religious belief illegitimately (that is, as a cover for non-religious objectives of territorial gain). CHJV treated the concepts of ‘genuineness’, and accuracy or ‘objective’ truth, as interchangeable. They considered that different societies may order time and space (and by implication the authority given by time) in different ways:
Maddock suggests the making of a tradition [in Australian Aboriginal society] may go back only two or three generations. Beyond living memory it merges with an amorphous past. This can mean that there is no conflict in the mind of an Aborigine in claiming something new to be part of ancient tradition. It is a major problem, however, for European-derived science and law, which seek hard facts and clear delineations in time and space. Justice Stewart (and the RAC) must try to unravel the past and the present in what is being presented as Aboriginal heritage.543
The Joint Venture here suggest that Aboriginal definitions of time and heritage are not to be used in the work of the RAC. Anything that is ancient by
542 Coronation Hill Joint Venture, 1991. Representation to Mr Justice Stewart under section 10(4) Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Heritage Protection Act, pp.33-34. 543 Coronation Hill Joint Venture, 1991. Representation to Mr Justice Stewart under section 10(4) Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Heritage Protection Act, p.25. 157 Aboriginal standards but modern by “European-derived” standards is to be judged modern. In making that judgement, recently developed Aboriginal tradition is thus to be dismissed as not being ‘traditional’.544
In contrast to the concerns of the Joint Venture, consultants Keen and Merlan considered that
it seems out of keeping with common notions of the “sacred”, and perhaps also prejudicial, to demand that sacredness be conceivable as either quantifiable, or provable in terms of some specific outcome.545
And rather than relating the authenticity of the Bula cult to ‘objective’ evidence or antiquity, they focus on how religious belief becomes authoritative:
It seems clear that the knowledge of the Bula tradition was secret in the sense of being regarded as highly sensitive, but certainly not unknown. Its political and religious force has derived from the circulation of its own renown along with restriction of what can be said about it, together with the understanding that what is secret is of great and general consequence.546
Justice Stewart appeared to accept the view that when traditions become embedded in a culture as authoritative and ‘ancient’, then they will act on people in that culture accordingly, whatever opinion outsiders (including the RAC) may hold about the number of years that constitutes antiquity.547 Yet when the Conservation Zone Inquiry report came out, commentators debated whether the Coronation Hill Bula site was ‘genuine’, long after the RAC had spent hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars going over just that ground.
Whether sincerely held or not, there was then the question of whether the government should respect Aboriginal beliefs about Bula by acting to prevent the mine. As CHJV had put it, to accept these beliefs and then act upon them would be to "open the way" for Aboriginals to develop the "spiritual grounds
544 See Merlan, 1991. The Limits of Cultural Constructionism: The Case of Coronation Hill. for a detailed discussion of this issue from the perspective of one of the RAC’s consultants. 545 Keen and Merlan, 1990. The Significance of the Conservation Zone to Aboriginal People, p.18. 546 Keen and Merlan, 1990. The Significance of the Conservation Zone to Aboriginal People, p.20. 547 Stewart, 1991. Report to the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs on the Kakadu Conservation Zone, under the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Heritage Protection Act 1984. The Resource Assessment Commission did also, however, dispute the suggestions that Jawoyn attachment to the Guratba area was either recent or a product of territorial expansion: See CZFR2. 158 for land claims".548 AMIC was clearly concerned that rights exercised in Kakadu could become rights available in many other places.
One of the problems with rights is that everybody wants to claim them. In this case, the Coronation Hill decision presented the prospect of a precedent for Aboriginals to exercise rights to regulate activities on sacred sites across the Northern Territory, if not further afield. Give the Jawoyn rights as a result of their religious beliefs about Bula, and the Gagadju, the Wik and who knows how many others will seek to exercise similar rights in their country.
With the recognition of rights comes legal strength, not just liability. To confer rights can therefore become a game with high stakes and complex rules. So it was that once the RAC found itself effectively discussing Aboriginal rights, issues of precedent came to the fore, many parties with little or no direct connection to the case got involved,549 and the spectre of 'sovereign risk' loomed.
It was not because of the absence of private property rights, but because of their existence, that the Conservation Zone Inquiry became controversial, costly, and consumed in laborious debate. And it was because of the existence of property rights, not their absence in favour of regulation, that Newcrest was able to tie up the Federal government in a complicated lawsuit that lasted seven years and may yet cost that government tens of million dollars of compensation for a mine that never existed.550 Defining property rights in a place like the Conservation Zone, and allocating them fairly, proved to be an expensive and time consuming process. Definition and redefinition
One of the advantages of private property rights is that if they must regrettably be defined by governments, at least the definition is a one-off process.551 Subsequently the market can be left to allow redistribution of those rights on an ongoing basis, while the courts can adjudicate disputes. Both processes are at least free from the arbitrary interferences of politicians and interest groups.
548 Coronation Hill Joint Venture, 1991. Representation to Mr Justice Stewart under section 10(4) Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Heritage Protection Act, pp.34. 549 Such as APEA Submission 53; Chamber of Mines & Energy of Western Australia Submission 41; CRA Submission 65. 550 Lunn, 1997. Kakadu damages payout unknown. 551 Eg. Anderson, 1991. The Market Process and Environmental Amenities. 159 The peculiar thing about property rights in cases such as at Coronation Hill is that this is not true. Property rights must be defined... and then redefined.552 This is a view put not by one, but by organisations representing both ‘sides’ of the arguments made to both the Conservation Zone Inquiry and the IC Mining and Minerals Processing Inquiry.
A prominent theme of the Mining and Minerals Processing Inquiry was how Aboriginal rights regulating exploration and mining access should be defined. Certain such rights had been set in place under Land Rights legislation. These had subsequently been modified through the implementation of the Federal Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Heritage Protection Act in 1984, which AMIC had opposed, as it extended the defined rights of Aboriginal people with respect to items of heritage value.553 The iterations in the definition of Aboriginal property rights continued through amending legislation and reviews, both with respect to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Heritage Protection Act and other Land Rights legislation, but the most fundamental change was effected by the Mabo case.554 The redefinition of property doctrines explicit in this case was partly systematised by the Native Title Act of 1993, but then altered again by the Wik case.555 In this case it was determined that leases on which there were restrictions on land management activities may have preserved Aboriginal rights to negotiate use of land under that title. This determination, in the view of some, significantly redefined pastoral and mining rights outside freehold land. What is certain is that the Howard government's Native Title Amendment Bill will attenuate Aboriginal property rights compared to their status at least since 1992.556
Over the last two decades, Aboriginal rights with respect to mining industry access to land in Australia have thus been redefined on at least five occasions, and the process is clearly not yet over. These are not however the only mining
552 For a discussion of this issue as it applies to tradable permits, see James, 1990. Pollution Control and Environmental Property Rights: An Economic Perspective. 553 Australian Mining Industry Council, 1981. The Need for a National Consensus: A Discussion Paper on Aboriginal Land Rights; Australian Mining Industry Council, 1984. Submission on the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Heritage (Interim Protection) Bill 1984. 554 Mabo and Others v. Queensland (No. 2) (1992) 175 CLR 1 (also Mabo v. Queensland (1992) 66 ALJR 408). Online: http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/cases/cth/high_ct/175clr1.html, accessed December 1997; Forbes, 1993. Mabo and the Miners. 555 Wik Peoples v Queensland (1996) 134 ALR 637. 556 At the time of writing in early 1998. See for example, Brennan, 1997. Race, The Constitution and Reconciliation. Online: http://www.austlii.edu.au/do2/disp.pl/au/special/rsjlibrary/uniya/brennan-16-6- 97.html, accessed December 1997. 160 industry rights that have been debated. There has been concurrent discussion of the ideal arrangement of rights to explore for mineral resources. The problems in this case have been more to do with the procedure for allocation of the rights than their definition.
Exploration rights are generally not only allocated but reallocated routinely by governments. The mechanisms by which they are allocated vary from place to place and from time to time. There is no particular consensus within governments or industry as to the ‘correct’ mechanism: whether it should be a first-come first-served arrangement, work program bidding, cash bidding, by tender process or by open auction.557 During the IC’s Mining and Minerals Processing Inquiry, the industry itself actively opposed the approach that might be regarded as most closely approaching a free market in the good in question - cash bidding, favouring instead mechanisms such as work program bidding, which essentially cost them less.558
Even in the case of mineral exploration, the property rights problem is not purely allocative. In arguing for work program or tender-based approaches to permit allocation, parties are accepting that the good in question is defined not only through access rights but also by the responsibility to incur costs, undertake designated activities, and make available information derived from the work program.559 In contrast, cash bidding or auctions are not be defined through such responsibilities. Furthermore there are other surface access issues associated with exploration rights, such as ongoing concern about landholder rights in the exploration process.560
These rights of access, and of traditional attachment to land, were at the heart of the irreconcilable problems of Coronation Hill.561 In the end, the fate of the mine hinged on whether or not responsibility for a sacred site also constituted a right to control access to that site and the earth beneath it. What consolation the holder of the exploration leases, Newcrest, could seek once the government backed Seaman and Woodward against the miners, depended on how that
557 Interestingly generally none of the programs will allow non-consumptive bidding. 558 Eg. AMEC, Australian Coal Association, AMIC, BHP Submissions to the IC Inquiry: Industry Commission, 1991. Mining and Mineral Processing in Australia. 559 In NSW for example, information about the results of exploration is available to the public from expired Exploration Leases over which a subsequent Mining Permit application has not been lodged. 560 Industry Commission, 1991. Mining and Mineral Processing in Australia. 561 Economou, 1992. Reconciling the Irreconcilable? The Resource Assessment Commission, Resource Policy and the Environment. 161 company's property rights were in turn defined under Section 51(xxxi) of the Constitution, a matter still unresolved at the time of writing.562
Moving beyond the Coronation Hill case, we can see that a great many Australian environmental controversies revolve around the definition of property rights. The Franklin case revolved around first the appropriateness of the Tasmanian HydroElectric Commission’s rights and land management objectives, and ultimately the property rights associated with a World Heritage-listed area.563 Much of the discussion about water rights and land degradation in Australia has been about the way water and other rights have been defined, and about the urgent need (agreed by all parties) to redefine those rights (not merely to enforce or even re-allocate them).564 The debate about fisheries has similarly been primarily about defining rights. Only when the restructuring of those rights (through industry downsizing in most cases) has been achieved does the allocation process become the main policy issue to be resolved.565
Another interesting example is the Wesley Vale pulp mill dispute. This was to a significant extent a dispute between existing rights holders: farmers who had (they thought) a right to produce uncontaminated products from their freeholdings; a fishing industry that thought it had similar rights associated with fishing permits and licences; and a government and companies that wanted to exercise analogous rights with respect to forest products and an industrial site.566 The outcome of such a case might be regarded as indicating
562 Seaman, 1984. The Aboriginal Land Inquiry; Woodward, 1974. Aboriginal Land Rights Commission: Second Report. The Seaman and Woodward Royal Commissions argued broadly that Aboriginal rights to land would only be effective as long as it gave them control over activities on that land, and that this meant granting them greater rights to regulate exploration and mining access than was held by, for example, pastoral leaseholders. 563 Davis, 1980. The Struggle for South-West Tasmania; Green, 1983. Battle for the Franklin; Kellow, 1989. The Dispute Over the Franklin River and South-West Wilderness Area in Tasmania. 564 Easter and Tsur, 1995. The Design of Institutional Arrangements for Water Allocation; Johnson and Rix, 1993. Water in Australia. Managing Economic, Environmental and Community Reform; Pigram, 1993. Property Rights and Water Markets in Australia: an Evolutionary Process Toward Institutional Reform. 565 Abel et al., 1990. Australian & New Zealand Southern Trawl Fisheries Conference. Issues and Opportunities. Bureau of Rural Resources Proceedings No.10; Campbell, 1984. Individual Transferable Catch Quotas: Their Role, Use and Application; Hancock, 1994. Recreational Fishing: What's the Catch? Australian Society for Fish Biology Workshop Proceedings, Canberra, 30-31 August 1994; Tilzey, 1994. The South East Fishery : a Scientific Review with Particular Reference to Quota Management. 566 Economou, 1992. Problems in Environmental Policy Creation: Tasmania’s Wesley Vale Pulp Mill Dispute; McEachern, 1991. Business Mates: The Power and Politics of the Hawke Era; Papadakis, 1993. Politics and the Environment: The Australian Experience; Walker, 1992. Business, Government and the Environment: Unresolved Dilemmas. 162 how private property rights are meant to work. Yet the dispute resolution process was not judicial but executive, and most authors routinely refer to Wesley Vale as an example of how things should not be done.567 Why did the private property rights extant in that case fail? Because, as we have seen in the Coronation Hill case, it is no simple matter to define (or redefine) the rights so that they can be successfully exercised, leaving markets to deal with scarcity. Discussion Is it worth defining environmental private property rights?
In terms of the analytical criteria introduced earlier, we can see that the principal dilemma, at Coronation Hill and elsewhere, concerned definition of rights, either initially, or when problems with the exercising of rights emerge subsequently. It is the first of the three analytic criteria earlier outlined that appears to be the most prominent stumbling block. This is consistent with the critiques of public choice in the works of O’Neill and Sagoff.568 These authors criticise not who has what rights, nor the effectiveness of enforcement structures, but the process of defining those rights in the first place. Interestingly however this finding is also consistent with the arguments of many authors who have advocated various forms of private property right. Brubaker’s defence of the common law is built on cases where common law rights could be exercised to pursue the environmental protection objectives Brubaker is endorsing.569 Ostrom’s case studies of collective (but not state) management of common use resources570 highlight how successfully defined rights are a precondition for an effective resource management regime.571 Hardin’s case for ‘enclosure’ of global commons relies on acceptance of a certain objective for the use of those commons: in other words he takes the definition of the rights as given, and then sees their potential for addressing the problems of overpopulation.572 In every case, the support (whether full or
567 Economou, 1992. Problems in Environmental Policy Creation: Tasmania’s Wesley Vale Pulp Mill Dispute; Economou, 1992. Resource Security Legislation and National Environment Policy. New Objectives, Old Dynamics; Richardson, 1994. Whatever it Takes; Walsh, 1995. Confessions of a Failed Finance Minister. 568 O'Neill, 1995. Public Choice, Institutional Economics, Environmental Goods; O'Neill, 1997. Value Pluralism, Incommensurability and Institutions; Sagoff, 1988. The Economy of the Earth. 569 Brubaker, 1995. Property Rights in the Defence of Nature. 570 As will be seen from material below, Ostrom, unlike privatisation advocates Baden and O’Brian, has the classification of resource regimes correct. 571 Ostrom, 1990. Governing the Commons. The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action. 572 Hardin, 1968. The Tragedy of the Commons; Hardin, 1991. Paramount Positions in Ecological Economics. 163 partial) these works may lend to private property approaches all work from a presumption that the definition of rights is agreed or unproblematic or both.
Reasons that the private property rights path to policy implementation may be so difficult can be found in Coase’s article.573 Coase’s weakness - his meandering, vacillating style - is also his strength - a capacity to let the evidence inform the argument.574 He considered that the best way to resolve conflicting property rights depended on the nature of the case - there was no generalised strategy that would be guaranteed to produce an efficient outcome.
Coase makes several points somewhat incidental to his own purposes, but essential to mine, that expose the problems with the pursuit of a private property framework to resolve natural resource allocation policy problems. He notes that many economic problems of conflicting rights may be resolved by contractual or quasi-contractual (judicial) means, once “the initial legal delimitation of rights” is established.575 But this will only work in the manner described by Coase so long as the initial delimitation of rights is stable and accepted. As we have already seen, cases such as Coronation Hill do not fit that description. A defining feature of many environmental problems is they are, precisely, disputes about rights either existing or proposed. Where property rights cannot be thus delimited, dispute resolution will not necessarily be possible, and consequently a Coasian efficient outcome may not be forthcoming.
Coase also indicates that the problem he is attempting to recast is an economic one: he is concerned about resolving conflicts in a manner that ensures “an optimum allocation of resources”:576 “It is”, Coase insists, “all a question of weighing up the gains that would accrue from eliminating... harmful effects against the gains that accrue from allowing them to continue.”577 Discussing the case of taxing the smoking chimney in a residential area, he considered that
Without the tax, there may be too much smoke and too few people in the vicinity of the factory; but with the tax there may be too little smoke and too many people in the vicinity of the factory. There is no reason to suppose that one of these results is necessarily preferable.578
573 Coase, 1960. The Problem of Social Cost. 574 Cooter, 1987. Coase Theorem. 575 Coase, 1960. The Problem of Social Cost, p.15. 576 Coase, 1960. The Problem of Social Cost, p.13. 577 Coase, 1960. The Problem of Social Cost, p.26. 578 Coase, 1960. The Problem of Social Cost, p.42. Coase had chosen the case as it was one of the 164 In fact, many environmental problems are characterised by one (and sometimes both) sides of the debate as being about what was “necessarily preferable”. That is, many environmental problems are not the type of problem - that is, economic - being addressed by Coase.
Finally, as is so often the case, the disciples of Coase are not so much acolytes in the temple of his theory but zealots preaching certain rather secular ends. Coase said...
A final reason for the failure to develop a theory adequate to handle the problem of harmful effects stems from a faulty concept of a factor of production. This is usually thought of as a physical entity which the businessman acquires and uses... instead of as a right to perform certain (physical) actions. We may speak of a person owning land and using it as a factor of production but what the land-owner in fact possesses is the right to carry out a circumscribed list of actions.579
Such circumscription was one of the first things forgotten by pastoralists in the native title debate.580 Likewise the advocates of free market environmentalism seem to forget that certain environmental responsibilities are part of the existing property rights issued in places such as Coronation Hill (where a right to mine is contingent upon a responsibility to produce and satisfactorily adhere to an Environmental Impact Statement), or south-east Australian forests (where logging concession rights come with statutory management practices).
Those most interested in the pursuit of a private property rights approach seem more interested in the pursuit of a certain sort of right. They appear less interested in a Coasian efficient outcome, than, not surprisingly, in an outcome that favours them. In the process of defending a ‘Coasian’ approach, they are willing to dispense with Coase’s empiricism, and also with basic market theory. Thus Baden and O’Brian, extolling market over public agency land management, dispense with conventional theories of the firm, competition, and markets, to claim that in markets “compromise is the rule and adversarial relationships are minimised”.581 Meanwhile, describing common property as
textbook cases used by Pigou to demonstrate the problem, and to outline what became known as the Pigouvian response of taxation to internalise social costs. 579 Coase, 1960. The Problem of Social Cost, pp.43-44. 580 Pastoral representatives were frequently heard in media conferences saying they had "no problem with coexistence", but a big problem with "coexisting rights". 581 Baden and O'Brien, 1997. Bringing Private Management to the Public Lands: Environmental and Economic Advantages, p.195. 165 “resources that are accessible to everyone and are controlled by no one”,582 thus confusing them with open access resources, they claim the problem with federal public lands is that “access is free or grossly underpriced”583 (emphasis added), thus contradicting their claim that these places cannot be marketed by the state rather than private owners.
Reviewing Coase’s own analysis, therefore, we see that the private property approach requires a certain set of preconditions that may not be met, such as an initial delimitation of rights. It also requires a presumption that no particular outcome of trading in those rights is necessarily preferable. We have also seen that the interest in Coasian justifications for private rights and judicial dispute resolution is in reality selective and partial.
The significant definitional problems associated with the implementation of property rights-based approaches can be related in turn to the nature of public choice theory. Public choice theory is based on two premises. First, these theorists argue that the policy preferences of individuals can be understood by determining their preference curves for various goods: “an individual is nothing more than a set of preferences, a utility function, as we call it.”584 The second premise is that politics is generally a process of allocating goods rather than determining what is right:
for matters of ordinary politics, the question is not one of truth or falsity of alternatives. The problem is one of resolving individual differences of preferences into results, which it is misleading to call true or false.585
Both of these premises are problematic. Individuals: aggregated preference curves?
If preferences are expected to be expressed entirely and adequately within existing markets, it is not necessary to the operation of public choice that individuals’ preference curves be able to defined and charted: the market will reveal them. But if it is accepted that values are not fully expressed in an
582 Baden and O'Brien, 1997. Bringing Private Management to the Public Lands: Environmental and Economic Advantages, p.186. 583 Baden and O'Brien, 1997. Bringing Private Management to the Public Lands: Environmental and Economic Advantages, p.196. 584 Duncan Black cited in Buchanan, 1978. From Private Preferences to Public Philosophy: The Development of Public Choice, p.4. 585 Buchanan, 1978. From Private Preferences to Public Philosophy: The Development of Public Choice, p.5. 166 existing market, then for a private property approach to succeed, the nature of those goods currently not valued in existing markets must be understood. This is true whether we are dealing with use or non-use values. In the case of use values, unless the nature of the good in question is understood, it will not be possible to define the property right in the first place. How does one go about privatising national parks unless one knows whether visitors go there to collect wildflowers, find wilderness solitude, or have picnics, and knows also with what goods the experience is substitutable? Each of these has different implications for what responsibilities should be attached to the privatised rights. If this definitional step is got wrong, the market may be characterised by the same “transfer activity or negative-sum games” that Baden and O’Brian associate with public lands.586 For non-use values, consumer preferences have to be understood because the magnitude of such values must be revealed using CV (whether the property right is held publicly or privately). To use CV, one must know what questions to ask: what goods consumers will value.587 As we saw in Chapter 4, this is no simple matter, with the RAC not attempting to value potentially significant non-use development benefits.
Whether one is concerned with use or non-use values, therefore, it is necessary to understand consumer preference curves. However, the need for such an understanding may fall foul of at least two problems. The first is that it may be difficult to define the goods that need to be incorporated into the market place. This was the problem with the use of CV to explore only one aspect of non-use values at Coronation Hill. A related definitional problem lay in identifying market scope - who should be surveyed using CV - in the Coronation Hill case, Northern Territorians, Australians, tourists worldwide? The second problem is that even once a good is ‘defined’, it may not be a good particularly amenable to valuation: for example “reconciliation”. Both these problems existed in the Coronation Hill case, and there is no reason to suppose that such problems are not widespread in the environmental area.
In much the same way as advocates of CV have recommended a set of ‘reference operating conditions’ to guide application of that technique, it would seem appropriate to do the same thing for the application of private property rights to environmental problems. According to the preceding analysis, the first two such reference operating conditions would be that consumer
586 Baden and O'Brien, 1997. Bringing Private Management to the Public Lands: Environmental and Economic Advantages, p.195. 587 Knetsch, 1993. Environmental Valuation: Some Practical Problems of Wrong Questions and Misleading Answers. 167 preferences for the good in question must be clear; and that the good is amenable to valuation. As we have seen with Coronation Hill, these reference operating conditions narrow the scope of a private property approach to environmental policy. Addressing the second premise of public choice theory - that politics is generally about resolving “preferences into results” - suggests another reference operating condition for harnessing markets to environmental objectives. Politics: truth judgement or preference satisfaction?
If politics is generally not a matter for truth judgement we should be able to characterise political debates in terms of preference satisfaction rather than in the moral terms of good and bad - of right and wrong. I say that “we should” because it is likely that competing claimants in an allocative process will seek to employ the language of the moral realm to help bolster their claims. Thus use of the language of moral claims is not sufficient evidence that we are looking at an issue that is genuinely one of ‘truth judgement’ for most of the community. It is necessary to step back and consider whether that language merely veils allocative interests.
There are a number of clues to whether something is a matter of truth or a matter of preference. If the politics in question is merely the ‘low’ politics of allocation, we should find deliberative processes that are not of a form resembling a court or a jury system - the example that Buchanan cites as the quintessential ‘truth judgement’ process. The more that institutional arrangements are deliberative in nature - the more they resemble courts - the more likely are the responsibilities of those institutions to be considered by the community to be matters of truth, rather than merely of economic efficiency. Thus we look beyond the language of the moment to the institutions in which those words are spoken.
Questions of truth are also more likely to generate threats of, and recourse to, the judicial system. Of course, some allocative matters find their way into the judicial system, such as wage hearings, alimony cases, and the setting of rates for monopolies by regulators.588 Even these are however generally cases where it is considered that there should be a community determination of what allocation is ‘right’ and what allocation is in some sense objectively ‘wrong’.589
588 The latter might better be classified as quasi-judicial, and include the relatively legalistic processes of rate hearings in North America. 589 This is the basic understanding of wages determination that underpinned Australia’s 168 Where the question is a moral one, we are also more likely to find groups of people rejecting or abandoning the law or administrative process. At one extreme, participants show a willingness to break the law, as they see the rules governing allocation as no longer deserving their consent as citizens. This is most clear in civil rights campaigns around the world - at the vanguard of morally countenanced disobedience are Solzhenitsyn, Gandhi and Mandela. At a less extreme level are the civil disobedience campaigns associated with the Franklin Dam, Australian rainforests, and nuclear ship visits.590 The most moderate of actions that challenge the moral claim of law and process are the abandonment of institutional processes by participants in a debate - for example the refusal of The Wilderness Society to appear before or make submissions to the RAC, and the rejection by industry and environment groups of the Ecologically Sustainable Development implementation process.591
Looked at in these terms, the Coronation Hill case was clearly one of ‘truth judgement’. The RAC processes were quasi-judicial, and despite the decision of the RAC to label the uses of the Conservation Zone as “options”, the wording of its report left little doubt that the organisation felt its deliberative process had resulted in the establishment of certain truths regarding impacts of the proposed mine. The RAC process was shadowed by the prospect of legal action by the Jawoyn. Some environmental groups abandoned the administrative process because they saw the RAC as a flawed allocative process not deserving their cooperation.
When it comes to Australian environmental policy issues, the RAC is far from the only case concerned more with right and wrong than with allocation. The Ranger Uranium Environmental Inquiry went through the same processes as the RAC (with slightly different outcomes) with regard to both sacred sites and the environmental implications of the uranium industry.592 Similar assessments about what claims were right and what wrong were central to the NSW rainforest debate,593 the lead in petrol problem,594 and greenhouse gas treaty
innovative industrial relations system: Emy and Hughes, 1991. Australian Politics: Realities in Conflict. 590 Green, 1983. Battle for the Franklin; Taplin, 1989. Environmental Politics in the Wran Style: A Decade of Juggling Rainforest Preservation with Urban and Industrial Developmentalism. 591 anon, 1990. It's no to the RAC; Christoff, 1994. Environmental Politics; Jolly and McCoy, 1993. Ecologically Sustainable Development and the Fragmentation of Policy: A Critical Review. 592 Ranger Uranium Environmental Inquiry, 1977. Ranger Uranium Environmental Inquiry Second (Final) Report. 593 Taplin, 1992. Adversary Procedures and Expertise: The Terania Creek Inquiry. 594 Berry and Garrard, 1994. Reducing Lead Exposure in Australia. An Assessment of Impacts. 169 negotiations.595 The discourse of rectitude can be found in debate regarding World Heritage, animal welfare, woodchipping of native forests, and the siting of waste disposal sites. At the Conservation Zone Inquiry, even AMIC argued for this approach, saying that “European-derived science and law” should be seeking and utilising “hard facts”, because the problems before the RAC (not just the Coronation Hill case) concerned what was right, not just what was efficient.
There is no more succinct revelation of why a property rights approach is rejected by parties to environmental disputes than Buchanan’s comment that in “ordinary politics, the question is not one of truth or falsity”.596 Right and wrong are precisely the criteria on which the community is judging the allocation of forests between wildlife and logging. Land rights, whether for Jawoyn, cassowaries or pig-nosed turtles, are what their name suggests: rights. As such, they are moral rather than consumer goods. Unlike most things in the economy, their value is in ‘use’ rather than in exchange.
The role of ‘truth judgement’ in many environmental issues suggests a second reference operating condition that helps determine whether an issue is amenable to a private property rights solution. The problem must have at its heart an allocation or enforcement problem, not a question of whether something is right in either a moral or scientific sense. Matters of ‘truth judgement’ will help set the boundary and rules for a market but cannot themselves be resolved in a market.
If Buchanan’s claim that politics is mostly not about truth judgement is to be taken at face value, it seems an extraordinary admission of his failing as a student of politics. What are we to make of issues, from abortion to immigration, on which we expect our parliaments to deliberate and our statesmen and women to speak, if not that they are about what we think is right?
595 Fries, 1997. Smoke and Mirrors; Grubb, 1995. Seeking Fair Weather: Ethics and the International Debate on Climate Change; Lowe, 1994. The Greenhouse Effect and the Politics of Long-term Issues; Macleay, 1997. How sceptics have made the global warming issue go cold; Pearman, 1988. Greenhouse: Planning for Climate Change; Wilkenfeld et al., 1995. Australia's Greenhouse Strategy: Can the Future be Rescued? 596 Buchanan, 1978. From Private Preferences to Public Philosophy: The Development of Public Choice, p.5. 170 Conclusion
At the extreme, free market advocates might consider that, if property rights are allocated and traded in a free market with no significant information or transaction costs, then whatever environmental outcome ensues is socially efficient and therefore adequate.597 At this extreme however it is more appropriate to argue, as does Jacobs, that
‘Free market environmentalists’, therefore, are either being environmentalist but not free marketeers - when they advocate tradable permits - or free marketeers but not environmentalist - when they advocate privatisation. They cannot be both at once because (except by lucky and rare chance) free markets [alone] do not protect the environment.598
The creation of such “lucky and rare” cases, however, itself involves the intervention of the state in bundling environmental responsibilities with other rights in such a way as to further environmental objectives. Which cases are amenable to this treatment depends partly on the economics of the good in question, and partly on whether the evidence suggests people are willing to behave as consumers in a market with respect to that good.
Some resources are indivisible and non-exclusive, such as ozone and the atmosphere, and some fisheries. These are cases where the allocation of private property rights is, by the nature of the good, an inappropriate management strategy. Ironically enough, free market environmentalism is further limited in its scope precisely because, as we have seen in the case of the ‘ecosystem coupled markets’, it may reduce individual freedom and force the centralisation of certain market transactions.599 Recall Chant et al’s comment about the issue being about maximising opportunities for individuals to express their preferences, and Buchanan’s polemic on freedom to choose.600 Economic techniques seem to distribute less freedom than does democracy when it comes to solving our ecological problems.
Beyond these technical issues related to the nature of the good in question, this Chapter has shown that there is a category of cases where property rights
597 See Coase, 1960. The Problem of Social Cost. 598 Jacobs, 1993. 'Free Market Environmentalism': A Response to Eckersley, pp.239-40. 599 Reeve and Kaine, 1991. Ecosystem-Coupled Markets: A Policy Approach for Sustainable Land Management. 600 Buchanan, 1978. From Private Preferences to Public Philosophy: The Development of Public Choice; Chant et al., 1991. The Economics of the Green Society. 171 approaches cannot be pursued: they are those where the two foundation premises of public choice theory are false, or cannot be operationalised. These are situations either where individuals cannot be conceived in terms of a group of utility functions, or those where the politics is considered by most participants to concern right and wrong, rather than the resolution of the preferences of community members.601 In these situations political debate, leadership, deliberation, and collective decision making are far more important policy instruments than private property rights and the harnessing of selfish rational maximisation.602
Dryzek made similar observations to these in his book Rational Ecology, but argued that the limitations of applying neo-liberal economic solutions to environmental problems arose from the special nature of ecological problems.603 According to Dryzek, environmental concerns are unique in form, and require distinctive policy responses: responses that an economic framework such as that reviewed in Chapters 4 to 6 cannot deliver. Up to this point I have suggested that problems with neo-liberal approaches arise quite independently of any special nature of environmental problems. The next Chapter explores and critiques Dryzek’s idea that the rise of environmental concerns might require not only rejection of neo-liberalism, but formulation of unique, ecological, policy strategies.
601 O'Neill, 1995. Public Choice, Institutional Economics, Environmental Goods. 602 Maddox, 1991. Australian democracy : in theory and practice (2nd edn). 603 See Dryzek, 1987. Rational Ecology: Environment and Political Economy, pp.75-79. 172 Chapter 7 Ecological Analysis
Environmental problems are alleged to constitute a special class of problem. This notion that environmental problems or ecological crises are in some sense special pervades the polemical literature of environmentalism. Green politics is spoken of as the “global promise”,604 leading to new political structures and arrangements,605 as people come to recognise the fundamental nature of the environmental problems faced by the planet today.606
The idea that environmental management in some way underpins all other endeavours is not new. Roosevelt in the first years of the twentieth century said
The Conservation of our natural resources and their proper use constitute the fundamental problem which underlies almost every other problem of our national life. 607
In the 1960s Lynn White Jr wrote
Our ecologic crisis is the product of an emerging, entirely novel, democratic culture. The issue is whether a democratized world can survive its own implications. Presumably we cannot unless we rethink our axioms.608
While at the other end of spectrum in terms of political sympathies, Eckersley thought
604 Spretnak and Capra, 1984. Green Politics. The Global Promise. 605 Eckersley, 1992. Environmentalism and Political Theory: Toward an Ecocentric Approach. 606 Boyden, 1974. Australia and the Environmental Crisis; Dryzek, 1987. Rational Ecology: Environment and Political Economy; Ehrlich and Ehrlich, 1990. The Population Explosion; Hardin, 1968. The Tragedy of the Commons; Lovelock, 1979. Gaia. A New Look at Life on Earth; Mather, 1990. Global Forest Resources; McCormick, 1989. The Global Environmental Movement; Mercer, 1991. A Question of Balance; Walker, 1991. The Political Ecology of Environmental Destruction; Ward and Dubos, 1972. Only One Earth. The Care and Maintenance of a Small Planet; World Commission on Environment and Development, 1990. Our Common Future. 607 Roosevelt, Message to Congress, 4 March 1907. 608 Lynn White Jr, 1967. The Historical Roots of Our Ecologic Crisis, p.1204. 173 “...the ecological crisis has been analyzed by political theorists as reflecting a crisis of participation, a crisis of survival, and a crisis of culture and character.”609
Ecological problems range from the global, such as ozone depletion and greenhouse gas emissions, to the local, such as endangered species protection and waste disposal. Despite their diversity, they tend to be grouped as a class of problem, and a great many of them pertain, in one way or another, to natural resource management and decision making, the subject of this thesis.
If these problems are special, then the corollary is that they require a special class of solution. As Walker argues,
Because environmental policy is concerned with phenomena which penetrate to the basic conditions for human life, it cannot be treated in a narrow, specialised fashion in the same way as (for example) media ownership, health, or defence policy.610
Likewise, Stillman:
ecological policies are in one crucial way different from other public policy issues. Whereas most public policy isses deal with the distribution and redistribution of values and utilities, ecological policy issues ultimately also relate to the survival of people and civilizations.611
This being the nature of the problem, certain policy and political implications follow. Thus Walker discusses a number of principles for policy-making founded on the primacy of ecological facts. He considers that policy makers need to
1. Put ecology first.
2. Recognise limits.
3. Work with the environment.
4. Don’t close options.612
609 Eckersley, 1992. Environmentalism and Political Theory: Toward an Ecocentric Approach, p.179. 610 Walker, 1992. Conclusion: The Politics of Environmental Policy, p.251. 611 Stillman, 1974. Ecological Problems, Political Theory and Public Policy, p.50. 612 Walker, 1991. The Political Ecology of Environmental Destruction. Similar points are put by the other authors discussed here. Commoner, 1971. The Closing Circle; Dryzek, 1987. Rational Ecology: Environment and Political Economy; Ehrlich and Ehrlich, 1990. The Population Explosion; Meadows et al., 1972. The Limits to Growth. 174 In addition to such general principles, ecological analysts argue that political institutions must treat all issues according to distinct environmental criteria. One of the commonest examples of this is the claim that environmental conditions are long-term concerns, while both the electoral cycle and economic analysis emphasise short-term considerations.613 This leads to suggestions that the electoral cycle be longer or, more commonly (given the green suspicion of authority), that the environment be given Constitutional protection of some form.
This implies either that environmental issues cannot be treated by existing policy institutions, or that if they can, they must be accorded some priority by policy makers. As Blackwell said last century,
Nature is just enough; but men and women must comprehend and accept her suggestions.614
According to this view, the environment is the foundation on which an operating economy must rest.615 Dryzek terms the logically prior claim of ecological over other criteria their “lexical priority”.616
Ecological theorists have set out a range of features of environmental systems that they claim are special - features that set ecosystems apart from other things about which governments make policy. The particular set of claims that inform the analytical task of this Chapter are set out by Dryzek in his book Rational Ecology, and in a number of works by Walker.617 These claims are that ecosystems are fragile, complex and integrated phenomena in ways not shared by other systems that are the subject of policy.
There are three avenues open to challenge these claims for the special or prior status of environmental policy. First, we could attempt successfully to understand and manipulate ecosystems, thus refuting claims of their special complexity or unpredictability.618 Second, we could suggest that environmental changes are not a severe problem (unique or otherwise), as have
613 Lowe, 1994. The Greenhouse Effect and the Politics of Long-term Issues. 614 Blackwell, 1875. The Sexes Throughout Nature. 615 ACF Submission 179; ECNT Submission 167. 616 Dryzek, 1987. Rational Ecology: Environment and Political Economy. 617 Dryzek, 1987. Rational Ecology: Environment and Political Economy; Walker, 1991. The Political Ecology of Environmental Destruction; Walker, 1992. Conclusion: The Politics of Environmental Policy; Walker, 1992. Introduction; Walker, 1994. The Political Economy of Environmental Policy: an Australian Introduction. 618 Such research forms the foundation of, for example, the so-called New Forestry in the United States. 175 critics of greenhouse mitigation policy.619 Third, we might examine the veracity of claims by ecologists that ecological problems are unique.
The first approach argues that there is nothing particularly complex about the environment, and that humans are successful managers of ecosystems. Such a case has been made for the forestry sector for example.620 It would also be possible to point to the long history of agriculture and the massive increases in yields of agricultural over unmanipulated ecosystems as evidence that humans are competent managers of ecosystems. Against such an approach would have to be set archaeological and contemporary evidence of long term decline in many environments managed by humans, though the causes of the decline remain much debated.621 In Australia, the recent State of Environment Report emphasised the lack of baseline data and understanding of natural systems as an underlying factor in major cases of environmental decline across the continent.622 A range of data on the human impact on natural systems around the world similarly suggests such an approach to refuting the special case for ecological complexity would not be empirically well supported.623 In all, the case for considering environmental systems to be readily understood and managed is not a compelling one.
But it is not necessary to show ecosystems are comprehensible in order to argue they require no special policy status. One need only show that they are creating no special difficulties for us. Thus Simon and Kahn, in their critique of the Global 2000 Report to the President, argue that under the status quo,
the world in 2000 will be less crowded (though more populated), less polluted, more stable ecologically and less vulnerable to resource- supply disruption than the world we live in now. Stresses involving population, resources and environment will be less in the future than now... life for most people on earth will be less precarious economically than it is now.624
619 Beckerman, 1991. Global Warming: A Skeptical Economic Assessment. 620 Abbott and Christensen, 1996. Objective Knowledge, Ideology and the Forests of Western Australia. 621 Glacken, 1967. Traces on the Rhodian shore; Perlin, 1989. A Forest Journey. The Role of Wood in the Development of Civilization; Tainter, 1988. The Collapse of Complex Societies. 622 State of the Environment Advisory Council, 1996. Australia - State of the Environment 1996. 623 Goudie, 1990. The Human Impact on the Natural Environment (3rd edition); Smil, 1993. Global Ecology. Environmental Change and Social Flexibility. 624 Simon and Kahn, 1984. The Resourceful Earth. A Response to Global 2000, pp.1-2. 176 Similarly, a number of writers question either the existence or severity of alleged major ecological crises and resource scarcities.625
One of the reasons for rejecting this second line of attack is simply that it requires resolution of complex matters of fact. Only if it is possible to demonstrate the absence of the enhanced greenhouse effect, the insignificance of anthropogenic soil erosion and so on is this case defensible. A test of claims about the special nature of environmental problems that did not rely on such proofs is a far more tractable project. Nor would it be undermined by the acceptance or refutation of particular hypotheses such as a link between levels of biodiversity and protection of old-growth forest or the theory that some pesticides can exhibit harmful bioaccumulation.
The rejection of these two options leaves us with just the third approach to testing the problems associated with the attributes of ecosystems. Under this approach, we assume that the ecologists are right: that ecosystems - together with the problems of managing them - actually possess the attributes claimed for them. The appropriate test of whether ecological problems are unique, I would then argue, is to examine whether or not the attributes associated with ecological problems also underpin other problems.
One of the difficulties in performing such a test is that environmental problems have generally been treated as indeed forming a distinct category for the purposes of a policy response. That is, while I want to examine whether there is any difference between these types of problems, institutional responses have been based on the assumption that there is. For example, even when adopting the supposedly integrated, cross-sectoral approach of sustainable development, a partial and sectoral approach was adopted in Australia. The Ecologically Sustainable Development Working Group process addressed the minority of economic activity, and a cross-sectoral issues report was an ad-hoc addition to the process.626 As a result, sustainability issues were effectively separated from other policy issues and handled in a custom-made institutional setting. The same criticism could be levelled at the RAC. It was established to deal with the balancing of environmental and economic values as they pertained to natural
625 Beckerman, 1991. Global Warming: A Skeptical Economic Assessment; Braddock, 1989. Is There Really a Greenhouse Effect?; Maddox, 1972. The Doomsday Syndrome; Rutland, 1990. Mineral and Petroleum Resource Supply for Sustainable Development. 626 Brown and Switzer, 1991. Women and Ecologically Sustainable Development: Engendering the Debate; Jolly and McCoy, 1993. Ecologically Sustainable Development and the Fragmentation of Policy: A Critical Review. 177 resource management. Thus, we again have a distinctive body charged with dealing with a major class of environmental problem.
The difficulty this presents is methodological: if we set up special institutions to deal with ecological issues, how can we determine whether it is the nature of the problem, the nature of the institution, or the nature of the politics caused by the institution, that is different from other problems, other institutions, other politics? The distinctiveness of the Ecologically Sustainable Development Working Groups, and the difficulty experienced in integrating that Ecologically Sustainable Development process into broader policy arenas, may point not to what is special about ecological problems, but to the importance of institutional arrangements in shaping the fate of political initiatives. By implication, the distinctive institutional innovations represented by the RAC confound an assessment of the distinctiveness of ecological problems.
How can this be overcome? As in most comparative policy studies, the objective is to construct a ‘structured, focussed comparison’ that controls for variables one is not trying to test, in order to isolate as far as possible the dependent variable of interest.627 If one wants to study the effect of federalism on policy, one compares not several federal states, but one, or a group of, unitary states, with one or more federal states.628 To test the distinctiveness of environmental policy problems, one studies not a group of environmental policy problems, but instances in which the same institution handles both environmental and non-environmental policy problems. One such case would be Cabinet. But at the level of bureaucratic processes, the candidates are few and far between.629 The RAC turned out to be one. Even so, it is largely by accident that the Conservation Zone Inquiry provides some opportunity to investigate the distinctiveness of ecological problems. The RAC’s work was meant largely to relate to balancing environmental protection and economic
627 Babbie, 1995. The Practice of Social Research; George, 1979. Case Studies and Theory Development: The Method of Structured, Focused Comparison. 628 Kellow, 1988. Australian Federalism: the Need for New Zealand (as well as Canadian) Comparisons. 629 In the case of land-use related environmental problems, the apparent candidates were examples of departments and statutory authorities involved in land management such as Forestry Commissions, or the NSW Water Conservation & Irrigation Commission (thus encompassing both conservation and development-oriented functions). The historical development of their functions was examined, through examining enabling legislation and amendments, annual reports, and other documents. This indicated that policy capacity in ecological management developed almost exclusively through a separate set of institutions such as the Queensland National Parks and Wildlife Service or the NSW Planning and Environment Department. These candidates therefore turned out not to be suitable for this study 178 development. It just happened that in the Coronation Hill case another area of social regulation - Aboriginal policy - and another field of knowledge - anthropology - proved equally important.
The empirical question that concerns me therefore, is whether there was anything specific to the nature of the environmental issues at Coronation Hill that made investigation or resolution difficult, or contributed to the RAC’s troubles, in ways that were not the case for other issues. This is dealt with through a comparative evaluation of the treatment of environmental and anthropological issues.
To perform the evaluation we need, like Dryzek, a set of criteria as yardsticks. Dryzek described the attributes of ecological systems as “complexity, non- reducibility, variability, uncertainty, collectiveness and spontaneity.”630 Each of these is described and discussed in turn as it affected the RAC’s work on the Conservation Zone Inquiry. Testing the special nature of ecological problems Complexity
Are environmental problems more complex than other problems? Complexity, particularly “organized complexity”, is a feature of ecosystems.631 Dryzek describes the complexity that is most difficult to model and predict as ‘organised complexity’, associating it with systems in which there are purposeful components: people, organisms, populations.632 Such complexity may confound the most sophisticated attempts at modelling and prediction.633 Ecosystems are sufficiently complex, says Dryzek, that
the extreme degrees of complexity characterizing ecological problems are potentially devastating to some of our familiar conceptions of problem-solving.634
630 Dryzek, 1987. Rational Ecology: Environment and Political Economy, p.33 cited in Chapter 1 above. 631 By “organized complexity” Dryzek, following Weaver, refers to the behaviour of systems in which elements of the system engage in statistically non-random interactions. 632 Dryzek, 1987. Rational Ecology: Environment and Political Economy, pp.28-9. 633 Smil, 1993. Global Ecology. Environmental Change and Social Flexibility. 634 Dryzek, 1987. Rational Ecology: Environment and Political Economy, p.29. 179 The question is not whether this is true. For the purposes of this study these attributes of ecosystems are accepted. Rather, the question here examined is whether this is particularly the case with ecosystems.635 Dryzek himself implies this question when he refers to ‘people’ as sites of organised complexity. Are the many other systems that are the subject of public policy making - particularly human communities - just as complex? In the terms of the case study, this question can be expressed thus: were the ecological matters before the Conservation Zone Inquiry any more complex than the Aboriginal policy issues?
An overall assessment of the outcome of and reaction to the Final Report indicates that far from being more complex, the environmental problems were the easiest to resolve on a case-by-case basis such as was being used in the Conservation Zone Inquiry. Though the RAC continued to emphasise the uncertainty surrounding different development scenarios in the area, they and the OSS alike considered that satisfactory management strategies could be put in place.636 The conservation groups that disagreed did so on two bases: either that National Parks were areas in which there should in principle be no exploration or mining; or that that the risk of activity should be zero, an impossible criterion to meet, and therefore amounting to the same thing as the first argument.637
The RAC was similarly able to reach a conclusion that many Jawoyn, including the main custodians, were at the time of reporting opposed to the mine. But this had been a more difficult position at which to arrive. Difficulties with the evidence prompted the RAC to admit certain aspects of the case “cannot be explained easily”, and reasons for some aspects of the case remained obscure.638 The anthropological evidence was the only evidence comprehension of which clearly created difficulties for Commissioner Stewart.639 It was the only aspect on which consultants and submitters alike were brought in as witnesses with the explicit purpose of commenting on each other’s arguments.640 The
635 “Complex” is not a particularly meaningful descriptor: at some point the term could be used by at least some actors to describe virtually any policy issue. The criteria for complexity should perhaps be something that creates difficulties for “our familiar conceptions of problem-solving”, rather than something that takes a lot of time or research but is still resolvable by routine procedures. 636 CZFR pp.xxi, 129; OSS Submission 71. 637 ACF Submission 179; ECNT Submission 90; Hare, ACF, IC Transcripts p.564. 638 CZFR pp.xxii-xxiii. 639 Who says as much during the examination of Dr Merlan. Transcripts pp.1497-1532. 640 These exchanges constituted almost all the evidence of 8 and 9 April 1991. Transcripts 180 difficulties persisted despite a longer and more intensive research effort than existed for the ecological matters.641 Contradictory results, between individuals and over time, made the analytical task extremely difficult.642 In contrast, while the significance of the ecological research was debated, there were few directly contradictory research results. Theoretical frameworks for analysing Aboriginal issues differed between experts, whereas there was closer agreement on investigating environmental values.643
Not only was a position on the anthropological questions more difficult to reach, the effects on Aboriginals of a government decision in favour of mining were far harder to model. This contrasted with much clearer predictions about the environmental effects of the mine. There are two broad reasons for this. First, the Aboriginal community in question, the Jawoyn, were not of unanimous opinion about mining. As a result, permitting the mine to proceed would mean a different “degree of cultural loss” for different Jawoyn people.644 Second, it is difficult to know how to ‘model’ the dynamics of a human community, when each community may be different from others around it. As Cousins and Nieuwenhuysen found, even on the specific subject of the interactions of Aboriginal communities and the mining industry in Australia,
pp.1350-1588; 1640-1681. 641 This assertion is based on an analysis of the CZFR bibliography excluding the RAC’s own consultancies and those reports prepared for CHJV immediately prior to the Conservation Zone Inquiry. It also discounted any items relating to the Ranger mine, general items of direct relevance (such as Cousins & Nieuwenhuysen’s case studies in Aboriginals and the Mining Industry), and documents produced by or on behalf of the Jawoyn Association. Even under these constraints, there were twice as many publications and reports relating to Aboriginal issues in Kakadu as for environmental issues, and they included more scholarly works. The earliest environmental studies were two CSIRO reports from 1973 and 1976, while the earliest example of Aboriginal studies in the area was Arndt’s paper of 1962. The work of Tindale and the reports of Northern Territory welfare officers, however, preceded even that publication by many years. Furthermore, the social consultancies were the most numerous, and most costly, of the Conservation Zone Inquiry consultancies. On this basis I concluded the research effort in the area of Aboriginal issues was more intensive. 642 CZFR p.xxiii; Levitus, 1990. Historical Perspective. 643 Superficially the controversial contingent valuation work would appear to undermine the argument that there was closer agreement on environmental research. But in fact the underlying theoretical framework for contingent valuation - the use of markets to assess anthropocentric environmental values - was not in dispute between the RAC and its critics (for more detail see Chapter 4). What was disputed was whether this encapsulated all forms of value, and whether this would work for the particular good in question. While controversial it thus did not introduce a further level of theoretical complexity to the environmental debate in the same way as did anthropology and political geography to the Aboriginal issues. 644 CZFR p.40. 181 the results varied greatly from place to place.645 On the situation of the Jawoyn in particular, the assessments ranged from Brunton’s argument that culture is resilient and that acceptance of the project would result in simply “encourage those of a more open and modernising bent”, to the concern of Lane et al that a decision in favour of mining could lead to irreparable harm.646
The results of the Conservation Zone Inquiry generated great heat both upon their release, and in Cabinet debate. People remained unconvinced by the RAC’s attempted resolution of the debate.647 While the dominant theme in the media was that the fate of the Conservation Zone was bound up in the political manoeuverings of leader Hawke and pretender Keating, some also took the view that the material had been too complex for the experts, implying that the RAC had ‘got it wrong’.648
Finally, there are reasons why aspects of social policy might if anything be more complex than ecological policy rather than the reverse. A range of assumptions can be made in conducting ecological research that cannot be made in analysing social systems or the impacts of development upon them.649 For example, animals and plants are unlikely to make tactical or deliberately misleading responses to inquiries as was the case both with witnesses to the Inquiry and respondents to the CV study. Ecosystems do not use words that investigators use while giving them different meanings. It is difficult to imagine, for example, an ecological analogy of the debate between Inquiry participants over the meaning of ‘national economic significance’, such as that discussed in Chapter 5. Only in the case of conducting social research does one have to contend not only with the culture and biases of the researcher, but also with those of the subjects of that research. Ecosystems do not believe in gods or construct moral constraints, and as they have none of these their beliefs or moral code do not change over time. In anthropology, the act of carrying out research poses an inherent risk of altering the community being observed,650 a
645 Cousins and Nieuwenhuysen, 1984. Aboriginals and the Mining Industry. 646 Brunton, 1991. Aborigines and Environmental Myths: Apocalypse in Kakadu; Lane et al., 1990. Social Impact of Development: An Analysis of the Social Impact of Development on Aboriginal Communities of the Conservation Zone Region. 647 See, for example, Walsh, 1995. Confessions of a Failed Finance Minister. 648 anon, 1991. A hole the Government can't escape; Brunton, 1991. Hostage to a Bula Legend; Hextall, 1991. Coronation Hill to make or break industry: miners; Kelly, 1991. Cabinet the loser, whatever it decides. 649 Some of these are considered under non-reducibility and variability below. 650 Brunton, 1991. Aborigines and Environmental Myths: Apocalypse in Kakadu. 182 risk only incidental in ecology. Similar problems may exist with interview- based research, though the risk is often small.651
In addition to my arguments that draw on the Conservation Zone Inquiry data, there is an important strand of policy theory that also argues that problems of complexity confound policy-making generally. When Pressman and Wildavsky noted how information gaps and other constraints on the complex implementation process could vitiate attempts at effective policy, and even result in perverse incentives and outcomes, they were making effectively the same arguments as Dryzek.652 The participants in policy processes may not share values, there may be conflicts between implementing agencies, or underlying social or economic forces with policy implications may get ignored in the design stage.653 The list of potential barriers to effective policy is long, and looming large amongst these barriers are the problems of complexity: complex societies, complex institutions, complex social forces.654
Furthermore, public choice theory is founded on the basis that all decision- making processes have to contend with the problem of complexity. In the case of the public choice theorists, the solution to the problem of surmounting complexity is through the exchange of information using markets. Other forms of information gathering, they argue, are prone to failure because the task is too complex and the relevant information hard to identify.655 These theorists are thus saying, to paraphrase Dryzek, that the extreme degrees of complexity characterizing social and economic problems are potentially devastating to some of our familiar conceptions of problem-solving.
There are thus policy theories, general phenomena, and specific features of the RAC case, that indicate that far from being especially complex, ecological problems may be if anything more tractable than social ones. For example, while the OSS and ERA could at least agree on one thing - that there had been no detrimental impacts of the Ranger mine on the Magela Creek system in Kakadu - health and development problems continue to face Aboriginal
651 Lee, 1993. Doing Research on Sensitive Topics. 652 Pressman and Wildavsky, 1984. Implementation: How Great Expectations in Washington are Dashed in Oakland. 653 Ham and Hill, 1984. The Policy Process in the Modern Capitalist State. 654 Considine, 1994. Public Policy: A Critical Approach. 655 Buchanan, 1978. From Private Preferences to Public Philosophy: The Development of Public Choice; Moran et al., 1991. Markets, Resources and the Environment. 183 communities in the region.656 Similarly, while environmental management of the proposed Coronation Hill mine seemed possible, questions remained over social issues in the area.
If complexity of the issue could not distinguish the ecological from the non- ecological aspects of the problem at Coronation Hill, could differential reducibility (Dryzek’s second characteristic) be shown? Non-reducibility
Can we, by fixing the parts of a problem, fix the whole? Dryzek argues that ecological problems cannot be reduced to simpler components as a way of treating the larger task at hand. This stems from the nature of ecosystems. In the environment, as Commoner says, everything is connected to everything else.657 It becomes easy in such circumstances to simply displace problems from one part of the system to another: Dryzek uses the example of pollution. The ‘solution’ to solid waste pollution can become the problem of air pollution through incineration, or water pollution, through dumping or river discharge. Thus pollution cannot be reduced to its components of air, water, and solid wastes for a successful solution.658 Likewise, Smil recounts the example of the treatment of power station emissions, in which each stage of treatment (or non- treatment) of emissions has been accompanied by new environmental problems.659
Whether these aspects of non-reducibility are special features of environmental systems will be examined by comparing the attempts to deal with the environmental impacts of the Coronation Hill mine with the discussion of problem amelioration in Aboriginal communities. In this way I show the issues and solutions have shown close parallels, and there is thus nothing distinctive about the non-reducibility of ecological problems.
To a certain extent the environmental problems at Coronation Hill were reducible. Breaking down the impact of a development proposal into various risk components forms the basis of the risk assessment process. The lack of risk assessment was a criticism of the original Environmental Impact Statement
656 A position recently reaffirmed: Environment Australia, 1997. Proposal to Extract, Process and Export Uranium from Jabiluka Orebody #2: the Jabiluka Proposal. Environment Assessment Report. 657 Commoner, 1971. The Closing Circle. 658 Dryzek, 1987. Rational Ecology: Environment and Political Economy. 659 Smil, 1993. Global Ecology. Environmental Change and Social Flexibility. 184 reflected in the extensive recommendations, in DASETT’s Environmental Assessment Report, for development of monitoring programmes and an environmental management plan.660 CHJV and the RAC set out to remediate this omission during the Conservation Zone Inquiry, producing risk assessments.661 The Australian Construction Services report reviewed the design of the components of the project, particularly the dams and ponds. It set out a range of engineering recommendations to make each component secure, though standards were not always made explicit. It also reviewed some sources of risk, particularly the seismic risks, though it did not implement an evaluation of design components against the criteria discussed. The quantitative risk analyses (both the RAC’s and CHJV’s) went further in both identifying the major risks and quantifying them. In this way the major sources of risk were identified and management strategies for risk mitigation could be outlined.662 Waite also attempted an assessment of the aggregate statistical risk of the various sources of potential catastrophic events.663 His report suggested the overall probability of occurrence of risk events was less than 1 in 10 000 per annum, leaving the RAC and participants to ponder whether this was acceptable, given the many caveats that were attached to all the risk assessments.664
Grahame Webb, for AMIC, also took a reductionist approach to assessing extinction risks. Webb undertook a study of the environmental impacts of the mining industry.665 As part of that work he conducted a survey of government agencies expert in conservation and resource management. In these surveys, respondents were asked
to essentially rank what they considered the most significant causes of environmental degradation within Australia; mining was included amongst a range of other factors.666
660 DASETT, 1989. Coronation Hill Gold Platinum and Palladium Proposal. Environmental Assessment Report; The Wilderness Society, 1989. Response to the CHJV Coronation Hill Draft EIS. 661 Australian Construction Services, 1990. Risk Assessment of Engineering Aspects of the Coronation Hill Project; Cameron et al., 1991. Risk Assessment for the Coronation Hill Joint Venture; Waite, 1991. Risk Assessment. 662 CZFR box 5.1, p.101, based on the risk assessments. 663 Waite, 1991. Risk Assessment. 664 CZFR; Waite, 1991. Risk Assessment. 665 Webb, 1990. Mining and Environmental Management - Some Current Trends. 666 Webb, 1990. Mining and Environmental Management - Some Current Trends, p.4. 185 Though response rates were low,667 the 13 agencies that responded suggested mining had been responsible for no definite extinctions, one possible extinction, placing 7 species in imminent danger of extinction, and a total of 36 species affected detrimentally to some degree. Placing this in the context of the impacts of other causes of environmental harm, Webb concluded the role of mining in threatening genetic diversity was minor, and that the null hypothesis, “that mining has been a highly significant cause of lost genetic diversity within Australia, can be rejected”.668
There were however some limits to how far the environmental issues could be broken down and treated in component form, as can be illustrated using CHJV’s risk analysis. This analysis broke down the risks associated with mining and assessed the potential problems each represented. Buckley criticised the absence of significant elements from that risk analysis, making a number of points relevant to the current discussion.669 First the risk analysis did not consider the actual “mechanisms by which hazards to the environment could occur.”670 By focussing on the types of event rather than the processes, significant sources of risk could be overlooked. This could lead to an underestimation of the risks presented by the project. Second, long term risks (those that might lead to events after mine decommissioning) were not identified, nor their costs assessed.671 Third, he agreed that most risk assessment is based on “engineering hazards rather than natural hazards” and that this contributed to the difficulty in dealing with long-term issues.672 The RAC remained concerned about other aspects of the risk assessment. For example, the assessment of seismic risks was particularly contentious in the light of recent seismic events at Tennant Creek, as did the assessment of the
667 The mean response rate for the four types of questionaire distributed was 42%. The response rates for the quantified portions of the report of relevance here seems lower again (see Appendix II of Webb’s paper). It was not clear from the report whom, within the organisations contacted, made the responses. 668 Webb, 1990. Mining and Environmental Management - Some Current Trends, p.44. Webb’s interpretation must be qualified by the small number of questionnaires returned concerning faunal and floral distribution and abundance: 43 distributed, 18 returned. 669 Buckley’s report originated as a consultancy for the ACF (See Submission 179). In addition to the problems relevant to the question of reducibility, he discussed problems with the interpretation of data and the statistical methods used in the risk assessments. Though presenting additional problems for the RAC, these are not relevant to a discussion of reducibility. 670 Buckley, Transcripts p.1632. This is not strictly true for transport accidents, where the causes of accidents are at least implicitly considered. 671 Buckley, Transcripts p.1633. 672 Buckley, Transcripts p.1634. 186 way in which possible catastrophic events could interact.673 The attempt to reduce the risks of the project into separate elements thus contributed to underestimation of the overall risks associated with the project.
Other disadvantages of a reductionist approach to assessing ecological impacts had implications beyond the Coronation Hill project. Representatives of conservation organisations disagreed with the methods underpinning Webb’s research. They argued that extinction was a complex stochastic process, for which identification of a single cause was seldom if ever possible.674 Both Commissioner Kitching and Webb agreed that the precise cause of extinction in any case could not be determined.675 A second line of criticism was directed at the use of a ‘species level’ approach to evaluating ecological impacts. Such an approach may not be very effective at revealing impacts on the functioning of ecosystems, while suffering from the difficulty of enumerating and studying all species.676 The implication was that the reduction of ecosystem functions to species population data was scientifically unsound.
In the case of Aboriginal issues, it is certainly possible to identify a range of distinct problems faced by a community such as the Jawoyn.677 The Jawoyn face levels of educational attainment significantly lower than that of the general community, and much higher unemployment.678 Earnings amongst the Jawoyn are quite low.679 Like many Aboriginal communities they face health and alcohol abuse problems beyond those experienced by European communities.680 The Environmental Impact Statement prepared for CHJV identifies a similar range of issues, proposing distinct measures to mitigate some of the problems: vocational training by the company as a response to education issues; recruitment from amongst Jawoyn to provide increased employment; placement of an Aboriginal Liaison Officer on site to assist in the maintenance of custodians’ and others’ tradition obligations; and the “monitoring” of alcohol consumption.681
673 CZFR p.100. 674 ACF Submission 179. 675 Webb, AMIC, & Commissioner Kitching, Transcripts p.990. 676 Faith, CSIRO, & Commissioner Kitching, Transcripts p.592-3; Possingham, 1991. Comment on the Webb Report to AMIC. 677 See, on a general basis, Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation, 1994. Walking together : the first steps / report of the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation to Federal Parliament 1991-94. 678 CHEIS. 679 CZFR p.157. 680 Jawoyn Association, 1989. Just Sweet Talk. 681 CHEIS. 187 Just as ‘Aboriginal issues’ can be thus reduced to a range of components, so the problems posed by development in proximity to a sacred site could also be identified as having several distinct aspects. Keen & Merlan referred to at least four: disturbance of Bula, “visiting sites without permission, the carrying out of activities at sites which contravene Aboriginal customary law, and material damage to sites.”682 Management plans for the sites could thus address each type of threat.
However identifying various sorts of pollution is quite different from splitting pollution into those types for the purpose of developing solutions. Similarly, whether Aboriginal policy needs could be solved by managing each threat or social problem is another matter.
Aboriginal people themselves argued that key issues for them could not be separated,683 and in the end that is the position the RAC endorsed. Criticising the approach of CHJV to the causes of alcohol use, the Jawoyn Association said
CHJV doesn’t see that people might be upset at what is happening to their country and their people because of the activities in the Sickness Country.684
They argued that alcohol abuse was closely related to patterns of development in a community and could not be controlled independently of those processes. The Jawoyn made similar comments about the impact of non-Jawoyn groups (not just the CHJV) on Jawoyn decision making.685 A number of commentators also emphasised the inter-relationship of development processes, heritage protection, social stress and catastrophic events.686 They argued that support for the mine by some Jawoyn could only be understood within a broader context of needing employment: it did not mean that they denied the existence or importance of the Sickness Country.687 Employment and custodial responsibilities could not be separated. The most serious claim for the non-
682 Keen and Merlan, 1990. The Significance of the Conservation Zone to Aboriginal People, p.6. 683 See for example the arguments put by the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission and the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation in various reports. 684 Jawoyn Association, 1989. Just Sweet Talk, p.8. 685 Jawoyn Association, 1989. Just Sweet Talk; Jawoyn Association Submission 99; NLC Submission 78. 686 Jawoyn Association, 1989. Just Sweet Talk; Josif, 1988. Report on the social and cultural effects of the proposed Coronation Hill project and the Conservation Zone upon the Jawoyn and other effected Aborigines; Levitus, 1990. Historical Perspective. See also Joseph, Jawoyn Association, Transcripts pp.751-2. 687 Ah Kit, NLC, Transcripts p.213-4; Levitus, 1990. Historical Perspective. 188 reducible nature of social policy issues was perhaps that mortality rates amongst Jawoyn were linked to mining negotiations.688
While groups including AMIC did not accept the case for a holistic approach to solving Aboriginal community problems, they clearly recognised this was the implication of the points put by Aboriginal representatives. They could see that the NLC and the Jawoyn were refusing to separate land as a commodity for trade from rights of access to that land, or from the religious significance of sites on the land. As an organisation for whom access to land was a key issue, AMIC sought vigorously to oppose this linking of land rights, sacred sites, and land access for exploration purposes.689
The arguments against reducibility are not confined to the treatment of social policy matters. As Merlan and Davis both pointed out, certain distinctions introduced by Europeans are essentially artificial divisions that do not reflect Aboriginal concepts and Aboriginal culture. This, Merlan argued, was the reason that Aboriginal people lost Milirrpum v. Nabalco in the NT Supreme Court, despite the subsequent affirmation of the existence of native title in Mabo v. Queensland.690 While common law sets exclusivity of occupation as a criterion for ownership (and thus for prosecuting allegations of trespass), a given group of Aboriginal people may or may not assert exclusive access over lands for which they are custodians. It therefore becomes misleading to reduce proprietary interest to the criterion of exclusivity. Thus the problem of non- reducibility is present even in one of the most reductionist settings of all: property law.
The central message that the Jawoyn experience transmits is that culture, religion and morals cannot be reduced to the values held by each member of the community so that all may be accommodated in some way. The viability of both organism and person depends eventually on maintaining the integrity of their physical or community ‘habitat’.691 A reductive calculus therefore will be
688 Jawoyn Association, 1989. Just Sweet Talk, p.10; Ah Kit, NLC, Transcripts p.213, 233. 689 Australian Mining Industry Council, 1990. Australia's Economic Future: Access to Land; McDonald & McIntosh, AMIC, IC Transcripts pp.3-95. 690 Merlan, consultant, Transcripts pp.1512-1513. Milirrpum v. Nabalco Limited (1971) 17 FLR 141; Mabo v. Queensland (1992) 66 ALJR 408. 691 Central to this line of analysis in conservation biology is island biogeography and habitat protection. See for example Frankel and Soulé, 1981. Conservation and Evolution; Main and Yadav, 1971. Conservation of Macropods in Reserves in Western Australia; McArthur and Wilson, 1967. The Theory of Island Biogeography; Specht et al., 1974. Conservation of the Major Plant Communities in Australia and Papua New Guinea. One could also argue that most anthropology is predicated on such a view. 189 unlikely to create a satisfactory policy outcome which leaves either community or ecosystem fully functional. In the case of the Jawoyn, a decision in favour of mining could have undermined the community structure not because every member of the community believed mining should not happen, but because the values and beliefs of influential community members could not be separated from the effective operation of community processes. This is perhaps no more evident than in the meetings at UDP Falls when the RAC came to take evidence in November 1990.692 There, members not only of the Jawoyn community but also surrounding groups gathered to allow their spokespersons to support the senior men of the affected tribe. Even some who wanted the mine nevertheless considered it more important that the position of the custodians be respected.693
In summary, there is nothing distinctive about the non-reducibility of ecological phenomena. Aboriginal people have made a strong case that separately treating parts of a community’s problems runs the risks of both problem displacement and of overall ineffectiveness. Compromise policies such as worker education, Aboriginal training, or the appointment of a liaison officer cannot address more fundamental questions of community autonomy and decision making. They are also unlikely to reach the kinds of thresholds consultants suggested needed to be crossed (in terms of minimum levels of resources and policy directed at community needs) if there were to be significant gains for Aboriginal welfare.694 Ecological issues at Coronation Hill seemed if anything slightly more amenable to a reductionist assessment, but in the end significant doubts remained about this too. The issues of long-term environmental hazards, compound sources of hazard, and appropriate levels of risk remained only partly resolved by the end of the RAC Inquiry process. Every policy problem is reduced at the solver’s peril.
Clearly then both complexity, and now non-reducibility, are the same – ecological problems are not being distinguished from non-ecological ones. I now consider Dryzek’s third factor, variability.
692 Transcripts pp.668-752 passim. 693 For example Nell Brown, Transcripts p.719. 694 Altman and Smith, 1990. The Possible Economic Impacts of Mining and Tourism in the Kakadu Conservation Zone on Aboriginal People; Lane et al., 1990. Social Impact of Development: An Analysis of the Social Impact of Development on Aboriginal Communities of the Conservation Zone Region. 190 Variability
Do environmental problems change their appearance from place to place and time to time more than other problems? Dryzek points out that if it were not bad enough that environmental problems are complicated, the same problems and systems appear different in different environments. As he says,
Spatial variability in ecological systems arises because ecosystems, their components, and human systems can combine in diverse ways in different environments.695
At Coronation Hill, this attribute was evident in the way wildlife was suspected of using the South Alligator River as a corridor for movement.696 Thus the ecological function of that particular site was different to that of the areas connected by the river valley. The Conservation Zone was also at the boundary of two regional faunal assemblages.697 This combination of factors meant that the area was “an exceptional area biologically, particularly in terms of the abundance and diversity of mammals.”698 Clearly this made the site special: special enough for Kakadu to be termed a ‘jewel in the crown’ for conservation; special enough for the Commonwealth Government to insist it was a unique case; special enough for the area to be inscribed on the World Heritage List for its natural features.699
Variability as an ecological phenomenon presented environmental management problems too. On the one hand the regulatory and management regimes for Ranger were seen as models for Coronation Hill because of the similar circumstances of the mines.700 On the other hand Ranger and the supervising Commonwealth body, the Office of the Supervising Scientist had a difficult, and at times hostile, relationship and some of this conflict arose over the different responses OSS and miners made to environmental conditions that varied between Guratba and elsewhere. An example concerned the implementation of erosion mitigation works at the Coronation Hill exploration
695 Dryzek, 1987. Rational Ecology: Environment and Political Economy, p.31. 696 Australian National Parks and Wildlife Service Submission 57; Woinarski et al., 1989. Wildlife Survey of Stage III Kakadu National Park. 697 AHC Submission 76. 698 CZFR p.73; Woinarski and Braithwaite, 1990. The Terrestrial Vertebrate Fauna and Vegetation of the Kakadu Conservation Zone: Results of a Field Survey and Interpretation of Available Data. 699 See Read, 1995. Saving Sites of Significance: Wilderness and the Built Environment. for an interesting discussion of variability, particularity and universality in natural sites that are regarded as having heritage value. 700 CZFR pp.205-208. 191 site. A vigorous debate developed between CHJV and the OSS concerning erosion mitigation needs at the Coronation Hill exploration site. The CHJV claimed that the OSS, in response to concerns about the impact of CHJV’s exploration on the natural environment, requested the Joint Venture put in place engineered structures to mitigate erosional impact.701 CHJV disputed OSS’s expertise in addressing a mine very different in nature to Ranger, and the appropriateness of the structures recommended by OSS, as they were designed for different environmental conditions.702 CHJV claimed that the result of putting the structures in place was a deterioration in, rather than protection of, water quality.703 Thus even the variation in environmental conditions from Ranger to Guratba, separated by just 100 kilometres, was a source of contention about appropriate environmental management strategies.
There were also questions about whether climatic data available from sites in the region such as Katherine was suitable baseline data for developing engineering specifications for the ‘no-release’ water retention system at the mine. Critics were concerned that significant variations in the nature of the monsoonal climate between existing weather stations and the Coronation Hill site could lead to incorrect design specifications and thus to overflows from mine dams entering local creeks and the South Alligator River.704
There were thus several examples, during the life of the Coronation Hill proposal, of how environmental variability created difficulties for mine design and conservation planning in the area. These difficulties emerged during the environmental impact assessment process, and included several that led to referral of the issue to the RAC.
But it must also be said that other issues, including the social impacts of mining, can be just as variable. As has been noted before, this was one of the
701 OSS completely rejected the CHJV’s story, saying that they had only made some suggestions about how erosion control might be approached, in a letter not to CHJV but to the Australian National Parks and Wildlife Service, who had responsibility for the site, and only in response to a request put to them. Given their ability to produce the documentation, OSS appeared the more credible witness on this point: it seems a (perhaps wilful) misunderstanding had been allowed to develop into a more substantial dispute. CHJV Submission to the Industries Assistance Commission Mining and Mineral Processing Inquiry, March 1990; Fry & Riley, OSS, IC Transcripts pp.1292-1295. 702 CHJV Submission to the Industries Assistance Commission Mining and Mineral Processing Inquiry, March 1990; Leckie, CHJV, IC Transcripts pp.640-643. 703 Leckie, CHJV, IC Transcripts p.642. 704 Ledgar, ECNT, Transcripts p.1329; The Wilderness Society, 1989. Response to the CHJV Coronation Hill Draft EIS. 192 central findings of the Cousins and Nieuwenhuysen study in relation to Aboriginal communities.705 Some interesting examples of such variability presented themselves at Coronation Hill.
Because communities vary in their institutional arrangements and how they work, an appropriate negotiation strategy in one place may fail in another. The AAPA (according to CHJV) suggested to CHJV an incremental approach to discussing the Coronation Hill project with custodians.706 No doubt in some situations that approach would be the most suitable and smooth. But the particular circumstances of the senior custodians, in a case where the legal standing of traditional owners was unclear (as the Land Claim had not been determined), led to unsatisfactory results from the points of view of both industry and the Jawoyn. A series of meetings between AAPA staff, CHJV, Jawoyn people and others (including a Senate committee) yielded conflicting opinions and results and revealed some divisions between Jawoyn people. Even senior custodians within a single group (the Jawoyn) were capable of expressing divergent opinions about the custodial requirements of sites, and about the needs and rights of community members.707 The incremental approach, when combined with the dynamism of beliefs amongst Jawoyn, led to a series of outcomes that were difficult to reconcile, and a growing weariness amongst Jawoyn senior men. The custodians went from acquiescence708 in the exploration process to very determined opposition when the project was further advanced. This was unsatisfactory for the Jawoyn, who felt they were being badgered about the complexity and inconsistency of their views.709 It was unsatisfactory for the companies involved who may have gained the impression that everything was proceeding smoothly, had spent several million dollars on project development, and then found that the procedures recommended to them had turned out to be unsuitable.
705 Cousins and Nieuwenhuysen, 1984. Aboriginals and the Mining Industry. 706 Palethorpe, CHJV, 10(4) Inquiry Transcripts p.115; Levitus, 1990. Historical Perspective. It has not been possible to get adequate independent verification that this was in fact the advice given to CHJV, but this claim by CHJV does not seem to be disputed by Aboriginals involved. 707 The range of views is canvassed in Levitus’ historical summary. 708 The acquiescence appeared not to be universal, and if Levitus is to be believed, was based as much on resignation rather than positive assertions of the efficacy of letting the project proceed. But the precise interpretation of the early decisions is not relevant to this discussion. 709 Jawoyn Association, 1989. Just Sweet Talk. 193 Another example of the problems of variability can be found in the attributes of Aboriginal sites themselves, and of territoriality. There is great variability in social structures and beliefs from one community to the next. While certain general patterns can be discerned (as is the case in ecosystems), the variation can be far more important. The variable nature of sites and threats to them made it difficult to develop a model that could be transferred from one case to another. In the case of sites of significance to Aborigines, Davis, whose model of Aboriginal social dynamics in space was more universalist than others, still had developed six categories of significance, each with its own associated behaviours, prohibitions, and meanings.710 This variety fed debates about the “particular significance” of sites, whether Guratba was “sacred”, and whether the prohibitions on the site would prevent mining.711 Davis also argued that a process of territorial expansion was taking place amongst the Jawoyn. The RAC ultimately rejected his case, pointing out that territorial processes are not universal in their operation: what happens in one society may not occur in another.712 Again, variability from one place to another problematised social policy making.
More even than the variation over space, change in Aboriginal beliefs over time was a thorny issue for everyone involved in Coronation Hill. Mining companies had expressed alarm at the prospect that Aboriginal beliefs and sacred sites could change over time. They were concerned that the consequence would be that sacred site protection and land rights legislation would be “incapable of taking a snapshot of Aboriginal relationships and defining appropriate arrangements which will stand the test of time to protect or not to protect these sites”.713 As the RAC pointed out, to expect stasis in Aboriginal communities’ beliefs would be an unreasonable imposition, and such questions were matters for the government to determine.714 This does leave, however a very difficult policy challenge, because the variability over
710 Davis, consultant, 10(4) Inquiry Transcripts p.79. 711 “Particular significance” is a term used in the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Heritage Protection Act: for a discussion see chapter 3 of Justice Stewart’s 10(4) Report; NLC Submission to 10(4) Inquiry 6; Davis, consultant, 10(4) Inquiry Transcripts p.76-81; Palethorpe, CHJV, 10(4) Inquiry Transcripts pp.110-113, 119-128; CZFR pp.173-175,179- 181. Justice Stewart chose not to follow the example of previous Inquiries under the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Heritage Protection Act in his treatment of “particular significance”. 712 CZFR p.164. 713 AMIC Submission 178, p.15. Deadlines etc had been a longstanding concern to AMIC. See Aboriginal Affairs Policy Statement, 1982; Australian Mining Industry Council, 1981. The Need for a National Consensus: A Discussion Paper on Aboriginal Land Rights. 714 CZFR p.32. 194 time that is inherent in the nature of culture must create a certain level of unavoidable uncertainty for investors in the resources sector.715
Finally, perhaps the most obvious example of variability in social systems is the variety of laws, regulations and land tenures from one place to another, a variety perhaps as great as that of ecosystems. One of the reasons that the 10(4) Inquiry was necessary in the first place was that questions were raised about the effectiveness of protection of Aboriginal sites under NT legislation.716 Even at the conclusion of that Inquiry, important legal questions arising from the interaction of NT Acts remained unanswered because untested.717 Some considered the origin of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Heritage Protection Act to lie in the variability of land rights regimes around Australia, in particular their weakness in Western Australia and Queensland.718 Likewise, while both Aboriginal representatives and environmentalists expressed an acceptance of mining in other tenures or circumstances, the former said it was not feasible on a sacred site also subject to land claim, while the latter wanted it banned within a National Park that was part of a World Heritage catchment area for which a conservation-oriented land use strategy had been evolving for over a decade.719 For both it was the specific nature of this location that created difficulties: a hundred kilometres away it might have been a different story.
These problems of site variability can lead to bizarre and counter-productive policy outcomes, but as Kellow notes, this is as much true for non-
715 Many agreements negotiated between indigenous Australians and mining companies have shown that there are ways around this. Examples include exploration agreements in the Tanami Desert, and Cape York (September 1997). But even such agreements can run into difficulty at times, as was the case for the proposed Jabiluka uranium mine in the NT, where an original agreements made in the early 1980s was rejected by a traditional owner in the late 1990s: see ‘Aborigines hold key to mining at Jabiluka’, The Australian, 29 August 1997, p.21; Environment Australia, 1997. Proposal to Extract, Process and Export Uranium from Jabiluka Orebody #2: the Jabiluka Proposal. Environment Assessment Report. 716 Appendix A to Stewart, 1991. Report to the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs on the Kakadu Conservation Zone, under the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Heritage Protection Act 1984, pp.54-55; Ian Gray, NLC, letter to Gerry Hand, Commonwealth Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, 13 Sep 1989; Appendix B to Stewart, 1991. Report to the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs on the Kakadu Conservation Zone, under the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Heritage Protection Act 1984, pp.60-62; Daryl Manzie, NT Minister for Lands and Housing, letter to Gerry Hand, Commonwealth Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, 3 Oct 1989. 717 Stewart, 1991. Report to the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs on the Kakadu Conservation Zone, under the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Heritage Protection Act 1984, pp.49-50. 718 Australian Mining Industry Council, 1984. A Submission on the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Heritage (Interim Protection) Bill 1984, May 1984. 719 NLC Submission 78; ACF Submission 97. 195 environmental problems as any, as his descriptions of two cases, one pertaining to the environment, the other to health policy, indicate:
Environmental problems are often complex rather than simple, and simple, morally-correct prescriptions are sometimes worse than no prescription at all. Regulations are often stated in terms of percentage reductions of pollution, which sounds noble but often produces absurdities such as the Alaskan municipality which was spending hundreds of thousands of dollars annually to add impurities to its water supply so that it could remove the required amount.
Chlorine in the water supply is known to cause an elevated incidence of cancer in humans, particularly bladder cancer. Fortified with this knowledge (and wishing to exercise fiscal constraint) Peruvian officials decided to follow the lead of the US EPA and not chlorinate the water from many wells. In the ensuing cholera epidemic more than 3,500 people were saved from bladder cancer by an early death.720
In much more general terms, variability is surely as much a central feature of human communities as it is of environments. Were it not for variable resources and ways of designing things, we would have shelter instead of architecture. Were it not for a diversity of concepts and experiences, and ways of expressing them, we would have communication instead of languages. If humans did not vary in social arrangements and beliefs we would have global civilisation rather than anthropology. If political and economic conditions were uniform we would have neither macroeconomics nor comparative studies. But we do, for better or worse, have architecture, languages, anthropology, macroeconomics and comparative studies. Social systems are very variable things, with very diverse problems.721
720 Kellow, 1997. Problems in International Environmental Governance or 'A Policy Analyst Looks at the World...This Being a Tale of How the Hopes of Mice and Men in Geneva are Dashed in Canberra', pp.56,59. 721 For a classic example of how universal problem-solving approaches in the economic field can fall foul of the variability of human communities, see MacRae and Whittington, 1988. Assessing Preferences in Cost-Benefit Analysis: Reflections on Rural Water Supply in Haiti. This study revealed major problems with conventional cost-benefit analysis when undertaken in a setting where the culture and priorities of people differ significantly from those underpinning conventional benefit-cost analytical techniques. Thus, in this study of the provision of plumbed water in Haiti, respondents to surveys of benefits (men) were not necessarily the recipients of benefits (women). Further, the apparent benefits of the development (availability of tapped water) turned out not to be the main benefits as seen by the male household heads (who were more concerned with the plumbing as a status symbol). 196 There is plenty of variability in social systems, with all the policy-making difficulties consequent thereupon. Claims of the special variety of ecosystems are not supported.
Overall, the idea that ecological problems manifest themselves in especially ‘unique’ ways – that they are complex, non-reducible and variable – is not substantiated. Once again, I want to emphasise that I am not saying that ecological problems do not demonstrate these features. Rather, I have shown that all problems to which policy responses are sought can and do exhibit such features, and that this is nowhere more evident than in the case of the Aboriginal issues that the RAC considered side-by-side with environmental questions.
Having set aside Dryzek’s first three features, what of the last three: uncertainty, collectiveness, and spontaneity? Uncertainty
Uncertainty, according to Dryzek, is closely related to complexity and non- reducibility: “the more complex a system, the less ‘knowable’ it becomes”... the less readily is it decomposed into simpler parts”.722 He highlights three things that may be uncertain: “present or future conditions, and the consequences of human actions.”723 Applying these types of uncertainty to projects, the former two categories refer to available baseline data and the extent to which it reliably predicts the range of possible conditions; the latter to environmental impact assessment. There are thus two concepts encapsulated in Dryzek’s uncertainty: knowability and predictability.
Smil’s example, cited previously, of the problems with treatment of power station emissions is an example of the problems of knowability. Waste managers no doubt imagined that precipitating fly-ash from emissions would improve air quality, but did not know about the adverse effects of the resultant increased acidity of emissions.724 The challenges of conservation biology, in contrast, are primarily those of predictability: we still have a limited understanding of what amounts of habitat are necessary for any species’ survival, or what levels of habitat reduction will result in endangerment or extinction.725
722 Dryzek, 1987. Rational Ecology: Environment and Political Economy, p.31. 723 Dryzek, 1987. Rational Ecology: Environment and Political Economy, p.31. 724 Smil, 1993. Global Ecology. Environmental Change and Social Flexibility, p.168. 725 Frankel and Soulé, 1981. Conservation and Evolution. 197 In assessing the claim that ecosystems exhibit especially high levels of uncertainty, we therefore need to examine not one but two questions. First, do we know more about social systems than ecosystems? Second, are the effects of changes to social systems more predictable than changes to ecosystems? Any attempt at a general answer to the first question would be meaningless. Some ecosystems are well documented, others remain mysteries. Some social forces are comparatively well understood, others remain perplexing and uninvestigated. A more fruitful approach instead would be to ask whether either sort of system is more readily knowable, rather than better known.
The first point to note on this count was that made previously, under the discussion of “complexity”, regarding the research effort on ecological and anthropological questions in the Conservation Zone. It seemed that the greater research effort put into learning about the culture of the Conservation Zone yielded less definitive data than that on the physical environment. Even the RAC itself concluded that any assessment of what formed the ‘baseline data’ on the Bula tradition was “ultimately subjective”.726 On this basis the social system was if anything less ‘knowable’ than the ecosystems of the region.
There are similarities in the way in which the investigative process has been organised for ecological and social systems. An examination of the training and skills of the people who inquired into social and environmental systems during the RAC’s Inquiry reveals similar divisions of expertise in each case. Specialists in research into the physical environment came from different disciplines which examined different aspects of the workings of ecosystems. They included ecologists, such as Commissioner Kitching, biologists, geologists and geophysicists from BMR and the Joint Venture, and environmental impact specialists. Within disciplines existed specialists on different environments or elements of systems.
The same divisions existed amongst those studying social systems. Economists such as Commissioner McColl contributed to analysis of the regional and national economic impact of the proposed mine, while anthropologists, geographers, social impact specialists, sociologists and archaeologists also assisted the Inquiry. Perhaps the one point on which the structure of inquiry into systems differed was the greater theoretical diversity amongst theorists of social systems. This would again if anything make it harder to ‘know’ social
726 CZFR p.175. 198 systems. Other than this however, inquiry into ecological and social systems was organised in similar ways.
Turning to the second question about the predictability of the impact of changes to systems, there is evidence that social and environmental systems presented similar limitations to prediction. Despite all the difficulties of operating near the South Alligator River, the OSS, with over a decade of experience in the region was able to examine the Coronation Hill project and conclude that
subject to certain modifications in design and operation, the CHJV proposal could be carried out at Coronation Hill so as not to cause significant detriment to the wider bio-physical environment outside of the immediate project area.727
This line of argument was essentially that adopted by the Conservation Zone Inquiry in its reports, vindicating the scientific research and assessment by OSS. It also indicates that the development of research and technical databases for making development decisions is possible within an economically viable context. The budget of OSS was under $10 million per annum,728 and its cost was able to borne by a mining project of the scale of Ranger; a smaller research or monitoring body would probably have been within reach of CHJV’s costings.729
The RAC was likewise able to draw some conclusions about the impacts on aboriginal communities:
mining will adversely affect the ability of Jawoyn people, particularly the senior men, to sustain cultural and religious values, beliefs and practices that are important to them.730
The Inquiry anticipated a range of impacts on the Jawoyn of decisions either to allow or reject mining development. The impacts of permitting mining were predicted to include further isolation of senior custodians, increased stress, and that “Jawoyn culture and society would not be destroyed, but some of the spiritual and psychological benefit that many Jawoyn experience as a consequence of their traditional links with the Zone would be bruised or lost,
727 OSS Submission 71, p.16. 728 Office of the Supervising Scientist, 1993. Annual Report 1992-93. 729 Note OSS’s budget did not come from Ranger, but out of consolidated revenue. There was however a (deliberate) close relationship between monies paid by ERA to the Commonwealth and the budget of OSS. 730 CZFR p.xxii. 199 and traditional authority structures could be further weakened.”731 The impacts of preventing mining included enhanced custodial authority and Jawoyn traditional culture, loss of face (and perhaps of employment) for pro- mining Jawoyn, and psychological gains associated with the recognition of Jawoyn views by Government. Thus, despite the uncertain nature of social systems, the RAC and its consultants felt able to reach some predictions about probable effects of Commonwealth decisions about the Conservation Zone.
On the other hand, it is possible to reverse the argument about predictability. In the event of the mine proceeding, the possible impacts on the Aboriginal community and the environment were equally unpredictable. Despite the cautious optimism of the RAC about the tractability of the issues, it still emphasised some uncertainty about impacts. The RAC itself referred to the “inherent unpredictability of natural systems” when making recommendations about the management regime for the Coronation Hill project, in the event that it proceeded.732 But it likewise recognised the possibilities for change in Aboriginal communities and views, and supported Koepping’s criticism of expectations that there would be in Aboriginal society, “any unilinear, ‘progressive’ movement from tradition to modernity, from sacred to secular, from cultural diversity to cultural uniformity.”733 And while willing to predict a range of impacts cited above, it also noted that “Cause and effect relationships are complex in a community already in a parlous and vulnerable state.”734
Overall, there is no sense emanating from the RAC’s work that we can be more confident in managing the inevitable uncertainties of initiating changes to systems, whether ecological or social. It appears that our knowledge of both social and ecological systems is uneven, but that a reasonable degree of knowledge can be developed given time and commitment. In both cases, long data series may be needed in order to understand elements of the systems, and in both cases there are limited possibilities of gathering that data retrospectively. In both cases, predicting behaviour of a system in response to pressure proved harder than developing an understanding of how the system worked.
731 CZFR pp.197-198. 732 CZFR p.205. 733 CZFR p.157, citing Koepping, 1988. Nativistic Movements in Aboriginal Australia. 734 CZFR p.197. 200 I would argue that to a large degree the limits to predictability of social and ecological systems alike are due to what Dryzek terms emergent properties. These include any characteristics of systems “which [are] not predictable from a knowledge of the elements of that system.”735 Dryzek offers no explanation of why he regards the “ubiquitous” presence of emergent properties in the environment as any different to their prevalence in human communities. The RAC itself comments that when it comes to the constitutional and administrative arrangements of the social world “the whole is greater than the sum of its parts”.736 The RAC thus considered uncertainty to be equally a feature of natural and social systems, and I would agree.
One imagines the entire project of macroeconomics and econometrics would be complete, and feral abacuses around the world could go home and rest their weary beads, if emergent properties were not such a persistent feature of the economy. Sociologists around the world would predict crime waves, industrial unrest and urban renewal without batting an eyelid, but for the fickle interactions of the different communities and forces within advanced industrial countries. And of course historians and international relations experts alike would have successfully predicted the sagging of the iron curtain. It is not, they do not and they did not, because “emergent properties” are as intrinsic to the social world as to the natural. Collectiveness
Dryzek’s fifth attribute is collectiveness: environmental problems are frequently collective action problems: rational individual actions will not lead to amelioration, and may lead to disaster.737 Dryzek refers to two main types of such problems in the ecological area: Hardin’s tragedy of the commons, and the “underprovision of public goods”.738 The examples of resources that Dryzek cites as creating policy problems in these categories are familiar enough: fisheries, migratory wildlife, the atmosphere, the ozone layer, the pollution assimilation capacity of rivers, and groundwater basins. The problems of “collectiveness” are the incentives that rational individuals face to overexploit
735 Dryzek, 1987. Rational Ecology: Environment and Political Economy, p.27. 736 Resource Assessment Commission, 1993. Coastal Zone Inquiry Final Report. 737 Hardin, 1968. The Tragedy of the Commons; Hardin, 1994. The Tragedy of the Unmanaged Commons. 738 Dryzek, 1987. Rational Ecology: Environment and Political Economy, p.31. 201 non-excludable goods (commons), and to free-ride on goods where there must be jointness of supply.739
It is certainly the case, as Dryzek says, that the list of such goods in the scope of environmental problems - and environmental policy - is substantial.740 But Dryzek himself points out that the standard example of a public good is national security. Is he therefore correct in ascribing some priority to ecological problems when this feature of collectiveness is so readily ascribed to the classic (non-environmental) problems of policy such as foreign affairs and defence?
Innovations were attempted during the Conservation Zone Inquiry to overcome the problems of collectiveness and underprovision of environmental public goods. The Kakadu contingent valuation study was based on the argument that there does tend to be an underprovision of conservation goods because environmental services are often not traded and therefore not valued.741 That attempt ironically led to the over-pricing of a public good as was discussed in Chapter 5.742 The use of the contingent valuation method, hedonic pricing,743 and travel cost studies744 by the RAC indicates that while there are collectiveness problems associated with the provision of environmental goods, there are, up to a point, practical techniques for overcoming them. This demonstrate that collectiveness is not the inherent attribute many make it out to be.
But while many environmental goods need not be collective, many social services are. Even Smith, father of the free market, recognised that defence, aspects of welfare, and transport services may best be, or can only be, collectively provided.745 Perhaps the best example of this necessity in the current context is the maintenance of cultural norms and beliefs. Jawoyn religious beliefs and practices are not privately produced and consumed goods. Though small numbers of people are custodians of certain sites and ceremonies,
739 Olson, 1965. The Logic of Collective Action: Public Goods and the Theory of Groups; Ostrom, 1990. Governing the Commons. The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action. 740 Doyle and Kellow, 1995. Environmental Politics and Policy Making in Australia; Ostrom, 1990. Governing the Commons. The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action. 741 Imber et al., 1991. A Contingent Valuation Survey of the Kakadu Conservation Zone; Wilks, 1990. A Survey of the Contingent Valuation Method. 742 CZFR p.149; AMIC Submission 178. 743 Streeting, 1990. A Survey of the Hedonic Price Technique. 744 Knapman and Stanley, 1991. A Travel Cost Analysis of the Recreation Use Value of Kakadu National Park. 745 McClelland, 1996. A History of Western Political Thought; Spiegel, 1991. The Growth of Economic Thought. 202 the community is the collective provider of these intangible yet vital goods to its members. The pursuit of an individually rational calculus by each member of the Jawoyn community was likely to lead to community division, a rise in the average stress level experienced by community members, and deterioration of traditional culture and social structures. It would become, in Dryzek’s terms, a case of a tragedy of the commons.
Dryzek must face the sceptics when it comes to proclaiming the ubiquity of collectiveness of goods environmental. The basic principle of the free market environmentalism movement is that markets can be created for most environmental goods, and they generally are more efficient than collective provision through the state or states.746 The free market environmentalists have been energetic and imaginative in proposing property rights-based approaches to an extraordinary range of environmental problems. They include pastoral licensing on public lands,747 rangeland management,748 endangered species preservation,749 habitat protection,750 water supply,751 water pollution and farm management,752 fisheries,753 recreational opportunity provision,754 waste management,755 mineral exploration,756 acid rain,757 and
746 Anderson and Leal, 1991. Free Market Environmentalism. 747 Chisholm et al., 1993. Conserving Native Flora and Fauna: Application of a Property Rights Approach in the State of Victoria. 748 Anderson and Leal, 1991. Free Market Environmentalism; Dumsday and Chisholm, 1991. Land Degradation: Economic Causes and Cures; Moran et al., 1991. Markets, Resources and the Environment. 749 Chisholm et al., 1993. Conserving Native Flora and Fauna: Application of a Property Rights Approach in the State of Victoria. 750 Anderson, 1991. The Market Process and Environmental Amenities; Chisholm et al., 1993. Conserving Native Flora and Fauna: Application of a Property Rights Approach in the State of Victoria; Moran et al., 1991. Markets, Resources and the Environment. 751 Abrams, 1990. Water Allocation by Comprehensive Permit Systems in the East: Considering a Move Away From Orthodoxy; Chisholm et al., 1993. Conserving Native Flora and Fauna: Application of a Property Rights Approach in the State of Victoria; Pigram, 1993. Property Rights and Water Markets in Australia: an Evolutionary Process Toward Institutional Reform; Queensland Department of Natural Resources, 1996. Rural Water Pricing and Management; Whipple, 1994. New Perspectives in Water Supply. 752 Dudley et al., 1993. An Integrated Approach to Tradeable Discharge Permits and Capacity Sharing under Australian Conditions; Reeve and Kaine, 1991. Ecosystem-Coupled Markets: A Policy Approach for Sustainable Land Management; Scrimgeour, 1995. Protecting Water Resource Quality: Designing an Emission Charge System in New Zealand. 753 Anderson and Leal, 1991. Free Market Environmentalism; Boyd and Dewees, 1992. Putting Theory into Practice: Individual Transferable Quotas in New Zealand's Fisheries; Campbell, 1984. Individual Transferable Catch Quotas: Their Role, Use and Application; Geen and Nayar, 1992. Individual Transferable Quotas and the Southern Bluefin Tuna Fishery; Moran et al., 1991. Markets, Resources and the Environment. 754 Anderson, 1991. The Market Process and Environmental Amenities; Anderson and Leal, 1991. Free Market Environmentalism; Stroup, 1991. Chemophobia and Activist Environmental Antidotes: Is the Cure More Deadly than the Disease? 755 Anderson and Leal, 1991. Free Market Environmentalism; Moran et al., 1991. Markets, Resources 203 even the greenhouse effect.758 So while many environmental goods may indeed be collective in nature, the extent of this feature should not be over-emphasised. Many environmental goods are collective because, either by historical accident or by design, that is how we have chosen to arrange their provision. But the great variety in property rights and provision of environmental goods from one country to another serves to indicate that many of these goods are not inherently collective.759
I have argued that Dryzek overstates the extent to which environmental goods must be collective goods. Many are thus provided because human societies have chosen, and continue to choose, that mode of provision. Second I have pointed out that other things vital to human wellbeing must be collectively provided. Nowhere was this need more starkly portrayed than in the provision of religious and cultural goods within the Jawoyn community. These two points being the case, there is nothing especially ‘collective’ about ecological problems. Spontaneity
So far I have shown that these five criteria are not unique to environmental problems and hence argue that a policy approach based on the uniqueness of environmental problems will not be sustainable as, as problems, they are not unique. Before turning from this approach, then, perhaps the last criterion, the restorative one, of spontaneity, may show some difference.
All is not gloom when it comes to environmental problems. Ecosystems, unlike mines, do not require constant human participation in order to operate. Nor do they need to be repaired using outside expertise. Ecosystems are capable of
and the Environment; Opshoor and Turner, 1994. Economic Incentives and Environmental Policies. Principles and Practice; Stroup, 1991. Chemophobia and Activist Environmental Antidotes: Is the Cure More Deadly than the Disease? 756 Anderson and Leal, 1991. Free Market Environmentalism; Moran, 1991. Property Rights and Efficiency - Ownership of Innovations and Mineral Prospects; Moran et al., 1991. Markets, Resources and the Environment. 757 Dolan, 1991. Controlling Acid Rain. 758 Moran et al., 1991. Markets, Resources and the Environment; Parliament of Australia, 1992. National Greenhouse Response Strategy. 759 Two good examples are the difference between the private property approach to recreational fisheries in the UK compared to the public property approach in the USA (Stroup, 1991. Chemophobia and Activist Environmental Antidotes: Is the Cure More Deadly than the Disease?); and the predominantly private production forests of the USA compared to the predominance of Crown forests in Australia (Resource Assessment Commission, 1992. Forest and Timber Inquiry Final Report (volume 1). 204 self-stabilisation and repair - Commoner’s law that “nature knows best”.760 Dryzek argues that this spontaneity is an “alleviating” factor: while the other five attributes hitherto discussed make it harder for humans to solve ecological problems, this one might make it easier.761
In the case of Coronation Hill, examples of the spontaneous attributes of ecosystems were used to support the ability of the area to regenerate from mining. The CHJV cited unaided revegetation in the vicinity of the old Coronation Hill uranium mine as evidence that a proper rehabilitation program would be successful.762 Others also referred to the area’s ability to recover from buffalo damage, arguing that if left alone it could become a high conservation value region once more and should be allowed to so do.763 As the Australian National Parks and Wildlife Service pointed out, research on the area reflected “a strong resilience for local ecosystems in the face of biological perturbations.”764 The Parks Service was however unconvinced that the resilience of ecosystems was as effective in dealing with anthropogenic impacts such as chemical pollution and vehicle impacts.
While a mine may not be spontaneous in character, what about the social systems on which it impacts? Various commentators argued that social systems may be flexible and resilient.765 Implicit in the arguments of Davis is a perspective that suggests that cultures are not only flexible but can also be in a sense aggressive.766 In his consulting work for the Joint Venture, Davis outlined a process of territorial expansion by the Jawoyn into the region covered by the Conservation Zone.767 The increased (or new) importance of sites such as Guratba was a product of the process of ‘marking’ the new territory.768
Levitus and CHJV, each in quite different ways, argued for the resilience of social systems. Levitus, in his research report for the AAPA, and later in a
760 Cited in Walker, 1994. The Political Economy of Environmental Policy: an Australian Introduction. 761 Dryzek, 1987. Rational Ecology: Environment and Political Economy, p.33. 762 CHJV Submission 49. 763 Australian National Parks and Wildlife Service Submission 57; AHC Submission 76. 764 Australian National Parks and Wildlife Service Submission 57, p.14. 765 See also Merlan, 1991. The Limits of Cultural Constructionism: The Case of Coronation Hill. for a detailed review of the arguments of herself, Davis and Brunton. 766 CHJV, citing Davis, Submissions to 10(4) Inquiry 4a, 4b. 767 Davis, 10(4) Transcripts pp.77-79. 768 Davis, 10(4) Transcripts pp.77, 86-87. 205 much-cited radio interview,769 discussed the concept of “elaboration” in religious belief. His argument was not dissimilar to that of Koepping who observed that
not only is Aboriginal world-view not stagnant, but it adapts with great, and almost feverish speed to new challenges.770
CHJV embraced the arguments of Davis and Levitus, pointing out that these suggestions should confirm the case that they had made all along, that the Joint Venture and the Jawoyn community could through negotiation come to a satisfactory agreement to allow the mine to be constructed.771
Brunton likewise put forward the view that “Jawoyn culture is not a house of cards”.772 He criticised non-Aboriginal interest groups and others for wanting to preserve Aboriginal cultures as though they were fragile museum specimens, or romantic model societies for Europeans to admire. Likewise AMIC pointed out that
Aboriginal culture, like all cultures, is not static. It is adapting to the changing needs and interests of the various communities and in many areas where it interfaces with mining interests, has commendably shown its adaptability.773
While deeply critical of the approaches of Davis and Brunton, Keen and Merlan did not express the view that Aboriginal cultures were especially fragile, in contrast to Lane et al, who apparently regarded the Jawoyn community as very vulnerable to adverse effects associated with mining.774 Merlan implicitly acknowledges the adaptive capabilities of Aboriginal society: as she pointed out in hearings much of her work (over a decade) had involved
trying to understand the nature of the transformations and the changes that these people have been subjected to... [The Jawoyn] have
769 Robert Levitus, interview on Earthworm, 3RN, 20 Feb 1991. 770 Koepping, 1988. Nativistic Movements in Aboriginal Australia, p.401 cited in Brunton, 1991. Aborigines and Environmental Myths: Apocalypse in Kakadu. 771 CHJV Submission to 10(4) Inquiry 4b, p.31. 772 Brunton, 1991. Aborigines and Environmental Myths: Apocalypse in Kakadu, p.14. 773 AMIC Submission to 10(4) Inquiry 2, p.2. 774 Lane et al., 1990. Social Impact of Development: An Analysis of the Social Impact of Development on Aboriginal Communities of the Conservation Zone Region. But see also the arguments of Lane and Rickson in more recent work, where they make the case that the Jawoyn were adaptive and resilient in developing responses to the proposals being made to their community: Lane and Rickson, 1997. Resource Development and Resource Dependency of Indigenous Communities: Australia's Jawoyn Aborigines and Mining at Coronation Hill. 206 sustained relationships to the country and these relationships are historical transformations of earlier relationships to the country.775
But she and Keen also considered that
in the present climate of Aboriginal opinion and belief, the only way to avoid desecration and injury to sites in and adjacent to the Conservation Zone as a result of mining, is to refrain from mining.776
The irony of all this is that while the CHJV and others pointed out that societies and communities were capable of adaptation, they were in some ways alarmed by the spontaneous nature of culture. Just as colonial settlers might have viewed the regenerative vigour of the jungle as a threat to civilisation and progress, so the miners felt the dynamic nature of religious belief - and the sacred sites that go with it - could threaten the smooth operation of Land Rights and Sacred Site legislation, bringing resource development to a halt.777
What is clear then is that all participants in the Coronation Hill debate recognised the “spontaneity” of both natural and cultural systems, and their capacity to ameliorate ecological or social problems. Spontaneity is as good a name as any for the healing force of time: that allows communities to overcome disasters or massacres; that allows families to grieve and move beyond their grief; that allows individuals to recover from injury, or to learn new skills. Spontaneity can hardly be claimed as the special virtue of nature, when it so much a part of culture. Conclusion
The deliberations of the RAC and of participants in the Inquiry suggest that while ecological problems may indeed have the attributes of “complexity, non- reducibility, variability, uncertainty, collectiveness and spontaneity”, so have other areas problems for which policy is formulated. As Sagoff concludes, environmental policy interventions share the same moral foundations as most social regulation, and can as a policy-making area be based on the same principles. A policy approach based on the principle that environmental problems are different cannot therefore succeed.
775 Merlan, Consultant, Transcripts pp.1531-1532. 776 CZFR summary of Keen and Merlan’s consultancy, p.340. 777 CHJV Submission to 10(4) Inquiry 4b; AMIC Submission 178. 207 Given that this is the case, it is ironic that political ecologists tend to criticise the poor predictive capacity of economics, lambasting it as a bankrupt because so imprecise science.778 Yet any limitations of economics are the same as the limitations of ecology – just as the words derive from the same root, oikos. Two of the principle features of the macroeconomy must surely be complexity and unpredictability, the very same features that are considered so distinctive of ecological systems. Indeed, this has led some economists to attempts to develop ‘ecological’ models of economic systems.779 This may be a commendable development, but one that simply underlines the fundamental similarity between environmental and other policy problems.
Rather than emphasising the special nature of environmental problems, the Coronation Hill case highlights how many systems - natural and social - share the attributes outlined by Dryzek and others. It is their similarities as policy problems, rather than the differences, that are most evident in this comparative analysis of environmental and anthropological problems associated with mining. As Hooker remarked,
Ecologies, industries, institutions and personalities are all complex, coherent systems - it is their design that is their key feature. Good environmental policy is policy consciously designed to effect a complex design in society or maintain and/or enhance an ecological design in nature.780
Saying that there is nothing distinctive about environmental problems emphatically is not the same thing as saying our environmental predicaments (and they are many) will be easily solved. Amongst the list of ecological challenges to be faced are some daunting ones indeed. But they are no more daunting than the great human and social policy problems of our day, from the local (urban planning; outworker exploitation; neighbourhoods experiencing high crime rates) to the global (refugees; white collar corporate and computer crime; economic integration; population growth). And if they are not different in nature, then the development of distinct policy strategies along ecological lines is likely to be a wasteful approach to the issues. ‘What needs to be done’, therefore, is not to develop some suite of distinctive, ecologically rational policy
778 Lowe, 1989. The Political Role of Energy Forecasting Mythology; Walker, 1991. The Political Ecology of Environmental Destruction. 779 For example Boulding, 1991. What Do We Want to Sustain? Environmentalism and Human Evaluations; Pearce and Turner, 1990. Economics of Natural Resources and the Environment. 780 Hooker, 1983. On Deep Versus Shallow Theories of Environmental Pollution, p.78. 208 institutions. What is needed is more likely to be understood in terms of some other analytic approach based on existing policy theories and institutions.
In Chapter 1, I sketched a number of policy responses to the rise of environmental concerns in the field of natural resources decision-making. In examining the essence of the first two of these approaches I have been critical of both neo-liberal and ecological responses. I argued the limitations of neo- liberal strategies lay in their inability to deal with fundamental definitional problems such as defining the nature of environmental issues (or for that matter Aboriginal questions). Ecological analysis, however, has been equally unsuccessful in addressing the problem at hand. While neo-liberalism pays too little regard to the nature of the policy problem, ecological analysis in a sense pays too much attention to the particular issue, and not enough to the general context.
In a sense, then, both neo-liberal and ecological approaches to the rise of environmental concern fall foul of the nature of the issues involved. The former inappropriately defines these issues as ‘merely’ allocative, while the latter equally inappropriately defines them as unique.
I next examine a quite different approach to the problem: that grounded in radical analysis. As will be argued at the end of the next Chapter, however, it too has a crucial limitation, and this too is definitional in nature. 209 Chapter 8 The RAC and Radical Analysis
In examining the Coronation Hill case in Chapter 2, I suggested that the government decision had proven sound. In that Chapter, and in subsequent discussion, I also suggested that the RAC had played a constructive role in the Conservation Zone case, but that it had done so in spite, rather than because, of its origins. It was intended as a neo-liberal institution but failed in the application of economic policy instruments before abandoning them. It was meant to be ecologically ‘distinctive’, but its very work demonstrated ecological issues are not so different to other issues the policy system must process. Any success of the RAC could thus be interpreted as somewhat paradoxical, or a product of chance.
Despite the RAC’s superficial success in dealing with Coronation Hill, it had been abolished within three years of the Conservation Zone report, after a period of declining resources, disintegrating leadership, and a failure to secure any further terms of reference for Inquiries. In some sense, then, the RAC failed. This Chapter examines one particular interpretation of that failure - a radical or neo-Marxist interpretation - before moving on in the subsequent Chapter to an alternative institutional account which not only explains the RAC’s demise, but is consistent with the theory problems identified in Chapters 4 to 7.
Radical readings of environmental problems are common, but very diverse in their argument. A number focus on the process of colonisation of nature, and commodification of traditional resource management practices, linking this to the intensification of the use of nature and thence to environmental degradation.781 As Johnston puts it, it is
the way in which human ‘interference’ with nature is managed under capitalism that is the cause of much land degradation and the appalling human consequences that stem from this.782
781 Hindmarsh et al., 1998. Altered Genes. Reconstructing Nature: The Debate; Merchant, 1989. Ecological Revolutions. Nature, Gender, and Science in New England. 782 Johnston, 1989. Environmental Problems: Nature, Economy and State, p.95. 210 Others focus on enclosure of the commons as a process of sequestering resources by multinational corporations which either coopt or bypass governments.783 All of these approaches treat western capitalism as the source of both disenfranchisement of the poor, and of ecological crisis. Environmental protection therefore necessitates constraining the preferences of business, and, under this approach to environmental policy, environmentalism necessitates challenging capitalism. A radical reading of Coronation Hill and the RAC
Was the RAC a casualty of this class war between business and workers, fought on the territory of the state? There are a number of claims that either explicitly or implicitly take this approach to explaining what happened to the RAC in particular, and the behaviour of the state in dealing with investor confidence more generally. Jackson & Cooper for example describe the 1992 decision to allow mining at MacArthur River as a ‘compensating’ decision to reassure investors that the Coronation Hill outcome was aberrant, and that the government had their interests at heart.784 Commentator Glenn Milne interpreted the issue in structural terms: “A no-mining decision will see the business community desert Labor...”785, while most media discussion of the issues being dealt with by the RAC was put in terms of the impact on investor confidence. It was the impact on business that caused most concern to major political players like the Liberal-National Coalition parties, who equated the Coronation Hill outcome with the RAC being “highly politicised”.786 Given that only the Conservation Zone Inquiry had reported at that time, this seemed to mean the RAC was anti-capital.
More generally, the behaviour of governments in resource-dependent states is often interpreted as being driven almost exclusively by the interests of capital, particularly through fear of a loss of investment consequent on any decision that might be seen as against the interests of capital. Walker argues this with respect to Australian development patterns;787 Lowe uses it as an explanation
783 The Ecologist, 1993. Whose Common Future? Reclaiming the Commons. 784 Jackson and Cooper, 1993. Coronation Hill Payback: the Case of MacArthur River. 785 Milne, 1991. A Sacred Site Littered With Landmines, p.9. 786 Liberal and National Parties, 1991. Fightback! Taxation and Expenditure Reform for Jobs and Growth, p.272. 787 Walker, 1992. Conclusion: The Politics of Environmental Policy. 211 for Australian policy failure on greenhouse issues;788 McDougall’s explanation of policy constraints in Canadian resource dependent communities likewise hinges on the power of capitalist interests;789 while Crough and Wheelwright have set out similar explanations of the dynamics of Australian capitalism in general through a case study of the mineral industry.790
At first glance, it would seem these arguments are consistent with the abolition of the RAC, after it delivered the controversial Conservation Zone Report. Its findings on Coronation Hill were often intepreted as anti-business, with industry condemning the Conservation Zone Report,791 business commentators suggesting the RAC had “got it wrong” on Coronation Hill,792 and the conservative political parties promising to abolish the Commission if elected.793
In this Chapter, however, I suggest that, looked at in light of the core claim of radical theory - that the state acts in the interest of capital - the Coronation Hill case is ambiguous. This argument is built in several steps. First, I explain how radical theorists see the role of the state in a situation of conflict between business and other interests. I will focus on one particular way in which the radical account is framed: the structural dependence thesis.794 This hypothesises that it is the process of protecting a favourable climate for investment that leads the state systematically to pursue the interests of capital in general. Under such a theory, ‘investor confidence’ becomes a key variable, and this will be the central interest of the analyses conducted later in the Chapter. The structural dependence thesis has been criticised on a number of fronts, however. The second step taken in this Chapter is to outline some of these criticisms. Given these arguments that challenge the existence of the structural dependence thesis, the following section discusses how the structural dependence thesis might be manifested in a case like Coronation Hill. Fourth, I discuss in some detail the construction of tests of some of these ways in which we might determine whether the structural dependence thesis is supported by
788 Lowe, 1994. The Greenhouse Effect and the Politics of Long-term Issues. 789 McDougall, 1985. Natural resources and national politics. A look at three Canadian resource industries. 790 Crough and Wheelwright, 1983. Australia: Client State of International Capitalism. A Case Study of the Mineral Industry. 791 eg. Gomez, 1991. Govt 'plans to bar mining' in Kakadu. 792 eg. Stone, 1991. Put environmental altruism to real test; Taylor, 1991. Coronation Hill Test for Sacred Sites. 793 Liberal and National Parties, 1991. Fightback! Taxation and Expenditure Reform for Jobs and Growth, Liberal Party of Australia / National Party, no city. 794 See for example Przeworski and Wallerstein, 1988. Structural Dependence of the State on Capital. 212 the Coronation Hill case. The Chapter then turns to results of some of these tests. For the most part the results give little support to the structural dependence thesis, and confirm the arguments of its critics. The Chapter concludes with discussion of why this might be so.
Once again, then, analysis of the Coronation Hill decision reveals problems with a theoretical analysis of the rise of environmental issues. In this case it is the essence of radical theory – the need to characterise any policy proposal as pro- or anti-capital – that creates the problem. The radical argument in general
The radical argument can take two broad forms. The first is that formulated by Marx, that considers the state to be merely “a committee for managing the common affairs of the whole bourgeoisie”.795 The state is not even superficially a truly democratic institution, but is an instrument to assist capital accumulation. Since the state is not the same thing as capital, the major task for Marxists has been explaining the mechanisms by which modern states, despite their ostensibly democratic nature, act in the interests of the capitalist minority, and by implication against the interests of the working (and voting) majority. These explanations have been diverse, some emphasising cultural control mechanisms, some functional dependencies, and others system control imperatives. The structural dependence thesis emerges primarily out of the work of Altvater and, especially, Block, on state managers as actors with a concern for the collective interest of capital.796
The second broad form of the radical argument emerges out of Anglo- American pluralist tradition. Its origins can be traced to the tension between pluralist conceptions of the policy process, elite theorists’ criticisms of pluralist claims about the accessibility of policy processes, and other criticisms of using visible decision-making as the focus of analysis.797 This debate resulted in the development of explanations of business dominance in the policy process that did not rely merely on understanding business as one amongst many organised interests. The are exemplified by Lindblom’s book Politics and Markets.798
795 Marx and Engels, 1983. Manifesto of the Communist Party, p.16. 796 Block, 1977. The Ruling Class Does Not Rule: notes on a Marxist Theory of the State; Jessop, 1990. State Theory. Putting the Capitalist State in its Place. 797 Bachrach and Baratz, 1962. The Two Faces of Power; Dahl, 1958. A Critique of the Ruling Elite Model; Lindblom, 1977. Politics and Markets; Lindblom, 1980. The Policy Making Process; Mills, 1956. The Power Elite. 798 Lindblom, 1977. Politics and Markets. 213 These two lines of argument about the structural dependence thesis converged. Lindblom argued that “businessmen” played two roles in addition to the interest-group role they share with other social groups. He labelled these first, “the business executive as public official in the market system”799 and second “the businessman as public official in government and politics”.800 The first refers to the public impacts of the policies and decisions of businesspeople in their capacities as managers of firms. The second is something of a misnomer, as it refers to the need for public officials actively to promote a favourable environment for business, in order, as Lindblom puts it, “to see to it that businessmen perform their tasks.”801
This argument - that business was privileged by having government officials forever concerned for its welfare - was simultaneously developed by the neo- Marxist Block, along slightly different lines. Block’s starting point is that
“if neither the ruling class nor its representatives know what is necessary to preserve and reproduce capitalist social relations, why then does the state tend to do just that? The answer is that such policies emerge out of the structural relationships among state managers802, capitalists, and workers.”803
Block identifies two subsidiary and a major structural mechanism by which this is achieved. The first subsidiary mechanism “includes all the techniques by which members of the ruling class are able to influence the state apparatus directly.”804 These include the kinds of relations Miliband emphasised.805 The second mechanism he refers to as “bourgeois cultural hegemony”: the “widespread acceptance of certain unwritten rules about what is and what is not legitimate state activity.”806 Block does not specify the subjects of these rules, but appears to be referring to society rather than state managers. This mechanism is equivalent to Lukes’ third dimension of power.807 Block acknowledges the problem of explaining how such hegemony is produced and reproduced, but does not pursue it.
799 Lindblom, 1977. Politics and Markets, p.171. 800 Lindblom, 1977. Politics and Markets, p.172. 801 Lindblom, 1977. Politics and Markets, p.173. 802 By “state managers” Block means both elected officials and senior public servants. 803 Block, 1977. The Ruling Class Does Not Rule: notes on a Marxist Theory of the State, p.12. 804 Block, 1977. The Ruling Class Does Not Rule: notes on a Marxist Theory of the State, p.12-13. 805 Miliband, 1969. The State in Capitalist Society. 806 Block, 1977. The Ruling Class Does Not Rule: notes on a Marxist Theory of the State, p.14. 807 Lukes, 1974. Power. A Radical View. 214 It is Block’s major structural mechanism that is here of particular interest. He considers that
“A viable structural theory of the state must do two separate things. It must elaborate the structural constraints that operate to reduce the likelihood that state managers will act against the interests of capitalists... But a structural theory must also explain the tendency of state managers to pursue policies that are in the general interests of capital...
Both tendencies can be derived from the fact that those who manage the state apparatus - regardless of their own political ideology - are dependent on the maintenance of some reasonable level of economic activity.”808
This dependence has two dimensions. First, like Lindblom, Block noted that economic recession exposes people to hardships, leading them to withdraw their support for governments presiding over such harsh conditions. Second, governments rely on receipts to fund their activities. Declining economic conditions lead to declining receipts and increased demands for expenditure. Any government wishing to tax and spend needs to ensure there is something to tax. Since productive activity depends on private investment decisions, “capitalists, in their collective role as investors, have a veto over state policies in that their failure to invest at adequate levels can create major political problems for the state managers.”809
The mechanism by which capitalists operate this “veto” Block terms “business confidence”.810 Block’s explains that
individual capitalists decide on their rate of investment in a particular country on the basis of a variety of specific variables such as the price of labor and the size of the market for a specific product. But there is also an intangible variable - the capitalist’s evaluation of the general political/economic climate... The sum of all of these evaluations across a national economy can be termed the level of business confidence. As the level of business confidence declines, so will the rate of investment.811
808 Block, 1977. The Ruling Class Does Not Rule: notes on a Marxist Theory of the State, p.14-15. 809 Block, 1977. The Ruling Class Does Not Rule: notes on a Marxist Theory of the State, p.15. 810 Block, 1977. The Ruling Class Does Not Rule: notes on a Marxist Theory of the State, p.16. 811 Block, 1977. The Ruling Class Does Not Rule: notes on a Marxist Theory of the State, p.16. Vincent of the Centre for International Economics neatly encapsulated the significance of this variable. Talking about the importance of the Coronation Hill decision to investment in the mining industry, he remarked “It’s not what others say about investor confidence. It’s what the investors say about investor confidence which is the key thing.” (Transcripts 215 Block insists that this mechanism is not “ruling class consciousness”: it is rooted in the concern of individuals’ desires to make profits. The corollary of this is that business people do not “make subtle evaluations as to whether a regime is serving the long-term interests of capital.”812
This structural dependence thesis offers us, then, an account of how, through control of investment decisions, capitalists maintain a considerable degree of effective control over the policy directions available to the state. How robust is this argument? Limitations of the radical argument
There have been several lines of research that have attempted to modify or challenge the structural dependence thesis. Swank has used international comparative analysis of economic data to test whether “capitalists’ ability to dis-invest fundamentally conditions policy choices in democratic capitalist systems.”813 He finds some support for the structural dependence thesis, but concludes that the linkages are weak and “that governments have choices”.
Vogel performed in-depth case studies of business-government relations, particularly in the United States.814 He has argued against the structural dependence thesis, claiming that there were periods in which organised non- business interests were able to challenge to a significant degree the preferred policy outcomes of capital.
Przeworski & Wallerstein take a formal approach, modelling the relationships between shareholder and worker welfare, taxation, and growth. 815 They distinguish between two aspects of the structural dependence thesis: the static, which concerns the effect on investment of the distribution of consumption between workers and capital at a given time; and the dynamic, which concerns the effect of anticipated policy change on investment levels. They found that the structural dependence thesis is false in a static sense, but may be true in the dynamic.816
p.1613) 812 Block, 1977. The Ruling Class Does Not Rule: notes on a Marxist Theory of the State, p.16. 813 Swank, 1992. Politics and the Structural Dependence of the State in Democratic Capitalist Nations, p.38. 814 Vogel, 1989. Fluctuating Fortunes: the Political Power of Business in America; Vogel, 1997. Trading Up and Governing Across: Transnational Governance and Environmental Protection. 815 Przeworski and Wallerstein, 1988. Structural Dependence of the State on Capital. 816 Przeworski and Wallerstein, 1988. Structural Dependence of the State on Capital, p.11. 216 There are thus questions about the reliability of the structural dependence thesis. It seems particularly apparent that its validity may be context- dependent. Indeed Block himself pointed out that state autonomy from capital would be enhanced during times of strong economic growth or equally strong recession, while it would be diminished when the economy was between these conditions.817 Yet all these studies are working at a very broad scale, often with significant generalisations built into the analysis. Given that much of the argument is about the exact processes by which the structural dependence thesis is (or is not) realised, the Coronation Hill case presents an interesting opportunity to look at some of those processes in detail, so that we might understand better the apparent context-dependent nature of the validity of the structural dependence thesis. The structural dependence thesis and the Coronation Hill case
If the structural dependence thesis holds, and the Coronation Hill decision was indeed the litmus test for investors that was claimed by the business sector (a test failed by the government), it should have led to a loss of business confidence. What should have been the consequences? At this level, there are several possible ways of assessing the validity of the structural dependence thesis.
1. Macroeconomic model construction, in which political variables could be shown to be significantly linked to investment demand.
2. Share market analysis, which would reveal under-performance of resource or gold stocks compared to industrial stocks, as investor confidence in this fraction of capital declined.
3. A review of market analysis, which would reveal coherent views that market downturns or negative adjustments were linked to the Coronation Hill decision.
4. Industry analysis, which would reveal declining mineral exploration or gold output attributable to the Coronation Hill decision.
This study rejects the macroeconomic modelling process. While such models can inform investigation of the structural dependence thesis, their application is
817 Block, 1977. The Ruling Class Does Not Rule: notes on a Marxist Theory of the State. 217 severely constrained by a number of factors. At the microeconomic level, Harris identifies at least three factors constraining the application of such approaches to analysing resource projects.818 First, the assumptions that resource projects will be marginal, and will operate in an environment approaching one of perfect competition, are demonstrably inappropriate in these cases. Second, the institutional approach that is adopted to deal with the many externalities encountered in this area does not generalise into a general equilibrium framework. Third, bargaining strategies may overwhelm prices in markets for resource developments.
At the macroeconomic level, one study of business investment summarised the difficulties associated with adopting a full macro modelling approach to the problem. Reviewing a number of studies in this area, Ford commented
[the authors' explanation of investment patterns in the 1980s] must be tempered by the fact that, as will be seen below, investment is poorly understood at the empirical level. One manifestation of this is that investment demand equations have proved to be among the most difficult of all macroeconomic relationships to estimate reliably. As a result, there is significant disagreement about the effects of interest rates, investment incentives and even output on the demand for investment.819
A review of twenty-six empirical studies of investment behaviour indicated that work in this area centred on explaining variation over time in the level of investment expenditure (either in total or occasionally in broad sectors such as manufacturing).820 Independent variables of interest were primarily measures of output, cash flow, cost of capital, real value added, relative factor prices, interest rates and profits. Even those variables that could embrace political uncertainty or public policies (such as the cost of capital, or profits) seemed not to be subject to a component analysis that might begin to distinguish between the effects of public policy and the effects of very different factors such as nominal or real interest rates, or business cycles.821 Based on these results, a modelling approach does not seem promising.
818 Harris, 1984. Dimensions of Resource Dependence in Exporting Countries. 819 Ford and Poret, 1990. Business Investment in the OECD Economies: Recent Performance and Some Implications for Policy, p.8. 820 Brunker, 1985. Empirical Studies of Investment Behaviour - Abstracts. 821 The one explicitly public policy variable studied - and Brunker's particular concern - was tax policy, particularly tax incentives to invest. Tests of the significance of this variable, in those studies where it was examined at all, produced conflicting results. Brunker cites one study that stated, after a comparative test of several models, "one can get almost any answer one wants as to the effects of tax incentives for investment by making sure the 218 The remaining three approaches are used in this Chapter. Share market analyses: methods
The first point of discussion is the share market. Both short and medium term analyses are performed, using daily and monthly market indices.
Financial markets are the principal avenue through which funds are made available by investors. This study focuses on equities: investment in stocks. It uses stock performance as an indicator of investor expectations about a company’s earning capacity. This choice is based on the premises that the stock market is efficient, which it appears to be,822 and that investor assessments are useful assessments of actual earning potential. This condition is harder to substantiate but is likely to be the case. If investors were not successfully able to, on average, price stocks to represent earning potential, then the market would not be linked to indicators of real economic activity. Studies indicate that stock markets are in fact related to economic conditions.823 If they were not, then investors could not use them to produce a flow of income at an acceptable level of risk. They would then withdraw and seek to place their money elsewhere, leading financial markets to collapse. The financial markets have not collapsed. They are considered therefore to be useful indicators of firms’ future earnings, and therefore of the impact of public policy on firms’ future earnings.
There are two principal forms of share index: share price indices, and accumulation indices. The former is based on the prices of a basket of traded shares. The latter is also based on these prices, but is adjusted for dividend payments. The effect is to ‘iron out’ the fluctuations that may be caused by major stocks in an index going ex-dividend. The effects of stocks going ex- dividend would be random (and could therefore be ignored) if all stocks paid dividends, the payments were randomly distributed, and the timing of payments had no effect on market sentiment. Only the last condition, however, might be supposed to be the case in an efficient market since any effect on the market would occur on the announcement of the dividend, not when it was paid out. There are two reasons that this study needs to take account of the effects of dividend payments in short-term analysis of market data. First, this
chosen model has specifications appropriate to one's purpose". Brunker, p.9 citing Chirinko and Eisner, 1983. Tax Policy and Investment in Major US Macroeconomic Econometric Models. 822 Lorie et al., 1985. The Stock Market: Theories and Evidence. 823 Firth, 1977. The Valuation of Shares and the Efficient-Markets Theory. 219 study is concerned with movements in the market (and therefore the indices) at or between particular times, associated with policy decisions, report releases and so on. It is important therefore to ensure that sudden fluctuations due to a stock going ex-dividend do not introduce a ‘signal’ to the study that is in fact ‘noise’. Second, dividend payment is not a ubiquitous phenomena: some companies do, and some do not, pay cash dividends. Specifically, it is common for industrials to pay dividends, while it is common for mining and exploration companies to retain profits, and for these to be reflected in stock price alone. Since this study involves the comparison of resources against other stocks, accumulation indices need to be checked so that results are not biased by the target group having different attributes to the control.
For longer-run analyses of market data, the choice of index probably does not matter. Miller & Modigliani, and Hess, have demonstrated both theoretically and empirically that the distribution of earnings between dividends and reinvestment does not affect the value of a firm.824 To the extent that this is indeed the case, both price and accumulation indices should give the same result in the long run. This is borne out by results below.
One of the problems in testing sharemarket reaction to policy is deciding when shareholders had available to them information about policy in order to decide how to react to the impact of that policy on their portfolios. In the case of the Conservation Zone, when might investors have decided that the case represented a potential loss of future earnings in the mining sector?
For these investors, there would probably be two key dates: the release of the RAC’s Conservation Zone Draft report; and the final Cabinet decision. The first was a problem because it was at that point that it became clear that social (in particular aboriginal) issues could be receiving greater weighting in future, and that this would be problematic for the Coronation Hill project; the second was a problem because it suggested the government was capable of listening to the RAC’s advice against that of industry representatives. In addition to these obvious points, other information about the overall direction being taken by the government, and the leadership of the government, might also contribute to investors’ picture of the investment environment.825
824 Hess, 1983. Issues in Corporate Finance; Miller and Modigliani, 1961. Dividend Policy, Growth, and the Valuation of Shares. 825 For example, media reports at the time of the Coronation Hill Cabinet decision focussed more on the Labor leadership than they did on the specific decision itself. See the analysis below. 220 Which point in the policy process was critical? It is difficult to say, because investors were receiving mixed signals from the actors involved. For example, when the Draft report was released, AMIC’s Lauchlan Macintosh stated that “Coronation Hill has already damaged confidence in Australia and the danger is that it will continue to do so.”826 The same day, Newmont Australia issued a press release headlined “Coronation Hill report welcomed”.827 Throughout the process the government was insisting that the Conservation Zone was a special case, while industry representatives argued the contrary. It would seem sensible therefore to examine each of the two points in time as potentially critical to investor confidence. Short-term and long-term reactions
Should share market responses be tested at the moment of a policy announcement, or over a period of time? This depends on whether the information is of a type that can be built in to an assessment of future earnings immediately or not, and on the type of effect on earnings the policy announcement will have.
How will the type of information affect the time frame for evaluating its impact? Policy may have a one-off effect on future earnings that can be evaluated as a single act. For example when the Coronation Hill mine proposal was rejected a Newmont shareholder could reassess the earnings of Newmont immediately by removing the Coronation Hill costs and benefits from the stream of future income of the company. But such clear-cut cases are likely to occur only at the individual company level. Even then, those assessments may take some time, or be contingent on further information. In contrast, across an industry sector, the effects of a policy may not be evenly distributed, either in the extent of the impact (Newcrest would be more significantly impacted upon than a gold mining company not involved in Coronation Hill) and timing (a company with new mines in preparation might be affected before a company not planning new developments for several years).
There are other reasons why the sharemarket may revalue shares over time (rather than instantaneously) in response to policy announcements. First, shareholders may require further information on the implementation of policy in order to assess its impact on their earnings. The Mabo decision of the High
826 AMIC media release “RAC report reflects lost opportunities, says AMIC” 8 February 1991. 827 Newmont Australia Limited media release “Coronation Hill report welcomed” 8 February 1991. 221 Court, for example, may not on its own have contained sufficient information for shareholders to translate it into an assessment of future earnings. Such revaluation may have taken place (and still be underway) as shareholders heard corporate responses to the high court decision, evaluated government and interest group responses, awaited further court cases on the matter, and so on.
Second, the impact of policy, even where discrete events can be identified, may in fact be cumulative. This may have been McIntosh’s argument when he said “Coronation Hill has already damaged confidence in Australia and the danger is that it will continue to do so.”828 This has two dimensions. Policy on a given matter is often made cumulatively, not only by governments but by administrative decisions, and subsequent judicial determinations. Response also therefore can only be cumulative. But it is also true that part of the investor’s opinion about market conditions involves an aggregate assessment of the impacts of public policies, formulated at different times and by different governments, to which each individual decision contributes only fractionally, and to which the contribution of any given decision may vary over time.
While sharemarkets are assumed to represent effective evaluation of available information by traders, there are therefore reasons to believe that incorporation of that information into prices will not be instantaneous. For all of these reasons, this study evaluates medium-term share market performance, to see if over months resources sector stock performance was adversely affected by government decisions.
Here I describe a number of tests conducted of medium term market performance at the aggregate level. These are tests of the impact of policy decisions on business confidence, rather than of the impact of policy on individual firms’ profitability.
To test the impact of a factor in so volatile environment as a share market requires the establishment of an appropriate experiment and control. I have used monthly measures of two market indicators: the all industrials and all resources share price indices. Unlike in the short term, price indices deliver results the same as accumulation indices. Their relationship is shown in Figures 8.1 and 8.2, demonstrating the choice of indicator is not important.829
828 cited above. Emphasis added. 829 The correlation of the industrial indices varies over the range of values, but at its lowest remains a high R=0.95 in the range -10 to zero. This in contrast to an R=1.00 for the 222 Since the policy issues being examined are all directed at the resources sector, the industrials index should allow us to control for overall market conditions and the impacts of macro-economic policy, revealing distinct trends in the resources sector.
The monthly data series were segmented according to the timing of policy events. The two indices were then compared over discrete periods. The months in which major policy decisions were taken were included in the post- decision period, to include all of the impact of that decision in the post-decision performance measure.
positive range of values. This difference would be consistent with the fact that some downward movements in the price index are caused by shares going ex-dividend, the phenomenon that accumulation indices are designed to avoid. 223
Figure 8.1 The close relationship between movements in monthly share price and accumulation indices: industrial shares.
1000
800
600
400
200
0 -200 -100 0 100 200 300 -200
-400
-600
-800 Change in industrial share index
Source: Reserve Bank of Australia Bulletin. 224
Figure 8.2 The close relationship between movements in monthly share price and accumulation indices: resources shares.
300
250
200
150
100
50
0 -100 -50 0 50 100 150 -50
-100
-150
-200
-250 Change in resources share index
Source: Reserve Bank of Australia Bulletin. 225 The relative performance of the sectors was then assessed according to the following formula:
RIf - RI i _ IndIf - IndIi ✕ 100
Ri i IndIi (Equation 8.1)
Where RIf is the All resources index for the final month in the period, and RIi for the initial month in the period, and IndI is the All Industrials Index. The same procedure was followed for the Accumulation Indices. The first month for which the data was tested was December 1987, the last June 1993.
The resulting figures indicate the percentage difference between the performance of resources stocks and industrial stocks over the period. Results: 1: share market data Short term (daily share indices)
This analysis was performed using a ratio of a gold share index to an industrial share index. However, the price of gold is a very powerful determinant of performance of the companies reported in the gold index, so the result is controlled for fluctuations in the gold price. The formula used to achieve this is as follows.
(GI –GP –IndI) * 100 where
GI is the daily percentage movement of the gold share price index;
GP is the daily percentage movement of the gold price; and
IndI is the daily percentage movement of the industrial share price index.
The results of daily analysis using this technique are shown, for both the release of the Draft Report, and the final Cabinet decision (Figures 8.3 & 8.4). These Figures show an apparently fairly random pattern of market performance within which the key days in which I am interested show no significant pattern. It would not be possible, on the strength of these results, to argue that the Coronation Hill decision had an adverse effect on that part of the market seemingly most directly affected: the gold sector. I turn now to 226
Figure 8.3 Daily share market behaviour and the Coronation Hill issue (release of the Conservation Zone Draft Report).
2.0%
1.5%
1.0%
0.5%
0.0%
-0.5% 4-Feb-91 5-Feb-91 6-Feb-91 7-Feb-91 8-Feb-91 11-Feb-91 12-Feb-91 13-Feb-91 14-Feb-91 15-Feb-91 -1.0%
-1.5% Relative performance of gold share index
-2.0%
-2.5%
Sources: Australian Financial Review, various dates. 227
Figure 8.4 Daily share market behaviour and the Coronation Hill issue (final Cabinet decision).
0.2%
0.0% 12- 13- 14- 17- 18- 19- 20- 21- 24- -0.2% Jun- Jun- Jun- Jun- Jun- Jun- Jun- Jun- Jun- 91 91 91 91 91 91 91 91 91 -0.4%
-0.6%
-0.8%
-1.0%
-1.2%
-1.4%
-1.6% Relative performance of gold share index
-1.8%
-2.0%
Sources: Australian Financial Review, various dates. 228 longer-term market analysis, using the slightly broader index for the resources sector. Long term (monthly share indices)
Is there any evidence that the resources and industrial sectors of the share market move independently of each other at all on other than a day to day basis? Figure 8.5 shows the relationship between the all industrials and all resources indices for each month over around five years. It indicates some relationship, but there is variation between the sectors. Despite the dominance of cross-market factors, there must therefore be other factors involved. If the structural dependence thesis has merit, one of the factors could be policy decisions such as Coronation Hill.
The question here is whether sectoral policy developments, particularly relating to the Coronation Hill decision, were an important factor in driving resource share values. To examine this, the price index data was divided into periods separated by the significant policy events mentioned earlier, and was tested according to the formula above (equation 8.1). Table 8.1 shows the results.
Table 8.1 Medium-term share market index tests. Event Start of All res All inds End of All res All inds Relative period index index period index index performance for period Pre-Draft Report Dec-87 757 1920 Jan-91 756 1930 -0.65% Post-Draft Report Feb-91 776 2156 Jun-93 1003 2666 5.60% Pre-Cabinet Dec-87 757 1920 May-91 875 2385 -8.63% decision Post-Cabinet Jun-91 874 2331 Jun-93 1003 2666 0.39% decision Pre-1989 referral of Dec-87 757 1920 Sep-89 964 2756 -16.20% issue to RAC Post-referral Oct-89 932 2705 Jun-93 1003 2666 9.06% Pre-Mabo Dec-87 757 1920 May-92 956 2610 -9.65% Post-Mabo Jun-92 966 2666 Jun-93 1003 2666 3.83%
Notes: CZDR denotes release of the Conservation Zone Draft Report. “Mabo” denotes the High Court decision in Mabo v. Queensland, delivered on 3 June 1992.
The results do not demonstrate signs of any effect of the Coronation Hill decision on the resources sector. No matter which of the three points in the history of the Coronation Hill decision is tested as possibly critical to market re- assessments, the resources sector actually significantly improved its performance over time. The Mabo analysis is equally striking as again, the 229
Figure 8.5 The relationship between monthly industrial and resource share indices.
2900
2700
2500
2300
2100
1900
1700 600 700 800 900 1000 1100 All resources share index
Source: Reserve Bank of Australia Bulletins.
Notes: Data from November 1987 to June 1993. N=68 230 resources sector performed better after the High Court decision than before. Using a test based on that decision to extend this version of the analysis of the structural dependence thesis only serves to highlight the absence of a perceivable effect of state actions that could be interpreted as supporting the structural dependence thesis. Results: 2: analysis of market analysis
To evaluate short-term market analysis of the Coronation Hill Cabinet decision, I reviewed daily financial reports in major papers. It suggests if anything that the final Cabinet decision had no wider effects on the market.
Taking first the national daily The Australian, “market action” reports were given on the business pages Monday to Saturday. Reports on Monday’s trade (the day before the Cabinet decision) did not mention Coronation Hill, and resources stocks generally rose, including those of Joint Venture partner BHP.830 Reports about trade on the day of the Cabinet decision did not mention Coronation Hill at all, citing US market performance as driving low levels of activity which “kept national market movement to a minimum”.831 Reports of trade on the day after the Cabinet decision described a falling stock market, due to negative investor sentiment in the US and Japan. A fall in the gold sector index was attributed to a falling gold price and “some futures-related activity in selected stocks.”832 Again Coronation Hill went unmentioned. The weekend report on Friday’s trade was lodged by a different journalist and mentioned Coronation Hill, but only to point out the lack of impact of the decision:
The resources sector, although reeling from the anti-mining implications of the Government’s ban on mining at Coronation Hill, still managed to close firmer.833
Reports in the Sydney Morning Herald of market movements on June 19 and 20, following the June 18 Cabinet decision, present a more confused analysis. On June 20, the paper reported that bond yields had risen on the day after the Cabinet decision (by 13 points, or a 1% change in value of the yield rate)834 in response to the Coronation Hill decision. Yet the same article stated that “The
830 Cummins, 1991. Banks traded heavily as resources lead price gains. 831 Cummins, 1991. Dow Jones keeps lid on overseas investors, p.36. 832 Cummins, 1991. Offshore weakness helps cut all ords, p.30. 833 Lovett, 1991. Tokyo provides a shot in the arm, p.41. 834 The ten year bond rate moved to 11.27% from 11.14%. The 13 point movement represents 1.16% when 11.14% is taken as the base. 231 two immediate events dominating market attention are the ALP’s Centenary National Conference... and the Federal Budget, to be brought down on August 20”835 which would seem more significant events.
The next day the same paper argued
News that the Prime Minister Mr Hawke, had brought forward a meeting of Caucus to discuss Cabinet’s ban on mining at Coronation Hill cut long-term interest rates and helped lift the dollar almost half a US cent.
The currency closed at US76.7c from US76.25c although its afternoon gains were partly due to a sharply weaker greenback and a large options play out of Tokyo.
Dealers and analysts described the political speculation as an overreaction but the talk - coupled with some tough anti-inflation rhetoric in Parliament from the current Treasurer, Mr Kerin - prompted vigorous buying of longer dated paper...
The dollar’s late surge was driven by buying from local exporters and a US investment bank...836
The factors mentioned in the Herald reports are different to those in the Australian but, looking past the headlines, Coronation Hill still did not appear very significant. On the same days, the Australian Financial Review emphasised the role of Japanese and US economic conditions, the Labor Ministry and leadership, and institutional factors, as the main influences on the stock and bond markets.837 The Review reported that the market was treating any possibility of another leadership challenge to Hawke (at the Caucus meeting called over Coronation Hill) as if anything a positive influence. The decision itself appeared not to draw market comment. As the Review reported:
Newcrest Mining closed steady at $1.15 despite losing out on the decision of the Prime Minister, Mr Hawke, to ban mining at Coronation Hill where the company has invested significantly in exploration. Turnover was active at 1.64 million shares.838
As the All Ordinaries share index lost just 4 points (0.2%) on the day, the Newcrest result was representative of the market.
835 Ellis, 1991. Bond yields surge on Coronation vote, p.30. 836 Ellis, 1991. Rates surge then slide as politics overwhelms logic, p.25. 837 Doman, 1991. $A unfazed by uncertainty. 838 Ralph, 1991. ANI price dropped but still they stayed away, p.20. 232 The Canberra Times in the same week reported five different interpretations of market conditions from traders, on the one day following the decision. Only one of these was that “the decision by Cabinet to knock back mining at Coronation Hill hit markets in afternoon trade”, but this did not explain why the effects were not felt in the morning market, when the decision was already known.839 On the same day, The Age reported that the Cabinet decision “did not affect joint venturers Newcrest and North Broken Hill... NBH rose one cent to $2.33”840 One fact that could have been attributed to the Cabinet decision - profit taking in the resources sector- was put down to just that: profit taking, but as a reaction to offshore share market falls.841
This lack of any consistent explanation of market movements, and the prominence of offshore factors, makes the occasional choice of a headline like “Bond yields surge on Coronation vote” appear more an artefact of media perceptions of what ‘sells’ news than of either trading conditions or economic fundamentals. Market action was generally not attributed to the Coronation Hill decision, or was attributed to it in the face of stronger alternative explanations (which were generally in fact presented alongside any mention of the Cabinet decision). Perhaps the best evidence of this is that the papers which carried some of the most critical articles and editorials on the subject of Coronation Hill (the Australian and the Australian Financial Review) were unwilling to attribute market movements to the Cabinet decision.
Thus far we have seen evidence to suggest little or no market response to the Coronation Hill decision. Whether the data used is short-term or medium-term share data, or interpretations of that data by commentators, the picture that emerges is of a politically derided but economically irrelevant government decision. The following section places that decision in the context of the Australian mining industry of the 1980s and 90s. Results: 3: industry analysis
If the share market was unperturbed by the whole affair, what other impact did it have on the mining industry? There are two main indicators worth examining in this respect: how much was invested in mineral exploration (especially gold); and what was produced as a result.
839 anon, 1991. Heavy trade in nervous market, p.23. 840 Plunkett, 1991. Overseas falls drag all ords down, p.21. 841 Plunkett, 1991. Overseas falls drag all ords down. 233 The mining industry had warned that exploration could decline if the Coronation Hill decision went against it. What does the exploration data show? Figure 8.6 charts actual and expected mineral exploration expenditures (excluding for petroleum) from 1979 to 1997, as charted by the ABS. It shows a volatile pattern, typical of this industry sector. The Cabinet decision (and also the release of the draft and final RAC Reports) took place in late 1990-91. The graph shows a significant fall in exploration over the years before the Coronation Hill decision, with the biggest fall taking place before the issue was even referred to the RAC. What it also shows is that exploration has climbed significantly since that time.
The second point we can note from Figure 8.6 is that, away from the media spotlight, the industry did not appear to have believed the Coronation Hill decision was a problem for exploration. If they had, it should have led to a fall at least in the predicted exploration expenditure in 1991-92. And the third point is that the decision did not lead to an unpredicted loss of exploration, which would have resulted in actual exploration falling below predicted levels. In every year since the 1983 recession, actual exploration has outstripped predicted exploration by 15 to 40 percent.
Turning to the gold industry in particular, and to data gathered by ABARE, we can see the same pattern in gold exploration expenditure as for mineral exploration generally. Figure 8.7 shows exploration expenditure (the bars) and against it the gold price in $US (the line).
This chart tells us that the drop in exploration in figure 8.6 was entirely within the gold sector, entirely prior to the Coronation Hill decision, and apparently strongly related to the gold price. In other words, as one might expect, exploration in the industry was overwhelmingly price-driven. As the value of gold rose, so did the exploration effort; as the value fell, exploration likewise receeded.
This confirms that the exploration behaviour of the resources sector generally, and gold in particular, is essentially explained by commodity price fluctuations.
Turning from exploration to production, the picture is more complex. Figure 8.8 shows a close relationship between gold price and production 234
Figure 8.6 Expected and actual mineral exploration, 1979 to 1997.
$1 200 000
$1 000 000
$800 000
$600 000
$400 000
$200 000
$0 78-79 79-80 80-81 81-82 82-83 83-84 84-85 85-86 86-87 87-88 88-89 89-90 90-91 91-92 92-93 93-94 94-95 95-96 96-97 Year actual exploration (excl. petroleum) expected exploration (excl. petroleum)
Source: ABS Private Mineral Exploration 8412.0 235
Figure 8.7 Gold exploration and the gold price.
800 000 500.00
450.00 700 000 400.00 600 000 350.00 500 000 300.00
400 000 250.00
200.00
300 000 Gold price, US$ 150.00 200 000 100.00 100 000 50.00
0 0.00 80-81 81-82 82-83 83-84 84-85 85-86 86-87 87-88 88-89 89-90 90-91 91-92 92-93 93-94 94-95 95-96 96-97 Year
Exploration (LH scale) Gold price (RH scale)
Source: ABARE Australian Commodity Statistics. 236 from 1984 to 1987 and from 1991 to 1996 (the last year for which data was available at the time of writing). There is for the most part a relationship between the two variables. The substantial anomaly of 1988-90 will be dealt with in a moment.
We can see not only that production of gold has risen every year except in 1991 (the thick line), but we know also that in relative terms, Australia has grown in importance as a global producer. In 1984 we ranked sixth in the world behind South Africa (which is to this day the leading producer), the USSR, Canada, the USA, and Brazil. By 1989 we had passed both Canada and Brazil, becoming the fourth largest producer. In 1992 our production surpassed that of the former Soviet Union, and in 1996 we retained the rank of third largest producer, with steadily growing production which is narrowing the gap to our next rival, the USA.842 Over the same period, the resources sector has represented the pre- eminent source of Australian exports, and has seen a rate of private new capital expenditure significantly outstripping that across the economy as a whole.843 According to all these measures, the Australian gold sector is of rising national and international importance, located within a similarly strong mining industry - hardly a troubled industry drifting offshore or out of business, handicapped by environmental or social regulation.
This brings me to the question of the unexplained rise in gold production from 1988 to 1990. This is likely entirely an artifact of another policy announcement altogether. In the 1980s the gold industry was the only part of the mining industry exempt from corporate taxation. This situation had been under attack for some time, and in the 1988 budget, its abolition was finally announced, to take effect in January 1991.844 This gave existing mines three years to bring forward production in order to avoid tax on their profits. Production for that brief period was thus divorced from price for taxation reasons, as miners increased production to take advantage of returns under the tax-free regime which more than compensated for the lower prices being received. This also explains the production dip in 1991: not only were the gold price and Commodity Price Index in reverse (see above), but some
842 ABARE Commodity Statistics 1993 Table 315, p.298; ABARE Commodity Statistics 1997 Table 275, p.272. 843 ABARE Commodity Statistics 1997, various tables. 844 Cairns and Dermody, 1990. Gold; O'Faircheallaigh, 1990. Minerals and Energy Policy. 237
Figure 8.8 Australian gold production and the gold price.
300 $700
$600 250
$500 200
$400 150 $300
100 Gold price, $/ounce $200
50 $100
0 $0 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 Year Gold production Gold price, Aus$ Gold price, US$
Source: ABARE Australian Commodity Statistics. 238 marginal gold miners went out of production and others wound back production to pre-tax-reform announcement schedules.845
The final issue of interest is ABARE’s forecasts for the gold sector, for reasons that will become apparent in the discussion. ABARE had expressed concern about the impact of the gold tax on the sector, predicting the production peak just described, followed by a decline in gold production as some producers went out of business and new mine development was depressed, partly as a result of the gold tax reform.846 ABARE’s pessimism extended to policy impacts more generally, described as resulting in “the closure of some smaller mines, reduced availability of identified resources, and the effect of corporate taxation...”847 This led them to make strongly negative forecasts of Australian gold production. Their successive forecasts from 1989 are shown in Figure 8.9, contrasted with actual production. The only forecast that got even the direction of the trend for gold production in the 1990s right was that made in 1993, which nevertheless significantly under-estimated 1996 production.
845 The closure of establishments can be inferred from the drop in employment in the sector for 1991: see ABARE Commodity Statistics 1997. 846 Dermody and Cairns, 1990. Gold. 847 Cairns, 1989. Gold, p.434. 239
Figure 8.9 ABARE gold production forecasts, 1989-1993.
350
300
250
200
150
ABARE forecast, Dec89 100 ABARE forecast, Dec90 ABARE forecast, Dec91 ABARE forecast, Dec92 50 ABARE forecast, Dec93 Actual production
0 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 Year
Source: Agriculture & Resources Quarterly, various editions. 240
Discussion
The data overwhelmingly portrays a strong mining sector, and a gold industry growing in size, value and international significance, underpinned by rapid growth of exploration in Australia, despite relatively flat gold prices. Nothing in this analysis points to evidence supporting the structural dependence thesis: no behaviour on the stock market, nor changes in the industry indicative of investors taking fright. Yet investor confidence, which underpins the structural dependence thesis, was clearly an issue during the Coronation Hill debate. Why was this so? The answer lies in a critique of the operating assumptions of Block and Lindblom’s theories of structural dependence, and in the ambiguous nature, structurally speaking, of environmental issues.
The first part of the answer is that theories of structural dependence are predicated on the idea of the rational actor. This means that actors, particularly business, are thought to be able to rationally and successfully define and communicate their interests. The type of analysis explained in this Chapter is predicated on the assumption that if business opposes a government decision, that decision should be construed as being anti-business. This seems logical enough. If however, the rationality and homogeneity of business can be called into question, this opens up the possibility that this apparently logical condition might not hold.
The structural dependence thesis as initially formulated by Block requires that capitalists are rational and knowledgeable in the pursuit of profit, though it does not assume that they understand how they should act in the interests of capital in general. Yet capitalists are not necessarily as rational in the pursuit of profit as is being supposed. Prominent examples of the irrationality of capitalists in the pursuit of profit abound: they include extensive over-gearing of loans by individuals and corporations. Indeed if capitalists were perfectly rational in the pursuit of profit then business failures could only be blamed on fluctuations in the business cycle and unforseen risks. Yet businesses also fail because of poor financial or managerial judgement on the part of entrepreneurs. Then there are cases such as the political activities of Western Mining director Hugh Morgan that so consumed his attention that his Board of Directors disciplined him over his failure properly to attend to the needs of his 241 (as well as others’) business interests. Ever since Allison, we have had good reason to suppose actors are not rational in any externally definable sense.848
This issue was in fact more recently pursued by Block himself.849 His more recent research explores what the state might do if it decides it knows better than business what is good for business. He points out that if a state were to consider capitalists irrational, this would affect the actions of that state, and outcomes, in a potentially complex way. It may affect the structural dependence thesis because it introduces the possibility of political conflict (and not merely economic competition) amongst firms. This possibility is also implicit in the research agenda proposed by Dahl and taken up by Galligan, when Dahl asks “What kind of political order is constituted by the relations among business firms? How does the order operate?”850 Thus research in both Marxist and non-Marxist traditions is moving away from the assumption that business can be understood as a rational actor.
If business cannot be assumed to be rational, neither can business political interests be assumed to be homogenous. This has been demonstrated in contexts as diverse as Altvater’s work in Marxist theory of capital preferences,851 through Bell’s work on the Australian Tariff Board,852 much research on policy preferences at the sectoral level,853 to studies of business approaches to regulation.854 It is likewise clear in the Coronation Hill case, when AMIC and CHJV suggested the case was of greater importance than did CRA. It was also demonstrated by the difference between the public condemnation of the RAC by business at the time of the Conservation Zone Report, and the relatively positive appraisal of the RAC by business in the Saulwick survey.855
848 Allison argued that models other than the rational actor model provided superior explanatory results. Allison, 1971. Essence of Decision. 849 Block, 1987. Revising State Theory. 850 Dahl 1959 cited in Galligan, 1989. Utah & Queensland Coal, p.8. 851 Jessop, 1990. State Theory. Putting the Capitalist State in its Place. 852 Bell, 1989. State Strength and Capitalist Weakness: Manufacturing Capital and the Tariff Board’s Attack on McEwenism. 853 de Vroom, 1985. Quality Regulation in the Dutch Pharmaceutical Industry: Conditions for Private Regulation by Business Interest Associations; Pross and McCorquodale, 1990. The State, Interests, and Policy Making in the East Coast Fishery; van Waarden, 1985. Varieties of Collective Self- regulation of Business: the Example of the Dutch Dairy Industry. 854 Wallace, 1995. Environmental Policy and Industrial Innovation. Strategies in Europe, the USA and Japan. 855 Irving Saulwick and Associates, 1993. Survey of Opinions About the Work of the Resource Assessment Commission. 242 Business should not be assumed to be either rational or homogenous. This then opens the possibility that business might ‘mistakenly’ oppose a proposal that is in fact either ‘good for business’ or at worst irrelevant to the welfare of business. This explains, for example, AMIC’s extensive championing of the cause of CHJV, making threats of dire consequences of an anti-mining decision – threats which we know never materialised. Yet if business cannot be assumed to be perfect, what about Altvater’s “ideal collective capitalist”, the state?856 While Galligan and Skocpol explore state skill and strength,857, Allison and Bell explore state limitation and weakness.858 While AMIC and industry over-stated the importance of Coronation Hill to investor confidence, so did much of the state. Most Cabinet Ministers backed the mine,859 but so did the state’s ‘experts’ the IC and ABARE. The repeated gloomy forecasting by ABARE about the future of the gold industry (Figure 8.9) is an excellent example of how the state can become frightened of its own shadow in exactly the way Block suggested.860 What is useful about applying the Coronation Hill case to this theory is that it provides the data to show that not only business, but the state (in the forms of ABARE and Cabinet Ministers) can both become irrationally obsessed with investor confidence. I suggest this is particularly relevant in the case of policy with respect to non-mobile assets or resources like minerals: like most natural resources in fact.
The second part of the solution to the question of why the Coronation Hill decision did not adversely affect investor confidence is the vital failure of radical analysis as it is applied to environmental issues: its definition of environmental protection as anti-capital. This is a particular problem in the environmental area, because it is in fact hard to tell whether environmental protection is against the interests of capital. Traditionally environmental advocates and business were seen as in opposition to one another. Environmentalists often describe themselves as opposing companies that want to ‘harm the earth’. Business leaders often characterise environmentalists that way. Researchers often group environmental interests with other anti-business lobbies, including labour.861 The provision of social welfare, and other social
856 Altvater, 1973. Some Problems of State Interventionism. 857 Galligan, 1989. Utah & Queensland Coal; Skocpol, 1985. Bringing the State Back In. 858 Allison, 1971. Essence of Decision; Bell, 1991. The Travails of Industry Policy in Australia; Bell, 1993. Australian Manufacturing and the State. The Politics of Industry Policy in the Post-war Era.; Bell, 1997. Ungoverning the Economy. The Political Economy of Australian Economic Policy; Bell and Wanna, 1992. Business and Government: Context and Patterns of Interaction. 859 Garran and Kitney, 1991. PM forces Cabinet into Kakadu ban. 860 Block, 1977. The Ruling Class Does Not Rule: notes on a Marxist Theory of the State. 861 Vogel, 1989. Fluctuating Fortunes: the Political Power of Business in America. 243 benefits (such as the provision of environmental amenity) have been portrayed as part of the state’s legitimation function, to be pursued against the interests of capital only so far as needed to prevent civil unrest.862
However much evidence suggests that, whatever the relationship between some business lobby groups and some western environmentalists, this picture is erroneous. The whole sustainable development movement is predicated on there being not a trade-off but a synergy between economic activity and environmental quality.863 Ecological modernisation theory also argues that there are development paths that are environmentally progressive and business friendly, and that these are likely to represent a development strategy (for rich nations at least) more competitive than environmentally ‘primitive’ approaches to industrial innovation.864 Porter likewise suggests that environmental innovation is one of a number of key engines to the economic competitiveness of countries and of companies.865 His work and that of Welford and others associate high environmental standards with good corporate performance.866 Grabosky identifies a wide range of circumstances in which it is environmental business leaders, not laggards, that may secure economic advantages.867
Environmental protection can therefore be as good for business as bad. The judgement of whether a particular policy proposal will be positive or negative with respect to capitalists will be a difficult one to make. In a case like Coronation Hill, I would suggest that this was a case where the outcome did not actually have any detrimental impact on capital as a whole. The business lobby simply misunderstood the case, or were using it as an excuse to pursue other agendas.
862 Habermas, 1976. Legitimation Crisis. 863 World Commission on Environment and Development, 1990. Our Common Future. 864 Christoff, 1996. Ecological Modernisation, Ecological Modernities; Davis, 1994. Greening Business. Managing for Sustainable Development; Weale, 1992. The New Politics of Pollution. 865 Porter, 1990. The Competitive Advantage of Nations; Porter, 1991. America's Green Strategy. 866 Fussler, 1996. Driving Eco-Innovation. A Breakthrough Discipline for Innovation and Sustainability; Kinlaw, 1993. Competitive and Green. Sustainable Performance in the Environmental Age; Moore and Miller, 1994. Green Gold: Japan, Germany, the United States and the Race for Environmental Technology; Welford, 1996. Beyond Environmentalism and Towards the Sustainable Organization; Welford and Gouldson, 1993. Environmental Management and Business Strategy. 867 Grabosky, 1993. Green Markets; Grabosky, 1995. Governing at a Distance: Self-Regulating Green Markets. 244 Chapter 9 Institutional Analysis
The state has been central to addressing environmental problems. One of the key themes in the literature on addressing environmental problems has been the call for new patterns of state action, and new institutional capacity in the area of environmental policy. This is in contrast to the literature discussed so far that has emphasised economic, ecological and radical conceptions of the issue.
Reviewing early American responses to environmentalism, Kraft asked
Are present institutional structures and political processes inherently incapable of producing a satisfactory response to the accelerating deterioration of the environment and the quality of life in this country? This is an exceedingly difficult question to address, but I suspect the answer is yes.868
Mercer for example argued that despite some efforts, such as the Australian governments’s preparation of the Ecologically Sustainable Development discussion paper,
with few international exceptions, state institutions and industries so far have failed to recognise the seriousness of the environmental crisis and are responding far too slowly and that
the administrative arrangements of State governments into discrete bureaucratic entities dealing with transport, water, energy, forests, minerals etc. often reflect 19th century perceptions of the way the world is organised.869
Economou, talking of the period prior to the institutional innovations of the RAC and resource security legislation, argued “prior to 1990 the dynamics of environmental politics had depended upon the emergence of disputes over specific geographic or biospheric areas to be affected by land use and resources
868 Kraft, 1974. Ecological Politics and American Government: A Review Essay, p.147. 869 Mercer, 1991. A Question of Balance, p.6. 245 policies.”870 The widespread advocacy of institutional reform that arose out of disatisfaction with this situation871 is exemplified by the Industry Commission (IC), commenting (this time on Coronation Hill):
Coronation Hill is not an isolated example of such problems. Rather, it is an example of a general failure of existing institutional arrangements to deal adequately with these land-use conflicts.872
The RAC was an example of a policy innovation designed to deal with environmental issues (see Chapter 2), but was hardly the solution to conflict some hoped it would be. In this Chapter I examine the applicability of institutional analysis to the problem of dealing with the rise of environmentalism in the natural resources policy arena. This is done by
• first, arguing that the RAC failed, and was one of many institutional innovations that have had little to offer in dealing with environmental problems;
• second, pointing out that another institution, superficially quite similar to the RAC - the IC - was relatively successful over the study period;
• third, comparing the similarities and then a range of differences between the organisations, in order to:
• fourth, conclude that key institutional design issues were at the heart of the RAC’s failure - partilarly issues of regime stability, and state capacity and autonomy. The failure of the RAC
It is a straightforward position to take to argue that the RAC failed, and that its failure is part of a pattern of problematic state attempts to ‘take control’ in the environmental area.873
870 Economou, 1992. Resource Security Legislation and National Environment Policy. New Objectives, Old Dynamics, p.18. 871 For arguments that problems such as at Wesley Vale were the origins of the impetus toward institutional reform, see Economou, 1992. Problems in Environmental Policy Creation: Tasmania’s Wesley Vale Pulp Mill Dispute; Economou, 1992. Resource Security Legislation and National Environment Policy. New Objectives, Old Dynamics; Kerin, 1990. Making Decisions We Can Live With. 872 Industry Commission, 1991. Mining and Mineral Processing in Australia, V.1 p.61 emphasis added. 873 Considine in fact remarks that the RAC was successful, but the conditions he says successful policy innovations need were not met in the RAC’s case. Considine, 1994. Public Policy: A Critical Approach, p.269. 246 Primarily we can argue that the RAC failed because it was set up to be a permanent institution, but was wound up four years later.874 There are a range of other points that support this basic contention. Not only was the RAC abolished, it was abolished by the same government that had established it, and with no formal announcement. The end of the RAC was contained in the 1993 Budget, and explained by the government only in response to a question in the Parliament.875 From the case study in Chapter 2 it can be seen that there was little community support for the organisation, and little protest from any direction about the RAC’s removal from the policy scene. In its life it produced just three Inquiry reports, key recommendations from which were not implemented, except arguably in the case of the Conservation Zone Inquiry Report, which was however lambasted by industry for “having moved the debate not one centimetre forward”.876 It is fairly clear the RAC was at best irrelevant to the point where its cost was regarded as wasteful, and at worst useless.
But the RAC was not alone in its dismal record as a policy experiment. The Ecologically Sustainable Development Working Group process was similarly limited in its use.877 We have also seen a persistence of the site-specific conflict referred to by Economou despite attempts by Australian governments to build a consistent national environmental policy capacity through the Intergovernmental Agreement on the Environment in 1992.878 Since then Australia has witnessed major conflicts spawning public protest, government prevarication and ad-hoc decision-making, in forestry (Regional Forest Agreement problems, particularly in Tasmania and New South Wales), mining issues (McArthur River, Jabiluka) and World Heritage management (Kuranda Skyrail, Hinchinbrook resort development). There remain major conflicts between peak environment groups and the Commonwealth and State governments over institutionalised environmental protection procedures. Attempts to reform forestry management through so-called Resource Security
874 As late as October 1992, the Commission was arguing that “the RAC will continue to have a valuable role to play in this [Ecologically Sustainable Development] process” and that the Commission was”uniquely placed to continue furthering the process of achieving ecologically sustainable development in Australia.” (McColl, Acting Chairman, in the RAC’s Annual Report 1991-92). 875 Evans, G., 1993. Answer to Question on Notice No. 640. CPD, Senate, p.2575. 876 John Quinn, Newcrest Ltd, cited in Gomez, 1991. Govt 'plans to bar mining' in Kakadu, p.23. 877 Jolly and McCoy, 1993. Ecologically Sustainable Development and the Fragmentation of Policy: A Critical Review. 878 Economou, 1992. Resource Security Legislation and National Environment Policy. New Objectives, Old Dynamics. 247 Legislation were abandoned amidst protest from green groups,879 and opinions that the whole proposal was complex law of dubious merit.880
While definite classification of any of these cases as ‘failures’ would require a more detailed analysis, the main point is that institutional innovations designed to deal with the impact of environmental concern on natural resources decision-making have been controversial, frequently rejected by governments, and even more frequently rejected by environmentalists. So, this superficially suggests that the claims of the ‘institutional reformers’, a group as diverse as Mercer and the Industry Commission, are misguided. But is it just any institutional reform that fails? The RAC and the Industry Commission: same design, different results?
The first clue that suggests institutional reform is not the problem per se is a comparison between the fates of the RAC and its institutional exemplar the Industries Assistance Commission (IAC) (which became the Industry Commission during the first year of operation of the RAC. The two organisations are generally referred to by the one name here: the Industry Commission, or IC).
The Industries Assistance Commission had its origins in the Tariff Board, established temporarily in 1921, and made a permanent Statutory Authority in 1924. The Tariff Board was transformed into the Industries Assistance Commission from 1 January 1974,881 a transformation which broadened its task from tariff reviews (and their implications) to advising government on industry policy more generally.882 Consistent with the strongly economic liberalist stance of the body, the word “assistance” was dropped from its name, to become the Industry Commission in 1989.883 The Commission’s role was to be
879 For example Greenpeace withdrew from the Ecologically Sustainable Development process over Resource Security Legislation proposals: Downes, 1996. Neo-Corporatism and Environmental Policy. 880 Bates, 1993. Economic, Political and Legal Problems with Resource Security; Buckley, 1994. Resource Security and Environmental Property Rights: Steal, Beg, Borrow, Buy or Hire?; Fisher, 1991. The Proposed Forest Resource Security Scheme: Sovereign Risk or Resource Security?; Fowler, 1993. Implications of Resource Security for Environmental Law; Gardner, 1993. The Challenge of Resource Security. Law and Policy. 881 Rattigan, 1986. Industry Assistance. The Inside Story, p.185. 882 Warhurst, 1982. Jobs or Dogma? The Industries Assistance Commission and Australian Politics. 883 This was achieved under the Industry Commission Act 1989. The IC was in 1997 amalgamated with the smaller units the Bureau if Industry Economics and the Economic Planning Advisory Council to become the Productivity Commission. 248 the government’s “major review and advisory body on industry matters” and to be “a catalyst for broad-based reform”.884 As was set out in Chapter 2, the IC and RAC were established by similar Acts of Parliament to perform parallel tasks in similar ways (indeed just how similar will become clearer below). The parallel between the two organisations was well understood: not only was the IC acknowledged as the RAC’s template,885 critics of the RAC in Parliament eventually argued they were so similar that the IC could do the RAC’s job.886
Yet over the period of the RAC’s short life the IC’s critique of protectionism was credited with helping drive the economic policy agenda in the area of microeconomic reform.887 Warhurst and Stewart characterised the IC as influential, arguing
One new institution, the Industries Assistance Commission, made a major input into policy making during these years [the 1970s and 1980s]. It should be seen both as an influential institutional actor and as a symbol of the pervasive influence of economists’ largely non- interventionist approach to industry policies.888
Despite the documented expansion in the range of industry policy instruments used by Australian governments, the IC’s position opposing sectoral assistance has been essentially adopted by both sides of politics in the 1990s.889 In
884 Industry Commission, 1993. Annual Report 1992-93, p.21. 885 Senator Cook, CPD Senate, 16 June 1989, p.4244; Cuthbertson, 1990. Commissions for Industry Assistance and Resource Assessment. Some Comparisons; Galligan and Lynch, 1992. Integrating Conservation and Development: Australia’s Resource Assessment Commission and the Testing Case of Coronation Hill; Mills, 1994. The Resource Assessment Commission: Policy Advice and Who to Believe. 886 Short, CPD Senate Estimates Committee A, 23 September 1991, p.A336. 887 Bell, 1997. Ungoverning the Economy. The Political Economy of Australian Economic Policy, p.216; Davis et al., 1993. Public Policy in Australia (2nd edn), p.238. 888 Warhurst and Stewart, 1989. Manufacturing Industry Policies, p.161. 889 Bell, 1997. Ungoverning the Economy. The Political Economy of Australian Economic Policy, p.223. For more detail on the strong record of the Tariff Board - Industries Assistance Commission - Industry Commission, see Bell, 1989. State Strength and Capitalist Weakness: Manufacturing Capital and the Tariff Board’s Attack on McEwenism; Bell, 1993. Australian Manufacturing and the State. The Politics of Industry Policy in the Post-war Era.; Coleman and Skogstad, 1995. Neo-Liberalism, Policy Networks, and Policy Change: Agricultural Policy Reform in Australia and Canada; Ewer and Higgins, 1986. Industry Policy Under the Accord: Reform Vs Traditionalism in Economic Management; Glezer, 1982. Tariff Politics; Warhurst and Stewart, 1989. Manufacturing Industry Policies. Cf. Gruen’s foreword to Rattigan, 1986. Industry Assistance. The Inside Story. Even when the Commission was under review, the review seemed to be more of an attack on government response to the Commission’s agenda than on the Commission itself. Uhrig, for example wrote: It is important to establish the fact that during its ten year life, the Commission has built up an enviable reputation as an institution of very high professional standards. It has completely fulfilled the expectations of the community for objectivity and independence of view in its provision of advice to government. 249 addition to being highly regarded, the Commission was well resourced during a time of budget austerity. Over the period 1989 to 1993, the IC’s budget went from $14.4M to $18.5M while staffing levels rose by a similar amount (see Figures 9.1 and 9.2 below).
If the RAC was a failure, but institutional innovations (such as the IC, established from the IAC at about the same time) could be a success, a comparative analysis of these might give us some solutions to the extent to which the calls for institutional innovation are misguided, and the conditions under which they might be worth heeding.890 This will achieve a similar objective to previous Chapters where analysis of the Coronation Hill case helped determine factors limiting the applicability of a body of literature on how best to deal with the environmental imperative. The RAC and the IC: the similarities
Cuthbertson highlighted not only the origins but the similarity between the IC and the RAC, noting that nine of ten key features of the organizations were the same. The RAC shared a range of features with the IC, outlined by Cuthbertson, including • permanent brief and separate identity • independence from government • offering advice only • existence of guidelines for a consistent approach • an economy-wide integrated approach • non-legal, non-adversarial proceedings • preparation of draft reports for discussion • not permitted to initiate its own inquiries • permitted to consider any aspect of topic considered by the institution to be relevant • presentation of annual report on policy issues.891
Even so, during that ten years, progress towards structural adjustment... has been patchy. This seems to have been due more to the practical difficulties for government in implementing the Commission’s recommndations than to the quality of the advice. (Uhrig, 1984. Review of the Industries Assistance Commission. Report, p.5). 890 for a defence of this comparative approach, see Chapter 3. 891 List adapted from Cuthbertson, 1990. Commissions for Industry Assistance and Resource Assessment. Some Comparisons, Table 1 p.62. 250 The one thing on which he pointed out they differed was in the area of public hearings. The IC was required to hold them, but for the RAC they were discretionary. In reality however, both organisations ran extensive hearings in various centres. Even on this aspect of operations therefore the two organisations were similar.
The organisations operated in similar ways. Both saw their independence from government as important, and indeed to some extend prided themselves on being able to offend their audience. Justice Stewart was determined to point out that “some of our conclusions may well be palatable to very few indeed”, while the IC published in annual reports its own evaluations of how well governments had implemented the Commissions recommendations, as quick to note failures as successes.892
There was some difference between how the organisations made use of annual reports. The IC used them as the “major vehicle” for statements on policy issues and the communication of its research findings.893 The RAC did not take up this opportunity to anything like the same degree, focussing instead on summaries of activities and meeting statutory reporting requirements in their annual reports. The RAC did publish comment on policy issues - it however did this through other documents, such as its series of research papers.
Overall, the process of consulting and writing Inquiry reports followed a very similar pattern in the two organisations, and can be described thus: receipt of terms of reference, followed by Commission advertising of the brief and a call for comment, possibly accompanied by a discussion or issues paper; the acceptance and publishing of submissions from interested parties, dominated by non-government organisation stakeholders and major individual companies; public hearings in several cities, dominated by the same parties as dominated the submissions process; the circulation of transcripts of the hearings; preparation of a large draft report; a second round of public hearings dominated by the same stakeholders as appeared at the first round, concentrating their remarks on aspects of other groups’ submissions or the Commission’s own draft report with which they did not agree; further submissions again from the same stakeholders as submitted earlier; and the release of a final report not greatly different from the draft.
892 Wallace, 1989. Scepticism on Role of New Commission, p.33. See for example Industry Commission, 1993. Annual Report 1992-93; Rattigan, 1986. Industry Assistance. The Inside Story. 893 Industry Commission, 1993. Annual Report 1992-93, p.29. 251 The similarities between the two organisations extended beyond their structures, to the content of their investigations. They seemed to be stepping on each others’ toes throughout the operation of the RAC, an overlap that would have been deliberate. Table 9.1 below outlines the extent of duplication.
Table 9.1 Overlap of RAC and IC operations.
RAC Inquiry / date date IC Inquiry / report date date research initiated reported initiated reported
Kakadu Apr 90 Apr 91 Mining and minerals Oct 89 Feb 91 Conservation Zone processing in Australiaa
Forest and Timber Nov 89 Mar 92 Recycling Oct 89 Feb 91
Costs and benefits of Dec 90 Nov 91 reducing greenhouse gas emissions
Adding further value to Sep 92 Sep 93 Australia’s forest products
Coastal Zone Oct 91 Nov 93 Cost recovery for Dec 90 Dec 91 managing fisheries
Water resources & waste Jul 91 Jul 92 water disposal
Environmental waste Sep 93 Sep 92 management equipment, systems & services
Notes: (a) Included a chapter on the Coronation Hill case, and discussions of environmental regulation and sovereign risk.
Source: RAC Annual Report 1990-91, Forest and Timber Inquiry Final Report, Coastal Zone Inquiry Final Report; IC Annual Reports 1990-91, 1991-92, 1992-93.
This evidence suggests not just similarity between organisations, but the multiplication by the government of sources of advice. The RAC and the IC: the differences
There were then many similarities between these two organisations, documented here and in the literature. But if these similarities are striking, much more interesting are the differences. 252 Size
The IC was a much larger organization and dealt with far more terms of reference. Comparative data on budgets and staff of the two organisations, encompassing the four years of full operation for the RAC, is presented below in Figures 9.1 and 9.2.
Costs of Inquiries differed significantly between the two organisations. The total cost of the Kakadu Inquiry was $2 091 827, including $100 000 from the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission towards the 10(4) Inquiry.894 Total cost for the Forest and Timber Inquiry was $3 421 091, while to June 30 1993, the Coastal Zone Inquiry had cost $3 654 024.895 By 1992, in contrast, the Industry Commission had ironically only just begun to estimate full costs of individual inquiries. Those nine for which comparable cost estimates are available are shown in Table 9.2.
Table 9.2 The cost of Industry Commission Inquiries. Inquiry Salary Other Total costs costs Australian sugar industry 250 000 66 000 316 000 Review of overseas export enhancement 357 000 93 000 450 000 measures Raw material pricing for domestic use 299 000 24 000 323 000 Commercial restrictions on exporting 118 000 7 000 125 000 Intrasate aviation 290 000 75 000 365 000 Water resources & waste water disposal 609 000 163 000 772 000 Mail, courier & parcel services 327 000 99 000 426 000 Horticulture 439 000 107 000 546 000 Taxation & financial policy impacts on 708 000 155 000 863 000 urban settlement TOTAL 3 397 000 819 000 4 216 000 Average (n=9) 377 000 91 000 468 000
Source: IC Annual Reports 1991-92, 1992-93.
Notes: Figures rounded to nearest $1000. Two estimates of costs offered by the IC may contain errors, and have been excluded. They are book production, and port authority services. The effect is probably to slightly lower the averages.
894 Resource Assessment Commission, 1992. Resource Assessment Commission Annual Report 1991- 92, p.61. 895 Resource Assessment Commission, 1993. Resource Assessment Commission Annual Report 1992- 93, p.59. 253
Figure 9.1 The budgets of the RAC and the IC compared.
18000
16000
14000
12000 10000
8000
6000 4000 Budget expenditure, $'000 2000 0 Total budget, IC 1989-90 1990-91 Total budget, RAC 1991-92 1992-93 Year
Notes: IC data excludes expenditure on minor projects (IMPACT, Economy-Wide Monitoring Project), and $2 532 000 spent on the move to Melbourne in 1992-93. IC data for 1989-90 is based on estimates from the amalgamation of the Industries Assistance Commission, Inter-State Commission, and Business Regulation Review Unit.
Sources: Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet Annual Report 1989-90; RAC Annual Reports 1989-90, 1990-91, 1991-92, 1992-93; IC Annual Reports 1989-90, 1990-91, 1991-92, 1992-93. 254
Figure 9.2 The staffing of the RAC and the IC compared.
300
250
200
150
Number of staff 100
50
0 Staff, IC 1989-90 1990-91 Staff, RAC 1991-92 1992-93 Year
Notes: IC figures may be inflated by around 10% due to the inclusion of staff on leave.
Sources: RAC Annual Reports 1989-90, 1990-91, 1991-92, 1992-93; IC Annual Reports 1989-90, 1990-91, 1991-92, 1992-93. 255 These IC Inquiries cost on average $468 000. They were thus considerably cheaper than RAC studies: around a sixth the cost in fact.896 There was also much greater variation in cost from inquiry to inquiry within the IC than in the RAC, although the small number of RAC Inquiries makes it hard to generalise.
In summary, the RAC was a small organisation which ran three expensive inquiries over four years, while the IC operated 38 Inquiries over the same period,897 as well as making major submissions into other policy areas, such as to the Independent (Hilmer) Commission on competition policy.898 Independence
Independence was widely regarded as an important feature of both the IC and RAC. This was discussed in terms of independence from government (by Cuthbertson for example), but also independence from interest groups and businesses.899 This had been critical to the IAC’s predecessor in taking on the advocates of protectionist industry policy,900 while it was considered important for the RAC to establish its credibility with the many interest groups worried about the role the RAC was going to play in resources policy. Two of the Commissioners claimed that they “had no preconceived views of any of the matters dealt with in the inquiry; they acted independently and without bias.”901 Up to a point, perceptions of bias are just that - perceptions - but content analysis was used in this case, following the method set out in Chapter 3, to try and determine whether there was evidence from the conduct of the Conservation Zone and Mining and Mineral Processing Inquiries that would suggest either the IC or the RAC exhibited bias in the treatment of stakeholders.
The content analysis method used here was outlined in Chapter 3. It involved coding the transcripts for evidence of dispute or conflict in order to determine if either Inquiry was biased in its treatment of witnesses. The first step in performing the comparison was to ‘match’ participants (witnesses) in the two Inquiries, so that what was being examined was the effect of different
896 The high costs drew adverse comments in Estimates Committee: Senator Short, CPD Senate Estimates Committee A, 23 September 1991, pp.A310-311. 897 Industry Commission, 1992. Annual Report 1991-92; Industry Commission, 1993. Annual Report 1992-93. 898 Independent Committee of Inquiry, 1993. National Competition Policy. 899 Cuthbertson, 1990. Commissions for Industry Assistance and Resource Assessment. Some Comparisons. 900 Bell, 1989. State Strength and Capitalist Weakness: Manufacturing Capital and the Tariff Board’s Attack on McEwenism. 901 Stewart and McColl, 1994. The Resource Assessment Commission: An Inside Assessment, p.17. 256 Commissions, not any possible effect caused by having different witnesses. Table 9.3 sets out the result of this matching, indicating the transcript material used for the analysis.
Table 9.3 Transcript material used for the comparative analysis of the two Inquiries. CZI Witness Page nos Total MMP Witness Page nos Total (RAC) no. (IC) no. pages pages ACF & 896-970; 119 ACF & 544-573; 97 consultant 1333- consultant 1964-1993; (Buckley) 1349AAa; (Grey) 2293-2315; 1629-1639 2927-2940 AHC 508-554 47 AHC 2890-2908 19 AMIC & 295-326; 156 AMIC 3-95; 1559- 185 consultant 598-654; 1591; 2706- (Webb) 984-1008; 2764 1351-1392 CHJV / BHP 18-91; 1393- 164 CHJV, BHPb 636-670; 111 Gold 1401; 1438- 1346-1391; 1448; 1533- 2414-2443 1561; 1640- 1681 CRA 1096-1124 29 CRA 574-629; 92 2780-2815 ECNT & 108-119; 91 ECNT 375-415 40 Tamblyn 814-859; 1300-1332 NLC 211-252; 92 NLC & CLC 269-320; 110 1167-1216 2139-2197 NT Government 121-210; 144 NT Government 416-449; 49 1246-1299 2765-2779 OSS 351-393 43 OSS 1292-1345 54 TOTAL PAGES 885 757
Notes: (a) An error in numbering transcript resulted in the transcript running to page 1349, then continuing 1349A-1349Z, then 1349AA. (b) Includes evidence from Jerry Ellis of BHP Utah / BHP Gold, but excludes evidence from the representative of BHP Coal.
Sources: RAC and IC Inquiry Transcripts.
For the purposes of testing the data, organisations that appeared as witnesses were also classified and grouped as being conservation-oriented or mining- oriented according to statutory responsibilities (in the case of statutory authorities), and in other cases explicit public statements of organisational 257 policy. Before presenting and discussing the results, the decisions about grouping the organisations are explained.
There is no difficulty in defining the ACF, Australia’s most prominent national conservation non-government organisation as conservation oriented, and likewise ECNT and its consultant Dr Tamblyn. These two groups together with the Wilderness Society had led the campaign against the Coronation Hill mine for some two years by the time of the RAC and IC hearings.902
The AHC was classified as conservation-oriented because:
• its statutory responsibility is to advise its Minister on “action to conserve, improve and present the National Estate”, which comprises areas of conservation value, both natural or cultural.903
• it argued in hearings that “the impact of further mining developments [ie. in addition to Ranger uranium mine] in the region... would have an adverse effect on the national estate value... of the conservation zone but also on Kakadu State 3...”, that “the wilderness values, landscape qualities and flora and fauna would all be adversely affected by such development” and “The cultural significance of the Conservation Zone would likewise be jeopardised by the impact of mining”;904 and
• it had stated in its submission that “Mining should not be allowed within the Conservation Zone”.905
The OSS was classified as conservation-oriented because
• its function is “to ensure the adequacy of arrangements for protection of the environment of the Alligator Rivers Region from the effects of mining operations.”906
• while it did not attempt “to judge the broad question of whether or not mining should take place in [the Conservation Zone] area”, it argued that “a number of aspects of the project as presently designed... do not afford best environmental protection and should be modified”, which brought it
902 See also ACF Submission 97, ECNT Submission 90. 903 Australian Heritage Commission Act 1975, Section 7. 904 Galvin, AHC, Transcripts p.511. 905 AHC, Submission 76, p.x. 906 OSS, Submission 54, p.3. 258 into sharp conflict with CHJV and AMIC, evident most clearly in the evidence given by those witnesses to the IC’s Mining and Minerals Processing Inquiry.907
As with ACF, there is no difficulty in defining the companies seeking to mine Coronation Hill as mining-oriented: these include BHP and CHJV. AMIC was classified as mining-oriented because:
• it is the peak mining industry representative association; and
• it argued in hearings that “mining would add benefits to the Kakadu National Park” and that “AMIC believes the Coronation Hill mine could operate within the Kakadu Conservation Zone, without having adverse impacts on the conservation values of the area”, repeating the view expressed in its submission to the RAC’s Inquiry.908
The consultant Webb was classified as mining-oriented because:
• he worked for, and appeared for AMIC;
• his consultancy report argued against the approach of environmental groups to mining generally, and criticised their treatment of CHJV.909
CRA was classified as mining-oriented because:
• it is a mining company;
• its submission states that “If the Commonwealth Government feared that the Coronation Hill operation posed a serious environmental threat to the Kakadu National Park, the precedent of the Ranger Uranium Mine should have dispelled that fear”;910 and
• it regarded the process at Coronation Hill as involving the government in “reneging on a commitment to the Coronation Hill companies... that has done considerable damage to Australia’s reputation.”911
The NT Government was classified as mining-oriented because:
907 OSS Submission 54, pp.i-ii. See IC Transcripts pp.636-670; 1292-1345. 908 McIntosh, AMIC, Transcripts p.599; AMIC Submission 50, p.10. 909 AMIC (Webb) Submission 101. 910 CRA Submission 65, p.5. 911 Gould, CRA, Transcripts p.1098. 259 • in its submission, it argued that mining in the Conservation Zone should proceed “under appropriate conditions”;912 and
• in hearings, it was indicated that the NT Government would approve mining at Coronation Hill if it had the authority to do so.913
For the purpose of this grouped test, the Aboriginal Land Councils could not be classified, and were therefore left ungrouped. The resulting groupings are shown in Table 9.4.
Table 9.4 Grouping of witnesses for testing content analysis data.
Group Members Ungrouped
Conservation- ACF, AHC, ECNT, Tamblyn, OSS NLC, CLC oriented
Mining-oriented AMIC, BHP, CHJV, CRA, NT Gov’t, Webb
In all, 1642 pages of evidence were scrutinised using the pragmatic content analysis explained in Chapter 3. The number of pages of transcript and number of instances of conflict therein are shown in Table 9.5.914
912 NT Government Submission 74, p.i. 913 Conran, NT Government, Transcripts p.126. 914 The underlying raw data can be found in Appendix E. 260
Table 9.5 Frequency of conflict in inquiry hearings: analysis.
Groupa Inq’r No. No. instances Indexb y p’ges
hostility dispute other Total
All witnesses IC 757 10 17 3 30 4.0
All witnesses RAC 885 11 20 1 32 3.6
Conservation- IC 210 5 5 2 12 5.7 oriented
Mining-oriented IC 437 5 12 - 17 3.9
Conservation- RAC 311 - 1 - 1 0.3 oriented
Mining-oriented RAC 493 11 19 1 31 6.3
Notes: (a) The NLC/CLC appearances were classified only in the first of these groupings (all witnesses). The numbers of pages and instances shown in the first set of tests therefore may not add up to those for the second. (b) The index is of the intensity of conflict. It is calculated as the number of incidents of conflict over the number of pages, times 100.
Source: the author’s analysis of RAC Transcripts and IC Transcripts.
There are two clear conclusions to be drawn from these figures. The first is that both organisations exhibited regular conflict between Commissioners and witnesses at a level which makes it worth questioning whether the proceedings of inquiries were as “non-adversarial” as intended. But the main point is that from the outset the RAC appeared to have plunged into a hostile relationship with stakeholders committed to mining which had no parallel in their relationship with conservation-oriented interests. This suggests that the RAC was not very successful, at least in its early stages, in establishing independence from these societal interests. It certainly lends support to perceptions of some stakeholders that the RAC was biased. Expertise
Further evidence of the RAC’s inability to develop itself as an authoritative and independent source of advice comes from a comparison between the RAC and IC’s use of consultants in their work. This is outlined below. 261 The role of consultants differed greatly between the two organizations (see Table 9.6 below). Although the IC had once complained of difficulties recruiting suitable staff (during a period of uncertainty about its future),915 external expertise never represented a significant cost to the Commission. The RAC in contrast relied heavily throughout its life on external expertise, particularly during the Kakadu Inquiry. This was despite most of the staff having tertiary qualifications: over 44 university degrees amongst the staff of 45 at the outset, concentrated in the sciences.916 Outside expertise played essentially no role in the IC’s work.
915 Industries Assistance Commission, 1989. Annual Report 1988-89, p.8. 916 Resource Assessment Commission, 1990. Resource Assessment Commission Annual Report 1989- 90, p.25. 262
Table 9.6 The role of consultants.
Resource 89-90 90-91 91-92 92-93 Assessment Commission
Number 20a 75b 60 b 57 b
Total value, $ 653 502c 1 469 207 632 736 538 626
Mean value, $ 24 267d 19 589 10 546 9 450
% expenditure 13.5e 23.5 12.0 11.0
Industry 89-90 90-91 91-92 92-93 Commission
Numberf c.32 33 61 41
Total value, $ 222 207 373 079 316 177 258 467
Mean value, $ 6 944 11 305 5 183 6304
% expenditure 1.6 2.4 1.9 1.4g
Notes: (a) number valued over $2 000. (b) includes those valued under $2 000 (c) includes a $192 426 Australian Construction Services contract to fit out the RAC’s new office. (d) excludes the Australian Construction Services fit-out contract. (e) includes the Australian Construction Services fit-out contract (as the budget includes property expenditure). (f) Numbers, and subsequent average value estimates, are strongly influenced by a large number of very small consultancies contracted by the IC: approximately eight valued under $500 in both 1989-90 and 1990-91, 30 and 20 valued under $2 000 for 1991-92 and 1992-93 respectively. (g) Much of the IC 1992-93 consultancy total was costs associated with the Melbourne relocation. Percentage calculated including the relocation costs in total IC expenditure.
Sources: RAC Annual Reports 1989-90, 1990-91, 1991-92, 1992-93; IC Annual Reports 1989-90, 1990-91, 1991-92, 1992-93.
The problem of dependence on outside expertise was not confined to the consultancy area. The RAC’s special commissioners were recruited as part- time, expert assistants, and the RAC itself had no permanent commissioners other than Justice Stewart. From the outset this was a concern:
apart from the full-time chairperson based in Sydney, there are no full-time commissioners; instead “special” commissioners are being appointed for each inquiry. In this respect the RAC differs from the IAC. Apart from the fact that it is difficult to do two jobs, the implication is that special knowledge and expertise for that particular 263 inquiry are more important than developing a consistent, coherent approach to a number of similar inquiries.917
Atkinson & Coleman argue that “bureaus will be more autonomous when they themselves generate the information, technical or otherwise, required for the pursuit of their mandate”.918 The RAC was in these terms less autonomous than its industry policy counterpart, both in terms of the role of outside consultants, and of the commissioners themselves. Leadership & networks
In these circumstances, the role of the head of the RAC in particular becomes particularly important. Justice Donald Stewart had come to the RAC from five years heading the controversial National Crimes Authority. He was a judge taking a position where the utility of a judicial background had been questioned. Borchardt, discussing the question of whether judges should head Commissions at all, noted Woodward’s opinion that there is merit in having a judge as a chairperson where the main objective is for “facts to be found without fear or favour but with due regard for the rights of the people involved”.919 It is debatable whether the RAC fits Woodward’s description at all. In any case, as Borchardt reflects, there are risks and potential conflicts of duty in a system of separated powers in having judges enter an institutional arena that is generally political in nature. Commissions of inquiry are frequently products of the politics of the day, and it is debatable whether it is prudent for judges to be at their centre.920 Not only may the separation of powers be compromised, but judicial professionals may not provide the leadership and temperament best suited to such a circumstance.
In this regard it is worth contrasting the background of Justice Stewart with those of the Chairs of the IAC and IC over the same period. These are shown in Table 9.7, and reveal a pattern of appointments from the senior public service: of people trained to deal with the legislative and executive arms of government, rather than to preside over elements of the judiciary.
917 Cuthbertson, 1990. Commissions for Industry Assistance and Resource Assessment. Some Comparisons, p.62. 918 Atkinson and Coleman, 1989. The State, Business And Industrial Change In Canada, p.81. 919 Sir Edward Woodward, cited in Borchardt, 1991. Commissions of Inquiry in Australia - a Brief Survey, p.58. 920 Borchardt, 1991. Commissions of Inquiry in Australia - a Brief Survey, p.56. 264
Table 9.7 The leadership of the IC, 1989 to 1993.
From position of: In: Came: Who To go to position of: left in:
Deputy Secretary, 1988 G.F. Taylor 1989 Secretary, Dep’t PM&C Employment Education & Training
Deputy Secretary, 1989 A.S. Cole 1991 Secretary, Treasury PM&C
Deputy Secretary, 1991 S.T. Sedgwick 1992 Acting Secretary, Finance Finance
Chair, Automotive 1992 W.I. Scales - - Industry Authority
Sources: Industry Commission Annual Reports 1990-91, 1991-92, 1992-93.
Astute leadership should have helped produce a stable policy environment.921 Leading a body like the Resource Assessment Commission was always going to be a difficult task, given its genesis. The background of Justice Sewart does not on the face of it seem ideal. On the appointment of Commissioners to the RAC and the Conservation Zone Inquiry there was a range of adverse comment.
Justice Stewart has to be found a job somewhere and it seems to me that the Government is creating another Commission and putting him in there.922
Lauchlan MacIntosh of AMIC, commented on the appointment of McColl and Kitching:
He said the two special commissioners appointed for the inquiry were not people that “would be used by a mining company to assess a mining project”. One was an economist, the other an ecologist, and knew little about mining.923
921 See Trollope and Heatley, 1994. CEOs, Policies and Public Bodies for a discussion, and other examples, of the significance of individual leadership in statutory authorities. 922 Smith, 1989. Resource Assessment Commission Bill, Debate, p.2560. Subjects A, C, E, former RAC officers, interviews. 923 Cleary, 1990. Mining Body Slates Kakadu Inquiry. 265 Similar remarks came from the Northern Territory Chief Minister Marshall Perron,924 and the Territory Chamber of Mines:
The NT Chamber of Mines has slammed the Resource Assessment Commission for recruiting commissioners which give the Kakadu Inquiry an unbalanced composition... “Since this inquiry is about mining, we would want to have a commissioner who knows about, and is respected by, the industry to be appointed.” Mr Gamble said.925
Various people continued to express reservations about the RAC’s approach to the problems, and the Commissioners’ grasp of key points.926 On the eve of the release of the final report, and clearly frustrated by the way the Inquiry had gone, John Quinn (managing director of CHJV member Newcrest) chose to focus not on the imminent Cabinet decision, but on attacking the RAC, calling it “entirely superfluous”, saying that its work had “moved the debate not one centimetre”, and calling for the organisation to be abolished.927 Paul Kelly considered that the performance of the RAC in its first report “runs the risk of appearing inconsistent and lacking independence”,928 a view echoed in his paper’s editorial, and other media reports.929 A spokesperson for the Wilderness Society was reported as indicating that “the lack of clear recommendations [in the Final Report] meant the RAC’s efforts had been a waste of time”.930
Justice Stewart in particular did not always discourage his antagonists. He was sometimes abrasive and obstreperous in hearings. Discussing the ranking by the East-West Centre study of Australia behind the USA and Canada as an exploration destination, Stewart interjected
924 anon, 1990. Perron Needs Crash Course. 925 anon, 1990. Miners Slam Kakadu Probe. 926 eg. NT Chamber of Mines, Submission 165; anon, 1991. Greenies have win on mining; anon, 1991. Kakadu's prickly puzzle; Grattan, 1991. Senator to challenge report on Kakadu; Gruen and Grattan, 1993. Managing Government. Labor's Achievements and Failures, p.246; Stone, 1991. Put environmental altruism to real test; Taylor, 1991. Key question unanswered; Young, 1991. Kakadu mining survey criticised. 927 Cited in Gomez, 1991. Govt 'plans to bar mining' in Kakadu, p.23. See also Seccombe, 1991. Report sinks Kakadu mining. 928 Kelly, 1991. Cabinet the loser, whatever it decides, p.1. 929 anon, 1991. A hole the Government can't escape; anon, 1991. A timely lesson in indecision; McGuinness, 1991. Giving voice to utter confusion; McGuinness, 1991. Mines, myths, and misinformation. In contrast, the Sydney Morning Herald articles and editorial were consistently supportive of Justice Stewart’s line: that the RAC was doing its job, and that it was up to Cabinet to make decisions. 930 Taylor, 1991. Get the hint: don't mine the hill. The Commission had had internal discussions over whether to recommend preferred option or options - a possibility the government did not rule out - but its leadership decided against that course of action. 266 Chairperson: We are ranked third in the world in relation to preference to Chinese immigrants from Hong Kong, behind the US and Canada too.
Mr Conran: That is certainly right.
Chairperson: That is a useless piece of information.931
Stewart would at times intervene angrily in dialogue between other Commissioners and witnesses. While Smith of the NT Government and Commissioner Kitching were trying to discuss wildlife managers’ response to uncertainty about species conservation status, Stewart came in:
Chairperson: Well, what do you say? Let us get on with it and endeavour to take the Pignosed Turtle. Is that what you are on about?
Mr Smith: Not at all.
Chairperson: Well, it sounds like it to me. Do you not want to answer that question?932
Relationships also deteriorated because Stewart was reported having the following interchange with a journalist long before the draft report was written:
The judge [Stewart] says to me in a grinning aside, “Extraordinarily irrelevant... they don’t seem to understand we don’t need rehabilitated, artificial lakes in national parks, we want it looking like it did before the bloody mining took place.”933
Some of the Commissioners had an interesting view of outside support for their work. Stewart & McColl considered that “The business sector was very supportive of the creation of the RAC”934 which is a most positive interpretation of business views of the organisation. Complaining about the government’s motives in winding up the RAC, they quoted academic Ian Lowe:
“Politicians and bureaucrats were unhappy about the transparency of the political process... The Commission’s crime was to use a rational
931 Transcripts p.194. 932 Transcripts p.176. 933 Sunday Herald magazine (Melbourne), 5 August 1990. 934 Stewart and McColl, 1994. The Resource Assessment Commission: An Inside Assessment, p.14. 267 and visible process, thus exposing the nature of the decision to public gaze.”935
These remarks represent a surprisingly assertive statement of the worth of the authors’ own work, though an understandable reaction to some of the opinionated comment in the media.936 The optimism and naivety was not confined to some of the Commissioners. After the RAC was wound up its former Head of Office Richard Mills was able to comment:
It was suggested in one newspaper that the prime minister ‘felt bound... to abide by the RAC report which says mining would violate Aboriginal religious beliefs’. This was clearly wrong. First the RAC had made no recommendation to that effect. It had put the choice starkly to the government of mining or not mining and had set out clearly the effects of either course.937
Similar remarks were made by Commissioners.938 Any examination of the rhetorical way in which the Commission put its options (see Chapter 2) indicates how difficult it would be to reach any conclusion other than that reached by the newspaper.939 This and other comments suggest that Mills had misjudged the environment in which the RAC was operating. Mills was also critical of the RAC’s own liaison practices, suggesting it had not adequately promoted its work, nor established adequate lines of communication with the media.940
On only its third Inquiry, the RAC divided over development of management strategies for the coastal zone. It was forced to publish the dissenting report of Commissioner Graham, who advocated a more decentralised framework for coastal zone management, based on strategic management and stakeholder
935 Stewart and McColl, 1994. The Resource Assessment Commission: An Inside Assessment, p.23 citing Ian Lowe. 936 Brunton, 1991. Hostage to a Bula Legend; Brunton, 1991. Will Play Money Drive Out the Real Money? Contingent Valuation Surveys and Coronation Hill; editorial, 1994. Keating and the RAC; Stone, 1991. Put environmental altruism to real test. 937 Mills, 1994. The Resource Assessment Commission: Policy Advice and Who to Believe, p.174, emphases in original. The Australian Financial Review editorial likewise suggested the RAC was naive in its operation: editorial, 1994. Keating and the RAC. 938 Resource Assessment Commission, 1992. Resource Assessment Commission Annual Report 1991- 92, McColl at p.3; Stewart and McColl, 1994. The Resource Assessment Commission: An Inside Assessment. 939 In addition to the rhetorical flourish of the RAC’s report, “The dilemma facing the Australian Government is clear...”, the Commission also stated “In the Inquiry’s view, however, the equity issues of greatest relevance to a decision about the future of the Conservation Zone’s resources are those relating to the Jawoyn.” (CZFR p.xxiii) 940 Mills, 1994. The Resource Assessment Commission: Policy Advice and Who to Believe, p.184. 268 participation.941 This was not the only internal conflict that would have hampered the Commission’s operations. The differences between members of the research branch and Inquiry staff mentioned in Chapter 4 may have troubled the organisation.
The RAC was not only internally divided, it was also increasingly isolated. It was not drawn into either the Ecologically Sustainable Development process or the preparations for the United Nations Commission on Environment and Development conference in Rio in 1992.942 Some jurisdictional hostility was evident in the approach of other Commonwealth agencies, most clearly ABARE, but also the IC and DASETT.943 Officials from various states and territories expressed skepticism if not hostility toward the Commission. The secretary of PM&C was reported as uncomfortable from the outset with the idea of the RAC,944 and the Prime Minister whose support assisted the creation of the agency was gone from his post within two years of the legislation being passed. The parliamentary opposition had expressed a commitment to abolishing the organisation, and wondered what the RAC did that could not be done by the IC or DASETT.945 Officers of the Commission, unhappy with the direction events were taking, also began to depart the organisation.946
Writers on state autonomy and policy innovation almost invariably emphasise the importance of independence, impartiality, a distinct ethos, good networks and liaison with Ministers and other elements of the bureaucracy. In every one of these areas the RAC confronted problems, while the IC appeared far less troubled.
941 Resource Assessment Commission, 1993. Coastal Zone Inquiry Final Report. 942 Short, CPD Senate Estimates Committee A, 23 September 1991, p.A337; O’Chee, CPD Senate Estimates Committee A, 1 April 1992, p.A137. 943 The IC in its final report for example expressed the need for an independent Commonwealth body to be involved in resource decision making, yet failed to mention the RAC in this respect, while its comments on the Coronation Hill case were in strong contrast to those of the RAC, despite the RAC’s far greater involvement in the issues. 944 anon, 1991. Codd could well say 'I told you so'. 945 Liberal and National Parties, 1991. Fightback! Taxation and Expenditure Reform for Jobs and Growth. ; Short, CPD Senate Estimates Committee A, 23 September 1991, p.A336. 946 Subjects A, C and E, former RAC officers, all identified this trend in interviews (not necessarily referring to their own movements it should be noted). 269 The appropriateness of the institutions as Commonwealth bodies
Another area of relevance in comparing the work of the IC and the RAC is the appropriateness of these institutions for the level of government - national - at which they were operating.
The IC, charged primarily with tariff issues, as well as with industry assistance advice, very directly addressed Commonwealth policy and legislative responsibilities. As the primary regulator of trade practices and corporations law, as well as the level being the level of government setting tariffs, the Commonwealth could clearly benefit from the IC. Although in the area of implementing micro-economic reform, the States loom larger, the IC itself recognised the need to address this through consultative processes.947 Even in this policy area, however, the Commonwealth through its taxation, grants, and corporations powers was nevertheless able to drive policy, and thus in turn the IC could maintain a relevant policy function.
In contrast, the RAC was established to deal with “major, complex, and contentious resource use issues”,948 which almost invariably involve State governments, their law and policy. The Conservation Zone Inquiry in fact, dealing as it did with an issue entirely within the Commonwealth’s jurisdiction, was probably one of only a few issues that could be directly addressed by the Commonwealth in response to RAC advice, without the need for the cooperation of other governments. It was in fact because State governments are so important in this policy area that the Coalition sought an amendment of the RAC Bill to require Commonwealth consultation with State governments prior to referral of an issue to the RAC.949
There is a certain irony in the RAC’s situation. It had itself recognised some of the problems concomittant with this situation:
There have been many inquiries into coastal issues, but the complexity of the jurisdictional problems has led to recommendations that in many cases have not been capable of implementation. It is hoped by the Commission that a more openly consultative and collaborative approach will enable these difficulties to be overcome.950
947 Industry Commission, 1993. Annual Report 1992-93. 948 Kerin, 1989. Resource Assessment Commission Bill, Second Reading, p.1822. 949 Senator Lewis, CPD Senate, 16 June 1989, p.4220; Senator Baume, CPD Senate, 16 June 1989, p.4226; Mr Sinclair, CPD Representatives, 10 May 1989, p.2428. 950 Resource Assessment Commission, 1991. Resource Assessment Commission Annual Report 1990- 91, p.35. 270 In the light of what became of the Coastal Zone Inquiry, and its recommendations, this hope would seem to have been dashed.
The RAC took a similar position in its Forest and Timber Inquiry. In trying to sort out the co-ordination problems, it ended up recommending the inevitable multi-government compromise:
One of the most important options put forward by the Inquiry - indeed its recommended option - is for substantial modification to the structure of an existing intergovernmental body [Australian Forestry Council] so that it can adopt a collaborative approach to forest issues. The recommendation is not for a Commonwealth body; rather it is for a national body, the task of which will be to deal with national issues. Its principal focus should be anticipating and minimising conflict, not dealing with conflicts as they arise.951
The RAC’s preferred options - for a National Forests Council, new Research & Development Corporation structures, and a restructuring of Commonwealth portfolio responsibilities - were not implemented.
The poor record of implementation of RAC suggestions from its Forest and Timber, and Coastal Zone Inquiries serves to emphasize the institutional ‘mismatch’ between the kinds of problems the RAC was designed to consider and where responsibility actually lies for addressing natural resource management problems in Australia. Indeed, the same government that formed the RAC acknowledged this through its pursuit of an Inter-governmental Agreement on the Environment, eventually signed in 1992.952 Subsequent governments, through proposed Commonwealth legislative reforms, have likewise encouraged only a limited Commonwealth role in the kinds of issues the RAC was designed to confront.953
Despite the Commonwealth’s Constitutional capacity to address environmental issues,954 therefore, the RAC must ultimately be seen as less suited to a direct government advisory role than was the IC.
951 Resource Assessment Commission, 1992. Forest and Timber Inquiry Final Report (volume 1), p.vii, emphasis in original. 952 Kellow, 1996. Thinking Globally and Acting Federally: Intergovernmental Relations and Environmental Protection in Australia; Robinson, 1995. Smarter Regulation and Intergovernmental Cooperation in the Environmental Field. 953 Hill, 1998. Reform of Commonwealth Environment Legislation. Consultation Paper. 954 Bates, 1995. Environmental Law in Australia; Crawford, 1991. The Constitution and the Environment; Crawford, 1992. The Constitution; Ramsay and Rowe, 1995. Environmental Law and Policy in Australia. Text and Materials; Saunders, 1996. The Constitutional Division of Power with Respect to the Environment in Australia. 271 Nature of force driving change
In this section I argue that there was a difference between the nature of the forces driving policy reform in the areas in which the two Commissions worked. The RAC confronted a shift in the “underlying structure of power” in its policy arena, while the IC was fundamentally dealing with “exogenous forces” acting on the Australian economy.955 I then suggest that this helps explain the different fates of the two organisations because the RAC was superfluous to the interests of stakeholders as they attempted to wield their changing share of power in the natural resources area, while the IC was highly suited to dealing with exogenous forces.
The RAC confronted changes in the underlying structure of power in two respects: the rise of mass environmentalism, and the enhancement of Aboriginal legal rights. The effect of the rise of environmentalism on Australian politics of the 1980s is copiously documented elsewhere.956 It represented a significant force, changing the partisan calculus of resources policy at all levels of government, replacing a small well-ordered distributive policy community with a crowded (arguably over-crowded), highly conflictual situation in which significant reordering of government priorities, and crisis management, became the orders of the day.957
955 The terminology comes from Young, 1982. Resource Regimes. Natural Resources and Social Institutions, pp.107-110. 956 Crook and Pakulski, 1995. Shades of Green: Public Opinion on Environmental Issues in Australia; Davis, 1980. The Struggle for South-West Tasmania; Downes, 1996. Neo-Corporatism and Environmental Policy; Doyle and McEachern, 1998. Environment and Politics; Doyle and Kellow, 1995. Environmental Politics and Policy Making in Australia; Economou, 1992. Problems in Environmental Policy Creation: Tasmania’s Wesley Vale Pulp Mill Dispute; Economou, 1992. Resource Security Legislation and National Environment Policy. New Objectives, Old Dynamics; Economou, 1997. The 'greening' of the Coalition? Environment Policy; Formby, 1986. Environmental Policies in Australia: Climbing the Down Escalator; Gilpin, 1980. Environmental Policy in Australia; Holland, 1992. The New Ethic; Hutton, 1987. What is Green Politics?; Kellow, 1989. The Dispute Over the Franklin River and South-West Wilderness Area in Tasmania; Kellow, 1994. Is the Rest of the World Watching? Prospects for Environmental Politics in Australia; Mercer, 1991. A Question of Balance; Papadakis, 1990. Minor Parties, the Environment and the New Politics; Papadakis, 1993. Politics and the Environment: The Australian Experience; Stewart and Ward, 1992. Politics One; Warhurst, 1983. Single Issue Politics: the Impact of Conservation Groups and Anti-Abortion Groups. 957 For an interesting discussion of theoretical aspects of this kind of transition see Richardson, 1997. Interest Groups, Multi-Arena Politics and Policy Change; Richardson, 1983. Overcrowded Policymaking: Some British and European Reflection; Richardson and Jordan, 1979. Governing Under Pressure: the Policy Process in a Post-parliamentary Democracy. In particular it is interesting to note similarities between the arguments of Marsh with respect to Australian policy-making and the more recent observations of Richardson with respect to Europe. See Marsh, 1983. Politics, Policy Making and Pressure Groups: Some Suggestions for Reform of the Australian Political System. On the environmental arena in Australia as an example of 272 It has already been noted that to some extent the RAC was one of a number of Commonwealth initiatives in response to the growing popular emphasis on environmental protection (others of the period including the rejection of the Wesley Vale pulp mill proposal, and establishment of the Ecologically Sustainable Development process).958 Economou notes, however, the RAC was an institution poorly suited to the kind of agenda - and agenda control - in which the Federal Labor government was interested.959 I would go further and argue it was an initiative in which the environmental movement itself had only a limited interest, and not just because they saw the RAC as being advocated by their opponents. In the late 1980s the green non-government organisations had established direct links with the government, independent of the bureaucracy, and would have been reluctant to relinquish these. The movement and its heavyweight political recruit, environment Minister Senator Graham Richardson, combined to make environmental policy decision-making a matter of un-mediated political calculus, into which calculations orderly review and advice by the public service did not fit.960 Of course, the RAC was designed partly with this problem in mind: as Kelly noted, some Ministers were believed to have supported the RAC as a means of controlling the influence of Senator Richardson and his allies.961 The opposition thought likewise:
Mr Sinclair: ...The Resource Assessment Commission Bill is what might be called the Graham Richardson palliative...
The Bill is designed to try and somehow put in place a device which the government says is going to keep the Graham at bay, to keep somehow his interventionary practice from frustrating the decisions of State governments which properly have responsibility for land use in Australia.962
this phenomenon, see Gruen and Grattan, 1993. Managing Government. Labor's Achievements and Failures. 958 See Chapters 1 & 2. Also Economou, 1992. Problems in Environmental Policy Creation: Tasmania’s Wesley Vale Pulp Mill Dispute. 959 Economou, 1992. Reconciling the Irreconcilable? The Resource Assessment Commission, Resource Policy and the Environment. 960 This is strongly reminiscent of the policy network style of parentela pluralism, or parentalism as discussed by Atkinson & Coleman, and I am indebted to Barbara Vernon for this observation. See Atkinson and Coleman, 1989. The State, Business And Industrial Change In Canada; Jolly and Holland, 1993. Making Sense of Policy Networks and Policy Communities; Vernon, 1996. Greening Government from the Inside: the Life and Times of the Australian Department for the Environment. 961 Kelly, 1992. The End of Certainty. 962 Mr Sinclair, CPD Representatives, 10 May 1989, pp.2425-2426. 273 But the RAC had little success in breaking this pattern of ‘parentalism’. Even with respect to the outcome of the Conservation Zone decision, Mr Howe (Deputy Prime Minister) was arguing that a “no-mining decision as advocated by [Prime Minster] Mr Hawke would retain the support of the two interest groups which the Labor Party already had “in the bag” - the Aborigines and the conservationists”.963 Director of leading non-government organsiation the ACF, Philip Toyne said “the decision capped a decade-long campaign”964 The RAC was apparently being bypassed by environmental groups whose significant power was being applied in other ways than through this new statutory authority.
If it is easy to argue that the RAC was essentially bypassed by a powerful conservation movement, it would superficially seem more likely that one could at least argue that the RAC had been an important facilitator of Aboriginal claims. These did after all become the principal plank of the RAC’s concerns about the Coronation Hill proposal, and the most publicised justification for the mine’s demise. However, while the RAC’s Conservation Zone Inquiry clearly shows that there had been a shift in the underlying structure of power with respect to Aboriginal rights, it had little to do with facilitating the exercise of that power.
The strengthening of Aboriginal legal rights can be neatly demonstrated by contrasting the situation of the RAC’s Conservation Zone Inquiry with the situation that existed for the Ranger inquiry in the mid 1970s. The Ranger Uranium Inquiry (mentioned in Chapter 2) had been initiated in July 1975 by the Whitlam government under Section 11(1) of the Environmental Protection (Impact of Proposals) Act 1974, to inquire
in respect of all the environmental aspects of:
(a) the formulation of proposals;
(b) the carrying out of works and other projects;
...
by, or on behalf of, the Australian Government and the Australian Atomic Energy Commission... in relation to the development by the Australian Atomic Energy Commission in association with Ranger
963 Reported in Hartcher, 1991. Bob Versus Bob in Five-Hour Bula Session, p.6. 964 Reported in Grattan and Peake, 1991. Hawke gets his way on Kakadu, p.17. 274 Uranium Mines Pty Ltd of uranium deposits in the Northern Territory of Australia.965
The Inquiry was to examine development plans for several uranium deposits, but primarily that known as Ranger, on the East Alligator River, and adjacent to the then Woolwonga Aboriginal Reserve and Wildlife Sanctuary.966 This Commission of Inquiry was subsequently also commissioned by the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs under Section 11(2) of the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act 1976 to determine a land claim by Aboriginal people in the region, operating de jure as an Aboriginal Land Commissioner. The Inquiry was complex, but in essence
• upheld the Aboriginal Land Claim to unalienated Crown Land in the Kakadu region;
• advised that Aboriginal objections to uranium mining, including mining within the area successfully claimed, “should not be allowed to prevail”; and
• recommended the creation of what would be Kakadu National Park.967
The problem confronting the RAC’s Commissioners, in terms of Aboriginal issues, was superficially similar to that faced by the Ranger Uranium Environmental Inquiry. The differences between the circumstances lie not in the content of the cases, but in how the power of key players affected the way in which a solution was reached.
The nature of the case confronting the Conservation Zone Inquiry on Aboriginal matters echoes almost exactly that of the Ranger Inquiry over a decade earlier:
The evidence before us shows that the traditional owners of the Ranger site and the Northern Land Council (as now constituted) are opposed to the mining of uranium on that site... Some Aboriginals had at an earlier stage approved, or at least not disapproved, the proposed development, but it seems likely that they were not then as fully informed about it as they later became... They have a justifiable
965 As cited in Ranger Uranium Environmental Inquiry, 1976. Ranger Uranium Environmental Inquiry First Report, p.1. 966 Ranger Uranium Environmental Inquiry, 1977. Ranger Uranium Environmental Inquiry Second (Final) Report, p.16. 967 Ranger Uranium Environmental Inquiry, 1977. Ranger Uranium Environmental Inquiry Second (Final) Report, p.9. 275 complaint that plans for mining have been allowed to develop as far as they have without the Aboriginal people having an adequate opportunity to be heard...
There can be no compromise with the Aboriginal position; either it is treated as conclusive, or it is set aside. We are a tribunal of white men and any attempt on our part to state what is a reasonable accommodation of the various claims and interests can be regarded as white men’s arrogance, or paternalism.968
The nature and intensity of the conflicting claims were similar for the two Inquiries: a ‘three-cornered contest’ between mining, with its attendant revenue and Northern Territory regional development benefits; conservation of an internationally significant area with attendant decisions to be made about Park declaration; and Aboriginal issues, including the questions of how to tackle community disadvantage, social problems, and unemployment.
So what, in policy terms, were the differences between the situations facing the two Inquiries? There were at least three differences. First, the Ranger Inquiry was “required to make findings and recommendations and to report them to the Minister” and not merely report its findings.969 This meant in the Ranger case there was less focus on Cabinet as the decision-making forum, because most of the conflicts had been played out in the independent Commission’s hearings. The effect can be seen in the contrasting summary remarks. The Ranger Inquiry concluded:
We have given careful attention to all that has been put before us by [Aboriginal people] or on their behalf. In the end, we form the conclusion that their opposition should not be allowed to prevail.970
In contrast, the RAC stated in its discussion:
The dilemma facing the Australian Government is clear: should it set aside the environmental risks that cannot be eliminated and the strong views held by the Aboriginal people responsible for the Conservation Zone in favour of securing increases in national income of the order that seems likely from the Coronation Hill project and possibly from other mineral resources in the Zone?971
968 Ranger Uranium Environmental Inquiry, 1977. Ranger Uranium Environmental Inquiry Second (Final) Report, p.9. 969 Ranger Uranium Environmental Inquiry, 1976. Ranger Uranium Environmental Inquiry First Report, p.4, emphasis added. 970 Ranger Uranium Environmental Inquiry, 1977. Ranger Uranium Environmental Inquiry Second (Final) Report, p.9. 971 CZFR pp.xxiii-xxiv. 276 Second, it is likely that Aboriginal people had a lower public profile in urban Australia in the mid-1970s than they did in the period 1989-91. Following the bicentennial year, and with some Aboriginal self-determination and reconciliation policies in place, the climate of opinion is likely to have been different.972 As the RAC process focussed the final decision in Cabinet, there would have been greater sensitivity to the political implications of the decision for social justice, a fact that critics of the decision themselves acknowledged.973 But the third and perhaps most significant difference between the situation at the time of Ranger and that of Coronation Hill was the legal framework for Aboriginal policy in Australia generally, and in the Northern Territory in particular.
The legal protection available to the Jawoyn at the time of the Coronation Hill issue took three main forms. These were
• regulation of access to sacred sites registered under the Aboriginal Sacred Sites (NT) Act 1978;
• protection of threatened areas under the Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Heritage Protection Act 1984;
• rights (though not a right of veto) available through a land claim under theAboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act 1976; and
• a separate legal question about the validity of the leases held by the miners (a property rights question not affected by Aboriginal actions, but about which the Jawoyn would have been aware).
In 1985 a sacred site known as the Upper South Alligator Bula Complex was registered under the Aboriginal Sacred Sites (NT) Act 1978. That site encompasses the Sickness Country: the region associated with the Bula story and cult, and including Guratba. Under the Act, a certificate must be granted by what is now the Aboriginal Areas Protection Authority for someone to conduct activities within areas so registered, and that consent must come originally from the Aboriginal custodians.974 Generally, therefore, CHJV needed permission under the Act in order to explore at Guratba, which they
972 Gruen and Grattan, 1993. Managing Government. Labor's Achievements and Failures; Rowse, 1994. Aborigines: Citizens and Colonial Subjects. 973 Brunton, 1991. Letter. 974 Parliament of Australia, 1988. The Potential of the Kakadu National Park Region; Resource Assessment Commission, 1990. Kakadu Conservation Zone Inquiry Background Paper. 277 obtained.975 By the time of the Inquiry, however, it was far from clear that such consent would continue to be made available, and there were a number of clear indications to the contrary.976 Though Stewart (accepting the arguments of Spiegelman QC, counsel assisting) points out that a refusal by the AAPA to issue a certificate can be overturned by the Minister responsible without giving reasons, it would be a contentious act.977 The Jawoyn had, therefore, some protection under the Aboriginal Sacred Sites (NT) Act.
Quite separate to this protection available under Northern Territory law, there exists also protection of Aboriginal areas under the Commonwealth’s Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Heritage Protection Act 1984. Such protection is available upon application if the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs is satisfied that there is a threat of injury or desecration.978 The Northern Land Council (NLC) had made such an application on behalf of the Jawoyn in respect of sites in the Bula Complex, as a result of the activities of the CHJV, and Justice Stewart had reported that “the Minister could be satisfied that a threat of injury or desecration” existed if the Commonwealth Government allowed mining or exploration anywhere in the Conservation Zone, in his report made under Section 10(4) of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Heritage Protection Act.979 This thus gave Aboriginal people, through the Commonwealth Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, an opportunity to seek prevention of the mining project regardless of the Cabinet decision based on the RAC’s report, and independently of protection under the Northern Territory law.
Finally, Stage 3 of Kakadu National Park was claimed by the Jawoyn under the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act 1976. This claim was lodged in 1987, but had not been heard at the time of the Conservation Zone Inquiry. Were that claim to be (as ultimately it proved to be) successful, certain existing rights (such as mining rights) would be preserved, however it was not entirely clear how this would affect the Coronation Hill project, nor other developments in the area, especially following amendment of the Land Rights legislation.980
975 Dames & Moore, 1988. Coronation Hill Gold, Platinum & Palladium Project Draft Environmental Impact Statement; Resource Assessment Commission, 1990. Kakadu Conservation Zone Inquiry Background Paper. 976 CZFR2. 977 Stewart, 1991. Report to the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs on the Kakadu Conservation Zone, under the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Heritage Protection Act 1984, pp.47-49. 978 CZFR2. 979 Stewart, 1991. Report to the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs on the Kakadu Conservation Zone, under the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Heritage Protection Act 1984, p.29. 980 The relevant amending legislation comprised the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Amendment Act (No.2) 1987, Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Amendment Act 278 The effect however appeared to be that if the land in the Conservation Zone were to become Aboriginal land, certain Commonwealth authorities would be required for mining to continue, including one governing payments to Aboriginal owners under Section 48D of the Land Rights Act. This would have given the traditional custodians some control over the conditions under which CHJV operated (and have reduced the profitability of the mine to the venture partners).
There thus existed at least three legal avenues for the Jawoyn to pursue in their bid to have the Coronation Hill project prevented or significantly altered, none of which depended on an executive decision following the RAC’s Report. On top of all this were legal doubts (ultimately vindicated) about the validity of the Mining Lease covering the Coronation Hill site.981
Indeed, this range of legal protections available to the Jawoyn described above, most of which were not available to the indigenous occupants of the Alligator River region at the time of the Ranger Inquiry, may have directly influenced the government’s decision to refer the issue to the RAC, as well as having a significant bearing on the final Cabinet decision to shut mining out of the Conservation Zone.982
There had thus been a significant change in the underlying structure of power affecting natural resources policy between the 1970s and the period in which Coronation Hill was being dealt with. Superficially, the prevalence of Aboriginal considerations in the final Cabinet decision was considered the product of fortuitous circumstances rather than of any solid support for the
(No.3) 1987, and Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Amendment Act 1989 (Act number 2 of 1990). 981 Newcrest Mining (WA) Ltd v. The Commonwealth of Australia (1997) FC97/036 Online: http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/cases/cth/high_ct/unrep339.html, accessed November 1998. 982 The one legal avenue for protection available to both Aboriginal communities - the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act - did not apply in the same manner in each case. The Ranger Inquiry, while acting in the role of Aboriginal Land Commissioner as well as a Commission under the Environmental Protection legislation, was primarily concerned with balancing a wide range of competing claims, and the determination of the veracity of the land claim and recommendation to the Minister was but a part of this, however faithfully pursued. This is nowhere more evident than in the Ranger Inquiry’s treatment of the boundary of the Mt Brockman sacred sites in the area between the Ranger uranium deposit and Mt Brockman. The Inquiry discusses the location of the boundary requested by the NLC not with reference to the distance from Mt Brockman (as might be expected, given that the anthropologists cited in the Report talk in terms of such distance), but with reference to the location of the uranium ore bodies. See Ranger Uranium Environmental Inquiry, 1977. Ranger Uranium Environmental Inquiry Second (Final) Report, p.284. 279 RAC’s findings. Hawke happened to be sympathetic to Aboriginal issues, and was able, due to Keating’s just-failed leadership challenge, to impose his preferred option on Cabinet.983 In reality Aboriginal people were in a far stronger position than this. Aboriginal people did not need to rely on Hawke’s goodwill in order to have considerable leverage on the Cabinet decision. That position of strength, however, had little to do with the RAC. As some Ministers who were reported to oppose mining would have known (Attorney- General Duffy for example) the Jawoyn had a number of legal defences available that could have allowed them to fend off mining for years, perhaps indefinitely.984 Cabinet thus in reality faced much less of a choice than at first glance. Given this fact, and the kudos to be gained in environmental terms by declaring the area National Park, there was little point in reaching any decision other than that which was eventually taken. What the RAC had found out did not in any way change this equation.
That the motive to regime change in the resources sector was a change in the underlying structure of power is thus evidenced both by the rise of the environmental movement and by the range of legal avenues available to Aboriginal people. The RAC essentially was irrelevant to any such shifts in the structure of power. It was nowhere near as important to the outcome for Aboriginal people as was widely claimed at the time.985 And environmentalists and miners alternated between participating in the Inquiry process, attacking the Commission, and ignoring it.986 The government was concerned with procedural reforms; reforms that might have reduced the risk of exogenous shocks by increasing industry intelligence and the extent of research, or might have advised the government on how to alter procedures to deal with internal contradictions in resource allocation (as it ineffectively tried to do in the area of forest policy). But the RAC was of little consequence when it came to the forces
983 Hawke, 1991. The effect on the Jawoyn outweighs economic benefit; Kelly, 1992. The End of Certainty; Seccombe, 1991. Hawke wins Kakadu fight; Trioli, 1991. Coronation Hill may be PM's answer to his son. Surprisingly, one of the consultants on Aboriginal issues, Ian Keen also later put this view of the Cabinet decision. Keen, 1993. Aboriginal Beliefs vs. Mining at Coronation Hill: The Containing Force of Traditionalism. 984 CZFR2. A few of the media reports mentioned the potentially troubled legal path of an attempt to approve the Coronation Hill mine, through court challenges based on the outcome of the 10(4) Inquiry: Larkin, 1991. Cabinet tipped to block Kakadu mine; Seccombe, 1991. Coronation Hill report due today. 985 Brunton, 1991. Hostage to a Bula Legend; Hartcher, 1991. Bob Versus Bob in Five-Hour Bula Session; Milne, 1991. A Sacred Site Littered With Landmines; Peake, 1991. PM Backs Aborigines on Mining; Taylor, 1991. Coronation Hill Test for Sacred Sites. 986 anon, 1990. Kakadu Boycott; Cleary, 1990. Mining Body Slates Kakadu Inquiry; Kelly, 1992. The End of Certainty; Wallace, 1989. Scepticism on Role of New Commission. 280 that were driving any resources regime change at the end of the 80s: sources that concerned the distribution of power amongst ‘stakeholders’.
While the RAC was not able to enhance policy outcomes in the new volatile environment of natural resources politics, the IC and its predecessors had a long history of being the premier vehicle which translated the exogenous shocks of global economic change into strategic directions for Australian industry policy.
This role dated back to the 1932 United Kingdom-Australia Trade Agreement, under which
the Australian Government agreed that no new duty would be imposed on United Kingdom goods before the [Tariff] Board had made a recommendation, and that no new duty would be imposed and no existing duty would be increased on United Kingdom goods to an amount in excess of that recommended by the Tariff Board.987
This put the Board in the box seat for influencing trade policy, a position it used to its advantage on many later occasions. These initiatives, particularly in the late 1960s, and then in the late 1980s and early 1990s were always influenced by a concern about the structure of the Australian economy and its capacity to deal with the global economic environment. Bell argues the Tariff Board, and then the IAC “sought to realign the economy according to what it saw as the imperatives of Australia’s comparative economic advantages.”988 The fact that the Tariff Board was constituted
as a ‘disinterested’ adviser also enhanced the Board’s authority and independence, since it allowed the Board (and later the IAC) to consistently present its case in terms of defending the ‘community’s interest’ in the face of special interest subversion.989
This autonomy is reflected in the IC’s reports contemporaneous with those of the RAC. Its analysis of the source of Australia’s problems focussed on domestic policy settings that were inappropriate because of international economic forces, and industry reforms overseas. For example, the Treasurer, announcing the restructuring of the IAC as the IC, stated
987 Rattigan, 1986. Industry Assistance. The Inside Story, p.4. 988 Bell, 1993. Australian Manufacturing and the State. The Politics of Industry Policy in the Post-war Era., p.49. 989 Bell, 1993. Australian Manufacturing and the State. The Politics of Industry Policy in the Post-war Era., p.65. 281 As an institution the IAC has been an important force, building community awareness of the need for Australian industry to be outward looking and internationally competitive.
...the IC will build community awareness of the need for structural economic change.990
The new IC reported
Growth in Australia’s material standard of living has not kept pace with that of other nations...
In recent years, productivity increases and favourable movements in the terms of trade have worked together to lift our capacity to raise living standards. But the constraints that the Australian economy currently faces leave us particularly vulnerable to a turnaround in world commodity prices...
We do not have much influence over world prices. To reduce our vulnerability we need to take urgent and sustained action to raise our productivity performance.991
The IC always discussed Australian conditions in the first person plural, which emphasised its point that the policy questions concerned the public interest in response to external pressures.
The following year it argued
Australia has very little choice but to push on with broadly-based reforms to improve efficiency if we are to maintain and improve our trade shares and enhance our standard of living.992
A year later the language was less authoritarian, but the message was the same:
More than a decade ago, the Commonwealth Government recognised that Australians could only secure a better long-term future by opening the economy to the rest of the world and confronting the challenges and opportunities in global markets.
With a more open economy, world economic conditions and Australia’s ability to improve its productivity performance are of critical importance for our prosperity.993
990 Cited in Industries Assistance Commission, 1989. Annual Report 1988-89, p.15. 991 Industry Commission, 1990. Annual Report 1989-90, p.3. 992 Industry Commission, 1992. Annual Report 1991-92, p.6. 993 Industry Commission, 1993. Annual Report 1992-93, p.1. 282 In this report, the Commission drew attention not only to international competition and productivity pressures, but also to globalisation of the financial system:
The competitive challenge for Australia is being accentuated by the increasing international mobility of financial capital. Not only are Australian firms competing to match price and quality on world product markets, they must also compete to attract capital to finance investment.994
While there are distributive consequences of policies advocated by the IC, it was always able to argue a case based on the national interest and put that case in terms of Australia’s need to adapt to the conditions of the global economy. In the Mining and Minerals Processing Report for example it said
An underlying thrust of this report is to address the issue of how Australia could sell more mineral resource based products...
Current government policies toward exploration, mining and minerals processing activities are not ‘clever’. It is not clever to erect a whole array of impediments to one of the few industries in which Australia enjoys a clear advantage relative to many of our competitors.995
Occasionally the IC found itself dealing with issues where industry internal problems were as important as international economic forces:
The major task of fishing industry management at the Commonwealth level has been to reduce the level of effort in fisheries relative to the level which developed previously, particularly under open access.996
This was different to the Commission’s usual focus on exogenous forces. Here - and in other environmentally oriented Inquiries - the IC found itself dealing with sustained yield and over-allocation questions.997 The way the Commission dealt with these was essentially by treating these as structural adjustment problems to be analysed in a benefit-cost framework. In doing so it could bring its existing analytical approach to bear on these problems with little difficulty.
994 Industry Commission, 1993. Annual Report 1992-93, p.5. 995 Industry Commission, 1991. Mining and Mineral Processing in Australia, V.1, p.xi, emphasis added. 996 Industry Commission, 1992. Cost Recovery for Managing Fisheries, p.xiv. 997 See eg. Industry Commission, 1991. Recycling; Industry Commission, 1992. Water Resources and Waste Water Disposal Inquiry Report. 283 All of these cases however dealt with either international economic pressures or problems within an industry, in stark contrast to the RAC’s need to deal with shifts in the domestic political balance in response to the pressure of groups of people holding competing value systems. Explaining the difference between the IC and RAC
I would summarise the main differences between the IC and the RAC, identified in the preceding analysis, in the terms described in Table 9.8. 284
Table 9.8 The differences between the Resource Assessment Commission and the Industry Commission.
Aspect The RAC The IC
Availability and 3 expensive inquiries by an 38 modest inquiries plus efficiency of use of organisation with a other reports by a resources declining funding base growing organisation
Independence / heavily dependent on no requirement for authority in its field expensive outside expertise outside expertise
technical competence good reputation in questioned research
biased in favour of critical of witnesses from conservation-oriented both ‘sides’ of debate in witnesses in CZ Inquiry Mining Inquiry
Leadership weak, controversial, from strong, located in senior outside public service public service tradition
Key problems in its structure of power amongst primarily exogenous policy area interests; competing value forces of international systems economy
Ability of low; moderate in Coronation high, though moderate in Commonwealth to Hill case (but legal issues area of microeconomic respond to limited its ability in this reform Commission case) suggestions
Concentration of authority relatively authority relatively authority over dispersed concentrated policy issues
The pattern described in this Chapter and summarised in Table 9.8 above explains why the RAC was terminated. It shows a pattern of differences not revealed by Cuthbertson’s description of the two institutions. Despite the formal, legal similarities, the two bodies were separated by many features. What these features have in common is that they all relate directly to what institutionally-focussed theorists predict as being the keys to effective state action and effective policy regimes. These can be summarised in points.
First, policy innovations must bring stability to a policy arena, through convergent expectations amongst participants in the policy regime. It is not 285 that players have to get their way. They must however have a clear understanding of the ‘rights and rules’ of the regime, and how they will be applied.998 Yet even the defenders of the RAC argued it could not bring great clarity to the natural resources area. Lowe’s rather odd endorsement of the RAC was:
The only criticism of the RAC I have been able to find is that it didn’t deliver simple, clear recommendations. But that was its real strength.999
Regime theory correctly predicts however that a lack of clarity will be a problem. The RAC was not only unable to bring predictability to the natural resources area, it was irrelevant to the problems that the policy regime was designed to solve. Statutory authorities are good at translating exogenous forces into domestic policy prescriptions, as was demonstrated by the IC. The RAC however was confronting domestic shifts in the underlying structure of power which an advisory Commission could do little to address. The experience of the RAC shows that regime theory gives us important insights not only to the international resource regimes it was originally designed to address,1000 but to domestic cases such as Australian Commonwealth mining policy.
The second message that emerges from this comparison of the RAC and the IC is that reform of the state apparatus must deliver sufficient autonomy and capacity to achieve the desired goal. What the ‘institutional reform’ advocates (like Mercer) say they want is strong state institutions to lead changes in direction. In this regard we can see the IC met the kinds of conditions that Atkinson & Coleman, and Skocpol both associate with high capacity and autonomy, in contrast to the RAC, which did not.1001 The IC was expertly led, talking to the right level of government in a federal system, independent in its treatment of stakeholders, and entirely self-contained in terms of relevant expertise. The RAC was poorly led, talking mostly to the wrong level of government in a federal system, biased in favour of conservation-oriented stakeholders, and heavily reliant on outside expertise, both at the technical and leadership levels. The RAC therefore was a low autonomy, low capacity
998 Young, 1982. Resource Regimes. Natural Resources and Social Institutions. 999 Lowe, 1993. Queensland Moves Into Space. 1000 Young, 1981. Natural Resources and the State: The Political Economy of Resource Management. 1001 Atkinson and Coleman, 1989. The State, Business And Industrial Change In Canada; Atkinson and Coleman, 1992. Policy Networks, Policy Communities and the Problems of Governance; Skocpol, 1985. Bringing the State Back In. 286 institution, which was exactly what the literature suggests is not needed to deal with demands for state-led organisational change.
Each Chapter of this thesis has examined a different approach to addressing environmental concerns in the context of natural resources decision-making. This particular Chapter has been concerned with the (relatively diverse) literature that has emphasised institutional reform as a path to natural resources policy reform. What it has shown is that the apparent failure of the RAC demonstrates that what is important is not institutional reform but the right institutional reform. The IC was relatively successful in its operation. In delivering a natural resources policy equivalent that dealt with environmental issues, what was needed was not the RAC but a reform that delivered the stability that Young says is the point of policy regimes, and the appropriate levels of capacity and autonomy, emphasised by both statist theory of Skocpol and policy network theory of Atkinson and Coleman. In the final Chapter, I try to bring these insights together with those of previous Chapters, to ask what, overall, does the use of the Coronation Hill case tell us about the application of policy theories to environmental issues in the natural resources area. 287 Chapter 10 Conclusion
This thesis has used the technique of analytic induction to examine aspects of policy theory relevant to addressing the rise of environmental issues in natural resources decision-making. Four theoretical approaches to the problem were examined: neo-liberal, ecological, radical, and institutional. In this concluding Chapter conclusions about the Coronation Hill / RAC case, as well as an overview of the implications of the study for environmental policy study, will be presented.
There are three levels then at which inferences are made in this conclusion. These are:
1. about the RAC;
2. about a typology of policy problems; and
3. about the existence of ‘the environment’ as an issue, what it means to react to the rise of ‘environmentalism’, and how this might be further explored. The abolition of the RAC: a predictable policy outcome
Drawing on the neo-liberal analysis, the institutional analysis, and to some extent the ecological analysis, I argue that the abolition of the RAC was predictable. While the explanation of the RAC’s demise offered in historically specific terms by Economou is not exactly wrong, it misses the systemic factors that mean it was destined to fail.1002 The reasons it was doomed can be summarised thus:
• The RAC could not be an effective neo-liberal institution because Coasian & Pigouvian techniques could not be effectively applied to the sorts of issues the RAC was charged with addressing (Chapters 5 & 6);
1002 Economou, 1996. Australian Environmental Policy Making in Transition: the Rise and Fall of the Resource Assessment Commission. 288 • the RAC could not be an ecological institution because there is not really such a thing, as ecological issues are not distinct in nature (in a policy sense) from other issues (Chapter 7); and
• the RAC was the wrong sort of institution to do the type of job asked of it, especially given the power relationships at work in its operating environment (Chapter 9).
What this suggests is that, for example, had Hawke remained Prime Minister, the RAC would have collapsed just as surely as it did under Keating. Likewise, it would not have mattered whether environmental issues had remained as electorally important in the 1993 election as they had been in the 1990 election.1003
While the analyses of Chapters 4, 5, 6 & 9 allow me to suggest a more systemic explanation of the RAC’s failure than offered by Economou, it also allows me to explicitly reject the superficial explanation offered by Lowe, and Stewart & McColl, who essentially claimed that the RAC was abolished because what it said was what the government did not want to hear.1004 Had they been right, the IC would have been as doomed as the RAC, and the RAC more scathingly attacked by politicians than was the case. The bottom line was rather that, whichever way you looked at it in policy terms, the RAC made no sense. Environmental issues and policy responses
The analysis presented in this thesis has not, however, been undertaken primarily with an explanation of the RAC’s fate in mind. It was primarily directed toward speculating about which of the ideas reviewed had more to offer in the field of natural resources policy-making.
Having looked at these ideas, I would start by observing that I am partly dealing not so much with different answers as different questions.1005 Ecological analysis for example is not an approach exclusive of the position advocated by institutional innovators. In that case, what I have effectively done is to refute the ecological position (that ecological problems require a special ecological policy response), and then in the institutional Chapter dealt with the question of appropriate general institutional responses to
1003 Bean et al., 1990. The Greening of Australian Politics: the 1990 Federal Election. 1004 Stewart and McColl, 1994. The Resource Assessment Commission: An Inside Assessment. 1005 Allison, 1971. Essence of Decision. 289 environmental issues, having set aside the idea that what are needed are specific ones.
My observations from previous Chapters with respect to natural resources policy responses to environmental questions can be summarised thus:
1. Ecological analysis offers little help in understanding or designing policy responses to ecological problems because, whatever the merits of environmental science, the inferences drawn about the special nature of environmental issues are invalid because they are not drawn in comparison with any other type of issue.
2. Both Coasian and Pigouvian techniques may well assist decision-making, but they require certain conditions to be met. The most important one is that there have to be agreed definitions of things - owners, rights, preferences - whereas many environmental issues - including Coronation Hill - are situations in which this definitional stability is unavailable. In fact it is often these definitions that are in dispute.
3. Neo-Marxist analysis cannot help us understand environmental policy choices unless those choices can be understood in structural, class terms - one must, in short, be able to predict whether protecting the environment is good or bad for business. There may well be cases where such classification is possible, but issues such as Coronation Hill do not fall into this category.
4. Institutional analysis is very useful for explaining appropriate institutional design - and that the RAC’s design was a bad one.
Of the four approaches explored in this thesis, the institutional has had the most to offer in terms of understanding the RAC’s poor performance, but all have contributed something to understanding possible responses to the rise of environmental concerns in natural resources decision-making.
The remaining purpose of this conclusion is to try and generate some more general accounts of natural resources policy issues using the insights that have been generated in this thesis, for future investigation. This will involve two lines of argument: first the suggestion of a typology of policy issues; and second, the problematisation of the very idea that there can be such a thing as ‘environmental policy’. 290 Environmental issues and a typology of policy
As noted in the section above, the institutional approach had the most value in explaining the Coronation Hill case history, but the other approaches were not without interest. Specifically, some environmental issues may be suitable for resolution using neoliberal policy approaches, though Coronation Hill was not such a case. A radical analysis likewise did not work in the Coronation Hill case, not because such an analysis never works, but because it works only if a policy proposal can be clearly understood as anti- (or pro-) capital. What I now suggest is that it may be possible to classify policy problems based on these two insights, creating a classification of issues of which the Coronation Hill case represents but one type. The variables, based on the preceding observations, are
• whether the origins of conflict lie in disputes about the ends of policy: that is, whether they are conflicts between values; and
• whether the cleavage of interests is between capital and labour.
The next sections outline each of these two variables, followed by some discussion of the typology they create. The origins of conflict: means and ends
Both the neoliberal analyses and the institutional analysis suggested there were different situations in policy-making including those where there are competing values defining interests, and those where there are not. In the previous Chapter I used the contrast between the RAC and the IC to identify circumstances or conditions in which institutional reform could help solve a policy problem. One factor that was discussed was the nature of the force that was driving the reform. In the case of the IC it was international economic change - what Young refers to as an “exogenous force”.1006 The RAC however was in a situation where it was dealing with competing views about how a resource base should be managed, and the impetus to reform was therefore not exogenous, but endogenous. That is, it was not an external influence, but a shift in the balance of power between competing internal forces. In the conclusion to the Chapter, I suggested that an ‘independent’ (statutory) organisation with investigative and advisory powers (such as were both the
1006 Young, 1982. Resource Regimes. Natural Resources and Social Institutions. 291 RAC and the IC) was well-suited to addressing exogenous forces, but ill-suited to coping with the political conflict confronting the RAC.
What is striking is the similarity between this general problem that frustrated the RAC, and the specific manifestation of it implied in Chapters 5 & 6. In Chapter 5, I argued that a host of problems associated with the RAC’s use of CV could be traced to the inappropriate nature of a neo-liberal framework for addressing moral questions. CV could only be used when agreement could be secured on the nature of the good to be valued, the appropriate group of people who were the valuers, a model for their behaviour, and so on. Because of the political and value-based conflict associated with issues like Coronation Hill, these conditions could not be met, so the application of Pigouvian aids to decision-making failed.
There were similar ontological problems with Coasian, or property rights methods. I argued that you cannot use property rights solutions to environmental problems unless there is some level of agreement about how to define, and then on what basis to distribute, the rights. For free market environmentalists, there is an objective: that of ensuring “an optimum allocation of resources”. Chant observed
Greens suffer from the problem of ‘misplaced concreteness’. This leads them to attack specific problems without a coherent framework specifying the objective that is being pursued...
The strength of economics is in establishing criteria: a given activity should be extended up to a point beyond which the activity provides benefits smaller than the alternatives being sacrificed.1007
However as was shown in Chapter 6, these criteria were fundamentally in dispute. Thus again, in a situation like Coronation Hill, a property rights framework could not assist the decision-making process. Thus this was a case where not means, but ends were in dispute. It was a case where value systems clashed: both in valuing conservation, and in the claiming of rights to land.
This implication can be drawn also from the work on ecological analysis. The main point of Chapter 7 (on the ecological analysis of Dryzek and others) was to suggest that environmental policy problems are not so distinct that they require special and prior attention before other issues are addressed. Also implicit in Dryzek’s work, however, is a version of the same idea underpinning
1007 Chant et al., 1991. The Economics of the Green Society, p.65, order modified. 292 both Pigouvian and Coasian approaches: that the objective of a policy solution is in some sense unproblematic. In the case of Dryzek, the objective of policies is environmental protection. For him this is a necessary precondition of life, and therefore must be an accepted pre-condition of policy.1008 Having (he believes) demonstrated this, he has established an agreed end to which policy is directed.
In essence, then, all these lines of analysis converge on one point: none of these approaches to dealing with environmental issues in the context of natural resources policy are designed to cope with the central feature of the Coronation Hill issue: disagreement about ends. Ecological analysis, Pigouvian analysis, Coasian analysis - all make the mistake of Buchanan who thought that
for matters of ordinary politics, the question is not one of truth or falsity of alternatives. The problem is one of resolving individual differences of preferences into results, which it is misleading to call true or false,1009 a statement that can only be made true by defining much of what politics is about as “extraordinary”. Instead, I would suggest that some of politics may be about resolving individual preference differences, while other politics is about resolving clashes of values. My emphasis on this feature of some environmental issues reflects the growing importance being attached to the moral or normative dimension of policy and politics in a range of recent discussions. These have included Yandle’s discussion of environmental regulation,1010 Adam’s work on risk,1011 and Lowi’s recent work on types of social policy.1012
While Lowi’s discussion points out how mainstream and radical discourses create different forms of debate about a single type of issue, this study suggests that a clash between discourses in itself creates a distinctive policy dynamic.
1008 Dryzek, 1987. Rational Ecology: Environment and Political Economy. 1009 Buchanan, 1978. From Private Preferences to Public Philosophy: The Development of Public Choice, p.5. 1010 Yandle, 1989. The Political Limits of Environmental Regulation: Tracking the Unicorn. 1011 Adams, 1995. Risk: the policy implications of risk compensation and plural rationalities. 1012 In Tatalovich and Daynes, 1988. Social Regulatory Policy: Moral Controversies in American Politics. 293 The cleavage of interests: capital versus labour?
The second of the key variables I have suggested that distinguishes the different types of environmental (and other) policy problem derives from neo- Marxist analysis. I suggested, based on the outcome of the neo-Marxist analysis, that environmental issues may not be issues that involve competition between capital and labour.
There are some issues, whether moral (eg. child labour) or allocative (eg. wages policy/setting), that are fundamentally about the balance of benefits accruing to employees versus employers, labour versus capital. Some issues which we might class as ‘environmental’ are likewise characterised by a capital/labour cleavage of interests: environmental health issues which involve implementing safe (and perhaps costly) work practices and technologies are the example that comes most readily to mind.
However, there are other issues, whether moral (eg. legalisation of cannabis use) or allocative (eg. assigning radio station licences), for which the fundamental cleavage of interests is not that between labour and capital, even though these issues are certainly characterised by competition between interests. Coronation Hill would appear to belong in this category.
When it comes to environmental issues, this is not surprising. A wide range of studies have, as I mentioned in the conclusion to Chapter 8, emphasised the business advantages of trading in green markets, of being an environmentally proactive corporation, and of selling a green image.1013 There are also studies which have shown there is little competitive advantage to be gained from trying to force environmental standards down for manufacturing companies.1014 These studies serve to emphasise the aspects of environmentalism that can be ‘pro-capital’.
At the same time, even those studies that downplay the problems of environmental degradation posed by footloose industry indicate there are industry sectors in which environmental regulation appears to be anti-capital
1013 Including for example Grabosky, 1995. Governing at a Distance: Self-Regulating Green Markets; Gunningham, 1994. Proactive Environmental Management: Business and Regulatory Strategies; Kinlaw, 1993. Competitive and Green. Sustainable Performance in the Environmental Age. 1014 Clark, 1995. Global Competition and Environmental Regulation: Is the 'Race to the Bottom' Inevitable?; Low, 1992. International Trade and the Environment; Stewart, 1993. Environmental Regulation and International Competitiveness; Vogel, 1995. Trading Up. Consumer and Environmental Regulation in a Global Economy; Vogel, 1997. Trading Up and Governing Across: Transnational Governance and Environmental Protection. 294 because it unambiguously raises production costs. Examples of such industries include aluminium production, pulp & paper, and some metals processing.1015 Further, there are environmental conflicts that have explicitly set labour against capital, in areas as diverse as workplace safety issues, urban redevelopment, and forestry.1016
There are thus policy issues in general, and environmental ones in particular, in which the main differences of interest can be distinguished as occurring along labour-capital lines. But others are not able to be so characterised. A typology of policy problems
In summary, there are two dimensions to consider: the cleavage of interests, and the premise of disagreement. Having identified two dimensions on which policy issues differ, I would speculate that policy issues - including environmental issues - could fall into any one of categories that arise from combining these two variables (Table 10.1). A possible interpretation of the Coronation Hill conflict, consistent with the evidence I have presented in the previous Chapters, is that it was a normative dispute, but not one marked primarily by capital-labour conflict.
Table 10.1 A typology of policy issues, and the Coronation Hill case.
Origins of conflict between principal interests
Principal cleavage normative: ends at dispute / distributional: means at of interests value conflict central dispute / value conflict peripheral capital versus labour not capital versus Coronation Hill labour
1015 anon, 1996. Environmental Regulation Forcing Off-Shore Investment; Leonard, 1988. Pollution and the Struggle for World Product: Multinational Corporations, Environment, and International Comparative Advantage; Low and Yeats, 1992. Do "Dirty" Industries Migrate?; Lucas et al., 1992. Economic Development, Environmental Regulation and the International Migration of Toxic Industrial Pollution: 1960-1988; Ponting, 1985. The Impact of Public Policy on Locational Decision-Making by Industrial Firms. 1016 Burgmann and Burgmann, 1998. Green Bans, Red Union: Environmental Activism and the New South Wales Builders Labourers' Federation; Mundey, 1987. From Red to Green: Citizen-Worker Alliance. 295 Issues are not immutable in their placement in such a classification: issues do not have some objective nature. How they are approached depends on what aspects of the issue come to the fore, and how groups interpret policy options and understand their own interests. Indeed, Lowi made a similar observation in his discussion of the types of social regulatory policy.1017 I will briefly use two examples to make this point.
The first example concerns the permeable nature of the distinction between labour-capital and non-labour-capital disputes. The world heritage listing of the Wet Tropics was clearly about competing ends: should biologically diverse and internationally recognised forests be logged in any way and provide a renewable resource base, or are such uses (or indeed any uses) inconsistent with trying to protect such an area? This was a fundamental dispute about what nature is for. But it could also be interpreted as a dispute about sustainable versus unsustainable forestry, with ‘sustainable’ defined broadly to include protection of biological values as well as maintenance of the resource base. If this had been the primary dispute, the issue could have become cast as one of labour (maximising timber workers’ jobs) versus capital (maximising profit from the forest). As it happens, however, this was not how the issue developed.1018 There were however other cases, including periods in forest disputes in NSW and Tasmania, in which a dispute between environmentalists and the timber industry became a dispute between timber workers and woodchipping multinationals.
The second, related example, concerns the blurring of ends and means-based disputes. Resource security legisation was designed to provide security of access to specified State forests for logging companies at the same time as tightening environmental assessment processes prior to the granting of any such security. Environmental groups eventually rejected the scheme because they regarded the premises of the process as flawed.1019 In this sense it was a value-based conflict. But governments sought to portray the process as designed to provide the means to guarantee stringent environmental protection measures, both in the initial assessment of areas for logging, but also in the regulations under which corporations would have to conduct the logging.1020
1017 Lowi’s Foreword to Tatalovich and Daynes, 1988. Social Regulatory Policy: Moral Controversies in American Politics. 1018 Davis, 1992. Federal-State Tensions in Australian Environmental Management: the World Heritage Issue. 1019 Gill, 1991. Resource Security - A Leap Backwards. 1020 Parliament of Australia, 1991. Building a Competitive Australia. 296 Had environment groups trusted governments to at least want to deliver such outcomes, the dispute would have become one primarily about the means of managing the timber industry. Eventually, for different legal reasons, resource security did indeed become a contest - but between governments - over whether the legislative proposals were acceptable means for achieving sustainability in the timber industry. That is, while the environmentalists were engaged in an ends-based dispute, other interests were treating the same issue as a dispute about means.
Even the Coronation Hill issue was to a minor degree an issue about means: the RAC, OSS, NT Government and the miners were in dispute about the conditions, both technical and institutional, under which a mine could operate at the Coronation Hill site. Had the government permitted the project, this means-based conflict would have been more prominent. As it stood, however, the Coronation Hill issue was clearly primarily a dispute about ends.
Bearing in mind that I have said that issues are not immutable, I nevertheless would suggest that various sub-categories of what is generally referred to as environmental policy currently tend to occupy different quadrants in the scheme, along the lines suggested in Table 10.2:
Table 10.2 Classifying ‘environmental policy’ issues.
Principal origins of conflict between interests
Principal cleavage normative: ends at dispute / distributional: means at of interests value conflict central dispute / value conflict peripheral capital versus urban redevelopment environmental health and labour safety issues not capital versus wilderness preservation urban quality of life issues labour typical ‘green’ issues typical ‘brown’ issues
This approach helps to explain the distinction between ‘green’ and ‘brown’ issues. Comment on the preference of environment groups for dealing with ‘green’ issues, such as nature conservation and endangered species protection, has generally focussed on the idea that these issues are more ‘saleable’ to the public. It is easy to arouse public concern about icons like the koala than other 297 environmental concerns such as transport planning and air pollution. My analysis however suggests the symbolic representation of concerns is not the critical factor. Rather, it suggests conservation organisations tend to engage with issues in which value conflict is central. Not only is this observation consistent with the kind of issue on which green groups in countries like Australia and the US have focussed, it matches their own rhetoric of commitment to paradigm change and of “no compromise in defence of mother earth”.1021
The typology is consistent with the rejection of ecological analysis because while I constructed it using the insights from an environmental issue, it is a typology of policy issues in general. Any issue could be slotted into it. As I mentioned earlier, for example, telecommunications policy with respect to radio station licences may be classified as distributional, with interests not being split along capital/labour lines. The implications of this study therefore are for policy analysis in general, and not just the environmental area. In this way the thesis has contributed to policy studies more broadly.
The last implication I want to draw out in this discussion concerns the question, flagged in the introduction, of what is meant when we refer to ‘environmental policy’. Is there such a thing as ‘environmental policy’?
This thesis, through the rejection of the ecological analysis of Dryzek and the typology above, has problematised the notion of ‘environmental’ policy. It is my contention in this thesis that there is no such category. There may be an environmental ‘stance’, or environmental ‘values’, and there are certainly things that can be called ‘environmental issues’ in the policy world, because interest groups and governments define them thus. But they do not form a coherent policy category.
The difficulty in defining such a coherent category of ‘environmental’ policy is evident in the frequent reallocation and reorganisation of portfolio responsibilities between ‘Environment” and other Departments both at State and national levels of the Australian public sector. Yet despite the evidently troublesome nature of this ‘environment’ category, its use persists.
1021 The slogan of green NGO Earth First! 298 Analysis of the Coronation Hill case points to the possibility that environmental policy is better understood as a group of different types of issue. What they have in common is worth examining, but I would speculate - as my rejection of Dryzek’s argument suggests - that there are few features collectively exhibited by these diverse issues.
Thirty years of literature on environmental issues and green politics sought to articulate the nature of ecological concern as a coherent thing. It began with awareness of “the environmental crisis” and ended with the development of green political theory, and of environmentalism as ideology.1022 While these advances have been tremendously important, this study suggests that the characterising of issues as ‘environmental’ may, for policy purposes, obscure important features of those issues. In the case of Coronation Hill, the treatment of the issue as environmental served to conceal a key feature of the issue: the presence of value conflict, which made neo-liberal approaches to decision- making less relevant than for other issues that also might be classified as ‘environmental’. As I wrote in the introduction, it is in the conjunction of essence and decision that we can discern the theoretical significance of the case, and in this study it shows that it is not the fact that the case was environmental that was critical to its theoretical implications, but that it represented a site of non-class based value conflict.
The implication of this thesis for government treatment of ‘environmental’ issues is that they should be ‘mainstreamed’, with a focus on the nature of the conflict involved. Governments could spend less effort on dealing with the ecologically distinct nature of policy issues, and more on the aspects which those issues share with other issues having similar characteristics. This could mean fewer distinct environmental policy institutions, but greater environmental problem-solving capacities in existing institutions. This study also implies that an important first step in responding to the pressure to solve an ‘environmental’ problem is identifying the type and basis of conflict involved. This is vital because diverting an issue grounded in value conflict out of the overtly political arena (of Parliament and the executive) to a deliberative and advisory body like the RAC is unlikely to pay dividends.
This study’s conclusions also suggest links to some other themes in the policy literature, and it is with these I conclude.
1022 Paehlke, 1989. Environmentalism and the Future of Progressive Politics. 299 Where to from here?
The ideas presented in this conclusion at this point begin to ‘suffer’ from the research design. As I pointed out in Chapter 3, analytic induction is designed to refute and refine hypotheses, but there is no substitute for a larger N when confirmation of hypotheses is sought. Thus for example my suggestions about how to ‘classify’ different environmental issues, in Table 10.2, are speculative, as these different sorts of issue were not subjects of this thesis.
There are at least two directions worth taking at this point. They include first, examination of the relationship of my distinction between capital-labour-based and non-capital-versus-labour-based conflicts to other distinctions drawn in the literature, such as between ‘old’ and ‘new’ politics, or between risk society and ecologically modern society.1023 Second, the suggestion that ‘ecological problems’ are not distinctive (and that there is no coherent category of ‘environmental’ policy) bears scrutiny through a wider range of less detailed case studies, because of its controversial nature.
Overall, this thesis has contributed to the environmental policy field by describing and analysing the complexities of the Coronation Hill case, and examining the RAC and Coronation Hill within a range of contexts.
In Allison’s Essence of Decision the importance of moving beyond rational actor conceptions of decision-making was emphasised. For this thesis on Essence and Decision, analysis of the type of environmental issue (and by implication, of any policy issue) has forced itself into consideration. The nature of the issue has proved central to determining how it might be analysed and addressed. It is in this direction that future research should go.
1023 Beck, 1992. Risk Society: Towards a New Modernity (trans. Mark Ritter); Cohen, 1997. Risk Society and Ecological Modernisation. Alternative Visions for Post-Industrial Nations; Inglehart, 1977. The Silent Revolution; Janicke, 1990. State Failure; Paehlke, 1989. Environmentalism and the Future of Progressive Politics; Papadakis, 1991. Does the New Politics Have a Future?; Papadakis, 1993. Politics and the Environment: The Australian Experience; Papadakis, 1996. Environmental Politics and Institutional Change; Weale, 1992. The New Politics of Pollution. 300 Appendix A Summaries of Transcripts of RAC Conservation Zone & IC Mining and Minerals Processing Inquiry hearings
RAC Conservation Zone Inquiry
Date Location Witness(es) / Affiliation(s), if known page Commissioners numbers 22/5/90 Canberra Statement by 1-12 Justice Stewart 18/9/90 Darwin Statement by 13-18 Justice Stewart CE Palethorpe CHJV 18-62 JF Leckie CHJV as above, plus 62-70 P Rush BHP Minerals (CH) as above, plus 71-91 G Johnston BHP Gold WJ Fisher WG & EE Fisher P/L 91-107 CJP Tamblyn 108-119 19/9/90 Darwin NT Government 121-144 P Conran (Dept Law) N Jones (Dept Chief Minister) R Smith (CCNT) R Adams (Dept Mines & Energy) R Marlow (Dept Chief Minister) as above, plus NT Government 144-167 JG Renwick (Dept Law) as above, excl. NT Government 167-170 JG Renwick as above, plus NT Government 170-181 PJ Whitehead (CCNT) as above, plus NT Government 182-210 N Manger (Dept Minerals & Energy) 301 JL Ah Kit NLC 211-237 K Taylor M Neal 20/9/90 Darwin K Taylor NLC 239-252 M Neal P Bridgewater Australian National 252-294 AJ Press Parks and Wildlife PC Wellings Service GJW Webb G Webb PL 295-326 DJ Ritchie AAPA 326-337 AN Andersen Aust Entomological Soc 338-349 21/9/90 Darwin RM Fry OSS 351-361 GH Riley A Johnston as above, plus OSS 361-393 N Ashwath CL Humphrey 25/9/90 Canberra Statement by 394-399 chair DG Coleman Stockdale Prospecting 399-439 RW Braithwaite CSIRO Wildlife & 439-464 WJ Bond Ecology CSIRO Soils A Turner DASETT 464-506 C Gallagher 26/9/90 Canberra PJ Galvin AHC 508-554 SM Sullivan JM Flood AM Delahunt BP Walpole consulting geologist 554-571 A Georges Uni of Canberra, Applied 571-587 Ecology Group DP Faith CSIRO Wildlife & 587-596 Ecology 27/9/90 Canberra JL McIntosh AMIC 598-654 JD Ovington RSPCA Australia 655-666 CM Wright 20/11/90 UDP Falls R Lee Jawoyn people (the men) 668-703 and others Jawoyn people (mainly 704-737 women) P Joseph NT University 738-743 P Joseph NT University 743-752 R Lee Jawoyn Association 302 21/11/90 El Sherana L Ahlin Jawoyn employees of 755-785 A Andrews CHJV M Moreen L Ahlin IN CONFIDENCE 786-810 A Andrews 22/11/90 Darwin CS Harris Env Centre (NT) 814-859 R Crowe NT Confederation of 860-893 W Sarny Commerce & Industry 26/11/90 Brisbane M Krockenberger ACF 896-970 H Saddler G Larcombe D Foster P Brain I Dunn Independent Senator 970-983 JL McIntosh AMIC 984-1008 G Webb 4/12/90 Sydney J Hartwell Dept Primary Industries 1011-1035 S Irwin & Energy R Thieme T Waring ABARE 1036-1081 M Lawrence J Cairns P Hall Plutonic Resources 1081-1096 R Hawkes C Pederson MF Bell CRA 1096-1124 IG Gould 8/2/91 Darwin Statement by 1126-1133 Justice Stewart 2-3/4/91 NT CONFIDENTIAL 1134- 1165 3/4/91 Darwin M Dodson NLC 1167-1216 K Taylor B Midena M Wood WJ Fisher 1216-1246 P Conran NT Government 1246-1299 B Adams T Joyce L Dembski E Ganter R Ledgar ECNT 1300-1309 C Tamblyn 4/4/91 Darwin R Ledgar ECNT 1309-1332 M Krockenberger ACF 1333- 1349AA 303 8/4/91 ?Sydney L McIntosh AMIC 1351-1392 D Whitrow C Palethorpe CHJV 1393-1401 F Leckie G Johnston J Quinn S Davis Consultant (on his own 1401-1437 behalf) C Palethorpe CHJV 1438-1448 G Johnston R Levitus 1449-1452 I Keen Consultant to RAC 1453-1465 S Davis Consultant (on his own 1466-1468 behalf) F Merlan Consultant to RAC 1468-1486 F Merlan Consultants 1486-1495 R Levitus I Keen 9/4/91 Sydney F Merlan Consultant to RAC 1497-1532 G Johnson CHJV 1433-1561 F Leckie C Palethorpe F Merlan Consultant to RAC 1562-1574 R Levitus Consultant 1574-1588 D Vincent CIE 1589-1614 R Rose ABARE 1614-1629 T Waring M Lawrence S Salmon ACF 1629-1639 R Buckley Consultant to ACF C Palethorpe CHJV 1640-1681 304 Environmental Resource Valuation Workshop 14/2/91 Canberra Greg McColl RAC (Commissioner) 1-78 Clive Hamilton RAC (Research Branch) Peter McLennan Consultant G. Sherrington NBH Peko David Imber RAC (Research Branch) Ron Brunton Institute of Pub. Affairs Alan Moran Tasman Institute Foy Leckie CHJV Michael ACF Krockenberger Roger Rose ABARE Jeff Bennett Academic John Loomis Academic Michele Levine Roy Morgan Research Ralph Young CSIRO Russel Blamey Griffith University John Quiggan ABARE 305
IC Mining and Minerals Processing Inquiry
Date Location Witness(es) / Affiliation(s), if page Itema Commissioners known nos 4/4/90 Perth G McDonald AMIC 3-95 7/14/6 JL Macintosh R Knapp P Crowley J Clema 96-101 G Blackburn Association of 102-176 G Savell Mining & M Hunt Exploration M Minosora Companies (AMEC) P Brack B Welch 5/4/90 Perth R Meecham Trades & Labour 178-207 7/14/7 K Manley Council (WA) J Limerick WA Government 208-250 E Roberts (Depts Resource J Clarke Development; Mines M Meaton & Energy) R Pidgeon Curtin Uni 251-259 Technology P Lee WA Farmers 260-266 Federation 10/4/90 Darwin A Jackson NLC; Central Land 269-320 7/14/8 J Ah Kit Council (CLC) D Ross G Grough S Williams A Andrews 321-325 11/4/90 Darwin D Haigh ERA / Ranger 327-364 7/14/9 R Cleary P McNally R Manley M Jamieson Sydney Rainforest 365-374 Action Group S Jackson ECNT 375-415 I Eldridge T Vivian C Tamblyn 306 J Maley NT Government 416-449 N Manger D Scott J Hemphill L Lawrence Pine Creek 450-459 Community Council B Olver Nabarlek Mine 460-463 N Byrne consultant / Giants 464-474 Reef Mining 17/4/90 Canberra R Rutland BMR 476-491 7/14/10 G Battey H Morgan WMC 493-543 D Morley J Smith R Woodhall B Hare ACF 544-573 F Grey consultant to ACF C Gibbons CRA 574-629 M Rayner I Gould E Muir J Smith Electricity Supply 630-634 Association 19/4/90 Melb’ne JF Leckie CHJV 636-670 7/14/12 P Rush J Reynolds Victorian Chamber 671-688 of Mines R Mims etc Alcoa 689-732 23/4/90 Brisbane C Hemmings Consolidated Rutile 734-749 7/15/1 W Ziegelbauer Aboriginal Co- 750-761 ordinating Council M Pinnock Queensland 762-806 A Browne Chamber of Mines 24/4/90 Brisbane I McCauley Australian Coal 808-881 7/15/2 K Foots Association R McLeod D Porter C Klaasson R Druitt Queensland 882-891 N Davey Alumina M Purcell MIM 892-943 K Dredge P Freund J McIntyre 307 J Blackshaw Uni of Queensland 944-968 J White Landholders J Lambert Association 26/4/90 Sydney J Hannan NSW Coal 971- 7/15/3 M Hellicar Association 1015 D Porter P Davies M Cramsie Oakbridge 1016- R Ruston 1064 M Heath R Spratt Joint Coal Board 1065- N Farnsworth 1101 J Maitland United 1102- S Draper Mineworkers 1136 Federation R Dash Australian Collieries 1137- Staff Association 1143 27/4/90 Sydney A Reid CSIRO Minerals, 1145- Energy & 1165 Construction Division K Fermanis- NSW Department of 1166- Winward Minerals & Energy 1222 E Clark K Cavanagh Cement Industry 1223- J Trew Federation 1232 G Day M Wrench NSW Chamber of 1233- RJ Fraser Mines 1257 M Wrench Limestone 1258- B Denis Producers 1267 Association F Buining NCC (NSW) 1268- 1290 30/4/90 Sydney R Fry OSS 1292- 7/15/5 G Riley 1345 J Ellis BHP Utah / BHP 1346- Gold 1391 P Barnett Pasminco 1392- D McMahon 1420 C Hamdorf E Malone Normandy 1421- Resources 1435 T Gardner Denison Australia 1436- R Creelman 1448 308 J Quinlan Placer 1449- J Loney 1469 C Trainer B Guy 1/5/90 Sydney R Conlon Deloitte 1471- 7/15/6 International 1476 C Todd NSW Aboriginal 1477- Land Council 1494 M Ayre Tasmanian Chamber 1495- I Satchwell of Mines 1533 L Newnham Keith Muir Total Environment 1534- Centre (TEC) 1558 JL McIntosh AMIC 1559- R Knapp 1591 P Crowley T Conway et alb gold industry 1592- representatives & 1622 stockbrokers 2/5/90 Sydney J Sinclair Fraser Island 1624- Defenders 1648 Organisation M Thiedeman Greenpeace 1649- C 1672 O’Faircheallaigh AV Barker miner 1673- 1693 W Bennett APEA 1694- 1704 P Laird Consumers 1706- Transport Council 1725 8/5/90 Sydney B Boyle Coal & Allied 1728- 7/15/8 W Perry Operations 1744 T Hedley BHP Coal 1745- 1776 J Stewart Kembla Coal & 1777- D Olsen Coke 1808 U Cario P Marshall I Dunlop Austen & Butta 1809- 1843 J Wilcox Joint Coal Board 1844- B Swan 1870 R Spratt 309 M Lye Exxon Coal 1871- P Coates Ulan Coal 1898 G Andrews Exxon Coal W Gould Mount Thorley Coal L Mead Bolton Point 1899- H Phillipa Progress Association 1914 S Howes 14/11/90 Perth R Greig AMEC 1916- 7/15/9 B Welch 1963 M Minosora M Hunt M Krockenberger ACF 1964- 1993 R Riley Aboriginal Legal 1994- G Benn Service of WA Inc. 2014 P Gilroy Chamber of Mines 2015- J Stewart 2029 B Carbon Environmental 2030- R Sippi Protection Society of 2051 Western Australia C Wyatt WA Aboriginal 2052- C Thackrah Affairs Planning 2058 D Gray Authority C Brown Trades & Labor 2069- R Meecham Council 2077 19/11/90 Darwin N Byrne N Byrne & 2079- 7/16/1 Associates 2090 R Cleary Energy Resources of 2091- P McNally Australia 2107 T Hosking NT Chamber of 2108- N Byrne Mines & Petroleum 2138 A McIntosh G Crough NLC / CLC 2139- D Ross 2197 D Avery M Dodson A Jackson WJ Fisher WJ & EE Fisher P/L 2198- 2210 22/11/90 Brisbane P Slaughter MIM 2212- 7/16/2 B Mathias 2252 J McIntyre J White Landholders 2253- J Blackshaw Assocation 2272 S McLean J Grabbe 310 R Cribb Tharpuntoo Legal 2273- Service 2292 M Horstmann ACF 2293- 2315 D Searle students 2316- L Searle 2324 27/11/90 Melb’ne J Reynolds Victorian Chamber 2327- F Hunt of Mines 2358 R Cotton 2360- 2361 O Groeneveld Tasmanian Chamber 2362- L Newnham of Mines 2392 J Robert Davy McKee Pacific 2393- 2412 28/11/90 Melb’ne J Ellis BHP Utah / BHP 2414- 7/16/4 Gold 2443 3/12/90 Sydney M Cramsie Oakbridge 2445- 7/16/5 M Heath 2464 P McNally ERA 2465- R Knight 2489 B Lewin R Peters J Donovan Consumer 2490- Transport Council 2496 T Gardner Denison Australia 2497- B Creelman 2513 4/12/90 Sydney P Barnett Pasminco 2515- 7/16/6 R Blair 2533 D McMahon B Lloyd Pancontinental 2534- 2543 T Gardner Denison Australia 2544- B Lloyd 2550 J Quinlan Placer Pacific 2551- B Gay 2575 G Handley E Malone Normandy Poseidon 2577- R Williams 2595 S Booth M Wrench Chamber of Mines, 2596- S Kensey Metals & Extractive 2607 Industries (NSW) 5/12/90 Sydney G Cahill Kooragang Coal 2609- 7/16/7 Loader 2617 M Hellicar Australian Coal 2618- D Porter Association 2640 311 K Fermanis- NSW Government 2641- Winward et al 2693 10/12/90 Canberra B Lee Koongarra 2695- 7/16/8 D Walcock traditional owners 2705 J Lee S McPherson JL McIntosh AMIC 2706- R Knapp 2764 P Crowley G McDonald C Berglin NT Government 2765- 2779 M Rayney CRA 2780- I Gould 2815 E Muir R Beadman Aboriginal & Torres 2816- M McDonald Strait Isl. Comm. 2830 11/12/90 Canberra P Dimech WMC 2832- 7/16/9 D Bell 2889 T Conway S Sullivan AHC 2890- G Early 2908 R Bruce G Sherrington NBH Peko 2909- 2926 F Grey consultant to ACF 2927- 2940
Notes: (a) “Item” denotes Australian Archives Item Number. All transcripts are part of Australian Archives file A3218/11. (b) Where many witnesses appeared at one hearing, all names were not recorded for this table. 312 Appendix B RAC Publications
Author Date Title Series Branch
RAC Jun 1990 Kakadu Conservation Zone Background Kakadu Inquiry Background Paper Paper
RAC Mar 1990 Forest and Timber Background Timber Resources Inquiry Paper Background Paper
RAC Apr 1992 Coastal Zone Inquiry Background Coastal Background Paper Paper
RAC Feb 1991 Kakadu Conservation Zone Inquiry Kakadu Inquiry Draft Report v.1 Report
RAC Feb 1991 Kakadu Conservation Zone Inquiry Kakadu Inquiry Draft Report v.2 Report
RAC Apr 1991 Kakadu Conservation Zone Inquiry Kakadu Inquiry Final Report v.1 Report
RAC Apr 1991 Kakadu Conservation Zone Inquiry Kakadu Inquiry Final Report v.2 Report
RAC Jul 1991 Forest and Timber Inquiry Inquiry Timber Draft Report v.1 Report
RAC Jul 1991 Forest and Timber Inquiry Inquiry Timber Draft Report v.2 Report
RAC Mar 1992 Forest and Timber Inquiry Inquiry Timber Final Report v.1 Report
RAC Mar 1992 Forest and Timber Inquiry Inquiry Timber Final Report v.2a Report
RAC Mar 1992 Forest and Timber Inquiry Inquiry Timber Final Report v.2b Report
RAC Feb 1993 Coastal Zone Inquiry Draft Inquiry Coastal Report Report 313
RAC Nov 1993 Coastal Zone Inquiry Final Inquiry Coastal Report Report
RAC Aug 1993 National Coastal Action Coastal Plan: Draft Conclusions and Recommendations of the Coastal Zone Inquiry
RAC / State 1993 New South Wales Case Case Study Coastal / local gov’t Study Report
RAC / State 1993 Queensland Case Study Case Study Coastal / local gov’t Report
RAC / State 1993 Western Australian Case Case Study Coastal / local gov’t Study Report
RAC / State 1993 Victorian Case Study Case Study Coastal / local gov’t Report
RAC / State 1993 South Australian Case Case Study Coastal / local gov’t Study Report
RAC / State 1993 Tasmanian Case Study Case Study Coastal / local gov’t Report
RAC Mar 1992 A Survey of Australia’s Timber Forest Resource
RAC May 1991 Kakadu Conservation Zone Summary Kakadu Inquiry paper
RAC Jul 1991 Forest and Timber Inquiry Summary Timber Draft Report Overview paper
RAC Mar 1992 Forest and Timber Inquiry Summary Timber Final Report Overview paper
RAC Dec 1992 Coastal Zone Inquiry Draft Summary Coastal Report Summary paper
RAC Dec 1993 Coastal Zone Inquiry Final Summary Coastal Report Overview paper
James, D. Jun 1991 Economics, Environment Occasional and Sustainable Publication 1 Development 314
Stewart, Aug 1991 Perspectives on the RAC Occasional D.G. Publication 2 Mills, R. Hamilton, C.
Irving Jan 1993 Survey of Opinions About Occasional Saulwick the Work of the Resource Publication 3 and Assessment Commission Associates
Jacobs, M. Apr 1993 Environmental Economics, Occasional Sustainable Development Publication 4 and Successful Economies
Knetsch, J.L. Sep 1993 Environmental Valuation: Occasional Some Practical Problems of Publication 5 Wrong Questions and Misleading Answers
Young, M.D. 1993-94 For Our Children’s Occasional Children: Some Practical Publication 6 Implications of Inter- Generational Equity and the Precautionary Principle
1993 Government Approaches to Information Coastal Coastal Zone Resource Paper 1 Management
1993 Recommendations From Information Coastal Previous Reports and Paper 2 Inquiries Relevant to the Coastal Zone
1993 Resources and Uses of the Information Coastal Coastal Zone Paper 3
1993 Values and Attitudes Information Coastal Concerning the Coastal Paper 4 Zone
1993 Coastal Zone Management Information Coastal Objectives Paper 5
1993 Integrated Resource Information Coastal Management Paper 6 315
1993 Coastal Zone Management Information Coastal Financial Arrangements Paper 7
1993 The Carrying Capacity Information Coastal Concept and its Application Paper 8 to the Management of Coastal Zone Resources
Streeting, M. Sep 1990 A Survey of the Hedonic Research Research Pricing Technique Paper 1
Wilks, L.C. Nov 1990 A Survey of the Contingent Research Research Valuation Technique Paper 2
Imber, D., Feb 1991 A Contingent Valuation Research Research Stevenson, Survey of the Kakadu Paper 3 G, Wilks, L. Conservation Zone
Streeting, Sep 1991 The Pricing of Australian Research Research M., Imber, Woodchip Exports Paper 4 D.
Streeting, Dec 1991 An Economic Analysis of Research Research M., the Forests of South-Eastern Paper 5 Hamilton, C. Australia
Mar 1992 Multi-criteria Analysis as a Research Research Resource Assessment Tool Paper 6
RAC Dec 1992 Methods for Analysing Research Research (Palmer, D.) Development and Paper 7 Conservation Issues: The Resource Assessment Commission’s Experience
RAC May 1993 The Use of Surrogate Research Research (Sullivan, Measures for Determining Paper 8 M., Chesson, Patterns of Species J.) Distribution and Abundance
Dickson, R. 1993-94 Ecological Impacts of Forest Research Research Use: A Survey of Completed Paper 9 Research 316
Boer, B., Jan 1991 The Potential Role of Discussion Consult. Craig, D., Mediation in the Resource Paper 1 Handmer, J., Assessment Commission Ross, H. Inquiry Process
RAC Annual Report 1989-90 Annual Report
RAC Annual Report 1990-91 Annual Report
RAC Annual Report 1991-92 Annual Report
RAC Annual Report 1992-93 Annual Report
PM&C Annual Report 1993-94 Annual Report
In addition to the RAC’s publications were published summaries of each of the final reports, consultants reports, publicly released submissions, newsletters (the RAC Bulletin), and speeches. 317 Appendix C Print media stories relevant to Coronation Hill Date Writer Article title Newspaper Page 22-Sep-89 Peter Gill&R Dunn Richardson backs Kakadu mine Fin Review 5 26-Sep-89 Peter Gill&R Dunn CSIRO Kakadu stand a blow to conservationists Fin Review 3 26-Sep-89 Peter Gill&R Dunn Kakadu: minefield for a 'green' government Fin Review 13 27-Sep-89 editorial Mining in a paler shade of green Fin Review 14 27-Sep-89 Peter Gill&R Dunn Hawke may face hostile Cabinet on Kakadu plan Fin Review 3 30-Sep-89 Alan Ramsay How the ambush of BHP took place SMH 27 9-Oct-89 Ian Howarth Kakadu lock-up not really a disaster Fin Review 1,2 9-Oct-89 Peter Gill Govt rationality lacking on Kakadu Fin Review 4 9-Oct-89 Peter Gill/Ross Dunn Coronation Hill 'likely to go ahead eventually' Fin Review 4 10-Oct-89 Ross Dunn/Peter Gill PM, Sir Arvi in angry exchange Fin Review 3 10-Oct-89 editorial The cost of turning green Fin Review 14 25-Oct-89 Lenore Taylor Kerin in attack on green hype Australian 3 28-Oct-89 Andrew Fraser Employers voice concern over resource body Canb Times 2 28-Oct-89 Mike Seccombe Govt damaging confidence, say business groups SMH 5 28-Oct-89 Shane Rogers A business blast for Government Melb Sun 15 28-Oct-89 Ross Peake Business goes on attack over 'expediency' Age 5 28-Oct-89 David Potts The environment may be facing RAC or ruin Australian 25 3-Nov-89 Chris Wallace Scepticism on role of new commission BRW 32-33 6-Nov-89 Karen Middleton Greens means lies, says MP Melb Herald 3 7-Nov-89 Stephen Guest Greenies fail to grasp fundamental truth Fin Review 15(L) 8-Nov-89 editorial? Green Luddites derail policy creation Fin Review 1,16 8-Nov-89 Michael Stutchbury Better economics would set the stage for a cleaner envir't Fin Review 16 17-Jan-90 Graham Richardson Kakadu: a genetic treasure store worth saving Canb Times 23 24-Jan-90 David Whitrow Coronation Hill a victim of political expediency Canb Times 22 1-Apr-90 Justice Stewart National concerns and the Resource Assess Comm'n BusC'ncilBull 25-26 27-Apr-90 N/A Reference terms set for Kakadu inquiry Australian 2 28-Apr-90 Advertisement Coronation Hill Australian 24 21-May-90 Paul Cleary Mining body slates Kakadu inquiry SMH 22-May-90 Karen Polglaze Inquiry into everything under the Kakadu sun Canb Times 22-May-90 N/A Public hearing into Kakadu mining Advertiser 23-May-90 N/A Kakadu inquiry deadline 'too soon' Illawarra Merc 25 23-May-90 N/A Kakadu commission opens in Canberra NT News 2 23-May-90 N/A Kakadu boycott SMH 23-May-90 Paul Cleary Judge has doubts on Coronation Hill SMH 23-May-90 Lenore Taylor Kakadu inquiry seeks input from 'ordinary' people Australian 23-May-90 N/A Kakadu commission opens in Canberra NT News ?2 28-May-90 Ross Peake Opposition changes view on commission Age 10 1-Jun-90 Frank Alcorta Perron slams 'park sham' NT News 1 Jun-90 N/A Kakadu inquiry begins and BHP disappointed AJMining Jun-90 N/A Kakadu inquiry procedure laid down The Miner 2-Jun-90 N/A No decision on inquiry NT News 3-Jun-90 editorial Perron needs crash course [in diplomacy] Sunday Territ'n 9-Jun-90 editorial Federal knife cuts in two directions NT News 8 12-Jun-90 Ilana Eldridge Eldridge replies NT News (L) 13-Jun-90 Ross Louthean Gold production set to fall Aust Business 89 23-Jun-90 N/A Mining cites overkill on environment plan Mercury 13 27-Jun-90 Peter Osborne Environment bans hit mining industry Fin Review 48 318
27-Jun-90 David McKenzie Half Australia faces mine ban, says industry Age 10 27-Jun-90 Peter Osborne Development watershed for tight economy Fin Review 43 27-Jun-90 N/A Aust gold 'threatened' by taxation NT News 29-Jun-90 Petra Rees The need to grow, show, make and mine... Australian spec.2 29-Jun-90 N/A Sacred custodians fight modern needs Australian spec.7 29-Jun-90 editorial What price air and water? SMH 12 29-Jun-90 Mark Drummond BHP Gold profit tops $26m with target output West Aust'n 35 Jul-90 advertisement Statement from the Jawoyn Association Ld Rghts Nws 17 7-Jul-90 N/A Miners slam Kakadu probe NT News 7-Jul-90 Joe Fisher Still time to save wetlands NT News 8(L) 10-Jul-90 N/A (AAP) Industry slams Kakadu probe Mercury 15 10-Jul-90 Frank Alcorta Sun setting on mines wealth NT News 8 13-Jul-90 Sheryle Bagwell Landmark deal at Tanami Fin Review 16 26-Jul-90 Frank Alcorta Reed fumes over Kakadu 'weeds' NT News 13 27-Jul-90 N/A Urgent plea for end to NT mine ban NT News 3 6-Aug-90 Peter Hartcher Threat to Cabinet on green disputes SMH 8-Aug-90 Bill Pheasant Aborigines win access to Cabinet minutes Fin Review 9 14-Aug-90 Frank Alcorta BHP ready for mine deal NT News 1 14-Aug-90 Paul Downie Coronation Hill partners renew mining submission SMH 4 14-Aug-90 Errol Simper Kakadu 'being choked by weed' SMH 4 14-Aug-90 Bruce Stannard Dark greens at bay Bulletin 42-49 16-Aug-90 Sally Fisher Coronation Hill still rankles BHP Australian 14 16-Aug-90 Richard Knight Smart to wait on uranium NT News (L) 16-Aug-90 N/A AMIC calls for mining to be permitted at Kakadu Kalg Miner 14 25-Aug-90 Advertisement Kakadu and mining: who cares? Australian 27-Aug-90 Frank Alcorta Mine boss attacks Govt over Kakadu NT News 28-Aug-90 David Rosenthal New hope for nuke markets NT News 5-Sep-90 N/A Miners 'welcome in Territory' NT News 6-Sep-90 editorial Land policy not new NT News 8 17-Sep-90 John Loizou Kelly boosts park mine hopes NT News 1 17-Sep-90 Robert Garran Kelly accepts Kakadu mine Fin Review 3 18-Sep-90 N/A Claim adds new confusion for Coronation Hill NT News 5 19-Sep-90 Paul Cleary Survey on Kakadu's future sparks protest over methods SMH 3 20-Sep-90 Jenifer Conley To mine or not to mine Age 11 20-Sep-90 David Rosenthal Justice hit on sites comment NT News 5 20-Sep-90 N/A Industry pressured Jawoyn:NLC NT News 5 20-Sep-90 N/A Coronation Hill data 'sparse', says Prof NT News 5 21-Sep-90 David Rosenthal Watchdog backs Kakadu mining NT News ?1 21-Sep-90 N/A Webb hits greenies' dogmatism NT News 3 21-Sep-90 N/A Commission will value Hill project NT News 21-Sep-90 N/A Mine wrangle may last years NT News 21-Sep-90 Narelle Hooper Survey aims to put price on Kakadu BRW 36 22-Sep-90 David Rosenthal Watchdog call for Coronation NT News 24-Sep-90 N/A (AAP) Coronation Hill faces 'maze' of interests Australian 19 25-Sep-90 Ian Howarth Merger to create a $1.2 billion gold giant Fin Review 1 25-Sep-90 Elizabeth Fry New name for Pioneer Mineral ? 26-Sep-90 Bolt & McKanna Federal rural bureau cuts export earnings forecast Fin Review 5 26-Sep-90 N/A Kakadu most valuable zone: survey Canb Times 18 26-Sep-90 N/A Coronation Hill blast from $1b achiever BHP West Aust'n 55 27-Sep-90 N/A Mineral Hill 'nonsense' Canb Times 5 27-Sep-90 N/A Mining area in a sacred site: witness West Aust'n 24 27-Sep-90 N/A Kakadu 'not mineral rich' Illawarra Merc 23 27-Sep-90 Catherine Lumby Kakadu mine wealth 'nonsense' SMH 2 27-Sep-90 Advertisement Kakadu and mining: who cares? Canb Times 13 28-Sep-90 N/A AMIC slams Kakadu ban as 'censorship' Daily T'grph 19 28-Sep-90 Guy McKanna Report says governments well off track on mining Fin Review 6 28-Sep-90 N/A Mining ban in Kakadu is 'unnecessary censorship' Canb Times 4 319
29-Sep-90 Deanie Carbon Mines windfall lost: report West Aust'n 5 29-Sep-90 David McKenzie Allow mining in national parks, says commission Age 3 3-Oct-90 Ross Louthean Pandora's box of red tape Aust Business 88 5-Oct-90 N/A Hewson seeks Coronation Hill mining Advertiser 11 10-Oct-90 Rob Ryan Why Kakadu can be mined Australian 10(L) 31-Oct-90 Frank Alcorta Perron optimistic on NT rights NT News 1 2-Nov-90 editorial NT needs full rights NT News 9 2-Nov-90 P. Cowburn Mining damage significant NT News 8(L) 15-Nov-90 Barrie Dunstan Uranium mine would help BoP Fin Review 19 16-Nov-90 N/A Mining zone a refuge for rare species SMH 8 16-Nov-90 N/A Kakadu zone of major importance to entire park: report Canb Times 4 16-Nov-90 Robert Garran CSIRO finds Kakadu 'richest area for mammal diversity' Fin Review 6 16-Nov-90 Leith Young Mining zone also rich in biology Age 3 20-Nov-90 Ross Peake Mine a threat to Kakadu, inquiry told Age 15 20-Nov-90 Robert Garran Cancellation of mine would cost $122m:report Fin Review 8 20-Nov-90 N/A Report queries Hill mine SMH 9 23-Nov-90 Ross Peake Kakadu report warns on tourists Age 16 23-Nov-90 N/A Mining Kakadu 'would threaten tourist market' Canb Times 5 25-Nov-90 Richard Farmer Coronation Hill may get the OK Sund T'grph 141 26-Nov-90 Richard Farmer Mine reviewers see survey bias NT News 8 26-Nov-90 Frank Alcorta Jawoyn owner slams mine delays NT News 5 26-Nov-90 N/A Criticism 'stifles' incentive NT News 5 27-Nov-90 Jamie Walker Coronation mine 'would benefit park' Australian 5 27-Nov-90 N/A Kakadu Zone an envir'l and cultural heritage area: ACF Canb Times 4 21-Dec-90 editorial Environment and opinion polls SMH 22-Dec-90 Coronation Mine Zone rich in deposits Australian 25-Dec-90 Joe Fisher Stifling recession remedy NT News (L) 27-Dec-90 M. Krockenberger Coronation Backlash Fin Review 7(L) 28-Dec-90 Joe Fisher Time to examine Hill facts NT News (L) 4-Jan-91 Joe Fisher Coronation Issues debated NT News (L) 18-Jan-91 LF Shack Price of 'saving' Coronation Hill Fin Review 16(L) 28-Jan-91 Robert Hill Prepare now for erosion of our living standards Canb Times 29-Jan-91 Guy McKanna Kakadu presents Canberra with tough options Fin Review 25 30-Jan-91 Bolt & Howarth Govt aid to wheat, wool industries under fire Fin Review 31-Jan-91 John Stone Holes found in Kakadu mining survey Fin Review 13 31-Jan-91 Guy McKanna Kakadu report a test for the RAC Fin Review 72 31-Jan-91 Leith Young Kakadu mining survey criticised Age 15 31-Jan-91 Carmel Egan Coronation Hill land valuation 'ludicrous' Australian 4 1-Feb-91 Hugh Lamberton Resource policy call Canb Times 2 1-Feb-91 N/A NT Council rejects review of lands Act Canb Times 2 4-Feb-91 Gavin McDonald Miners see Australia as risky Fin Review 15(L) 5-Feb-91 Alan Wood Making a mountain out of a mine hill Australian 15 5-Feb-91 Lenore Taylor In prospect, a report to test Labor's mettle Australian 13 5-Feb-91 Peter McLennan Kakadu: politics or poll Fin Review 15(L) 6-Feb-91 N/A Elders plead for mine at Kakadu NT News 1,2 6-Feb-91 N/A Study says mine almost risk-free NT News 6-Feb-91 Lenore Taylor Mine risk to Kakadu 'almost nil' Australian 5 6-Feb-91 Damon Frith A liberated interlude for Newmont Australian 29 6-Feb-91 Adam Shand Coronation Hill project 'would pose little risk' Australian 29 7-Feb-91 Justice Stewart Speculation on Kakadu Fin Review 13(L) 7-Feb-91 John Stone Put environmental altruism to real test Fin Review 11 8-Feb-91 N/A No recommendation on mining NT News 1 8-Feb-91 N/A Report offers no opinion on Coronation Hill NT News 3 9-Feb-91 David Rosenthal ALP against Hill NT News 9-Feb-91 Frank Alcorta Coulter slams 'wasteful' mine inquiry NT News 9-Feb-91 editorial Greenies have win on mining NT News 9-Feb-91 David Rosenthal Ede moves against 3 mine policy NT News 320
9-Feb-91 N/A $82m Kakadu mining plan in jeopardy L'nc'st'n Exam 22 9-Feb-91 N/A Miners find little comfort in report Canb Times 16 9-Feb-91 Lenore Taylor Little benefit in Kakadu gold Australian 1 9-Feb-91 Andrew Cornell Mine hope boosted by report Hld Sun(Vic) 65 9-Feb-91 Mark Smith Coronation Hill: test of opposing beliefs West Aust'n 45 9-Feb-91 Cooke & Seccombe Kakadu proposal receives setback SMH 3 9-Feb-91 Amanda Buckley Kakadu minefield set to explode TeleMirror 11 9-Feb-91 Lenore Taylor Unlikely inquiry unfolds Australian 8 9-Feb-91 Lenore Taylor Key question unanswered Australian 8 9-Feb-91 Paul Kelly Mining report creates new obstacle for PM Australian 1 9-Feb-91 Alan Wood Future investment at stake Australian 8 9-Feb-91 Helen Thew Kakadu mine benefit 'only marginal' TeleMirror 14 9-Feb-91 Grattan & Young Report leaves door open on Kakadu mine Age 3 9-Feb-91 Helen Thew Kakadu mine bid marginal: report Advertiser 5 9-Feb-91 Deanie Carbon Economic risk seen in Kakadu mine ban West Aust'n 4 9-Feb-91 N/A Proposed mine little benefit: Kakadu report Courier Mail 20 9-Feb-91 N/A Risks in mining of Kakadu 'acceptable' N’castle Herld 6 9-Feb-91 Michelle Grattan The recurring dilemma over Coronation Hill ?Age 9-Feb-91 N/A Forest firm accused of self-interest Canb Times 13 10-Feb-91 N/A Mine report rekindles Kakadu row Sun. Sun (Q) 16 10-Feb-91 Richard Farmer Gold in the 'blood' Sun. Tele (N) 44 10-Feb-91 Karen Murphy Battle for Coronation Hill Sun. Hld (V) 16 10-Feb-91 N/A Codd could well say 'I told you so' Sun. Tele (N) 44 10-Feb-91 Karen Murphy Coronation crucial to future of mining Sun. Tele (N) 113 11-Feb-91 Frank Devine Green with paranoia Australian 11 11-Feb-91 N/A Party faces challenge on uranium BorderMail 29 11-Feb-91 editorial Government in its own deep hole Australian 10 11-Feb-91 Garran & McKanna Newmont chief hits at draft findings of Coronat'n inquiry Fin Review 4 11-Feb-91 N/A Challenge on three-mines policy looms Advertiser 5 11-Feb-91 N/A say 'cheesed off' SMH 24 12-Feb-91 editorial After Kakadu, the fight goes on SMH 12-Feb-91 N/A New study 'solves' mining problem Canb Times 5 12-Feb-91 Taylor & Cribb Mine 'no threat' to rivers in Kakadu Australian 4 12-Feb-91 Frank Alcorta Kakadu draft an expensive waste NT News 12-Feb-91 N/A Study supports Kakadu project TeleMirror (N) 21 12-Feb-91 editorial Kakadu mining back on the agenda Age 13 12-Feb-91 editorial A resourceful lesson in Kakadu CourierMail 8 13-Feb-91 Hugh Lamberton Govt must make the tough decisions: Stewart Canb Times 2 13-Feb-91 Richard Farmer Bula's blood a key factor NT News 13-Feb-91 Jeni Cooper Aborigines' 'raw deal' on mining Australian 4 13-Feb-91 Chris Milne NT study 'dismisses Kakadu mining fears' Advertiser 39 14-Feb-91 N/A Report represents 'lost opportunities' Kalg Miner 13 16-Feb-91 Robert Shaw A fragment of old Australia in peril Age 10(L) 16-Feb-91 John Quinn Miners can meet concerns of Aborigines in Kakadu Age 10(L) 17-Feb-91 Richard Farmer [TV reveals best PM] Sun.Sun (V) 19 17-Feb-91 N/A Kakadu's prickly puzzle Sun. Tele (N) 48 18-Feb-91 Michelle Grattan Senator to challenge report on Kakadu Age 3 18-Feb-91 Michelle Grattan Minister buys into an issue of custody Age 13 19-Feb-91 Joe Fisher RAC report 'incredible' NT News 25-Feb-91 Frances Murray Pressure' on the Jawoyn people Age 12(L) 6-Mar-91 N/A Coronation Hill write-down snags Newmont Mercury 11 8-Mar-91 N/A Mine in Kakadu 'worth $200m' Canb Times 10 8-Mar-91 Chris Milne Newmont steps up Kakadu campaign Advertiser 29 8-Mar-91 Barry FitzGerald Study on mine in Kakadu unsound, says report Age 21 8-Apr-91 John Larkin Kakadu not in danger, say miners Courier Mail 11 26-Apr-91 N/A Bula still rules on Coronation Hill Fin Review 12 26-Apr-91 Peter Hartcher Coronation Hill spirit haunts Cabinet SMH 11 321
2-May-91 Ron Brunton Hostage to a Bula legend Australian 11 3-May-91 Lenore Taylor Mining 'a threat' to Jawoyn Australian 2 3-May-91 Glenn Milne A sacred site littered with landmines... Australian 9 3-May-91 Mike Seccombe PM set to veto Kakadu mines SMH 5 4-May-91 Bruce Hextall Coronation Hill to make or break industry:miners SMH 34 6-May-91 Lenore Taylor Coronation Hill barriers removed Australian 5 6-May-91 Frank Devine Overburdened by a spiritual dilemma Australian 9 6-May-91 Brian Gomez Govt 'plans to bar mining' in Kakadu Australian 23 7-May-91 Seccombe & Skulley Coronation Hill report due today SMH 8 8-May-91 Paul Kelly Cabinet the loser, whatever it decides Australian 1 8-May-91 Lenore Taylor Get the hint: don't mine the hill Australian 1 8-May-91 editorial A hole the Government can't escape Australian 10 8-May-91 Mike Seccombe Report sinks Kakadu mining SMH 1 9-May-91 editorial A timely lesson in indecision Courier Mail 8 9-May-91 John Larkin Cabinet tipped to block Kakadu mine Courier Mail 18 9-May-91 Bruce Hextall Kakadu report seen as threat to Jabiluka SMH 29 9-May-91 editorial Hard decision on Kakadu required SMH 14 9-May-91 Lenore Taylor Coronation Hill test for sacred sites Australian 2 10-May-91 Padraic McGuinness Giving voice to utter confusion Australian 11 21-May-91 Padraic McGuinness Mines, myths and misinformation Australian 9 31-May-91 Robert Garran Kakadu mining decision delayed Fin Review 17-Jun-91 John Larkin Coronation 'litmus test' for Govt Courier Mail 7 18-Jun-91 Glenn Stanaway Hawke lobbies against mining Courier Mail 1 18-Jun-91 editorial Decision time Courier Mail 8 18-Jun-91 Ken Burrowes D-day on Coronation Hill mine Courier Mail 24 18-Jun-91 Tony Wright Test for Hawke over mining CanbTimes 1,2 18-Jun-91 Pilita Clark Hawke goes for broke over Coronation Hill SMH 1 18-Jun-91 Ross Peake PM backs Aborigines on mining Age 1 18-Jun-91 Michelle Grattan Bula may win - but what about Hawke? Age 1 18-Jun-91 Virginia Trioli Coronation Hill may be PM's answer to his son Age 15 18-Jun-91 Brian Gomez Mining Register charts shrinkage Australian 16 18-Jun-91 Parkinson&Downie Cabinet likely to back PM on Coronation Hill veto Australian 1,6 18-Jun-91 Cooper&Richardson Jawoyn confident of victory Australian 1,6 19-Jun-91 Garran & Kitney PM forces Cabinet into Kakadu ban Fin Review 1 19-Jun-91 Geoff Kitney Hawke took it to the brink Fin Review 1 19-Jun-91 RJL Hawke The effect on the Jawoyn outweighs economic benefit Fin Review 8 19-Jun-91 Barrie Dunstan So much ado over tinpot gold-mine Fin Review 21 19-Jun-91 Mike Seccombe Hawke wins Kakadu fight SMH 1 19-Jun-91 Peter Hartcher A consensus of one sets the position on Coronation SMH 4 19-Jun-91 editorial Dust settles on Coronation Hill SMH 14 19-Jun-91 Mark Westfield The Coronation Hill rejection is hypocrisy SMH 25 19-Jun-91 Tony Wright PM locks miners out of Kakadu Canb Times 1,2 19-Jun-91 Grattan,Peake,Mann Hawke gets his way on Kakadu Age 1,17 19-Jun-91 Grattan Cabinet left with no choice Age 1 19-Jun-91 Katherine Teh Market slightly lower after surge Age 19-Jun-91 Milne, Parkinson Hawke wins on Kakadu mine ban Australian 1,2 19-Jun-91 Jeni Cooper Losers won't take it lying down Australian 1,2 19-Jun-91 Chappell&Kennedy Hill had no religious significance, says discoverer Australian 2 19-Jun-91 editorial Everyone loses on Coronation Hill_ Australian 8 19-Jun-91 Brian Gomez Decision highlights investor concerns Australian 31 19-Jun-91 Glenn Stanaway Cabinet rejects mine plan Courier Mail 1,2 20-Jun-91 Milne & Parkinson PM moves to stem Caucus revolt on mine Australian 1 20-Jun-91 Jeni Cooper Uranium 'must be debated' Australian 1 20-Jun-91 Glenn Milne Hawke's bloodless victory reopens dangerous wounds Australian 11 20-Jun-91 Frank Devine An epochal decision almost by accident Australian 11 20-Jun-91 Cooper & Frith Venturers to seek compensation for mining ban Australian 15 20-Jun-91 Peter Hartcher Bob versus Bob in a five-hour Bula session SMH 1 322
20-Jun-91 Mike Seccombe Hawke risks humiliation in mines row SMH 1 20-Jun-91 Stephen Ellis Bond yields surge on Coronation vote SMH 30 20-Jun-91 Geoff Kitney Hawke pushed to bury ALP uranium ban Fin Review 1 20-Jun-91 Ian Howarth Miners warn of sovereign risk Fin Review 2 20-Jun-91 Tim Dodd Coronation Hill a sorry start for Kerin Fin Review 17 20-Jun-91 editorial Hawke's weakness exposed Fin Review 16 20-Jun-91 Wright&Thompson PM to face Caucus over mining ban Canb Times 1,2 20-Jun-91 Ross Peake PM moves to head off Coronation Hill row Age 1 20-Jun-91 Michelle Grattan Crown looks hollow after Coronation Age 6 20-Jun-91 editorial A policy of government by paralysis Courier Mail 8 21-Jun-91 Kitney & Gray Hawke shores Caucus support on Kakadu Fin Review 1 21-Jun-91 Geoff Kitney Uranium: PM's two-edged sword Fin Review 2 21-Jun-91 Seccombe & Clark PM hurdles Bula, but new minefield ahead SMH 1 21-Jun-91 Mike Seccombe Hawke takes h'self hostage and wins his Cab.-room bluff SMH 4 21-Jun-91 Stephen Ellis Rates surge then slide as politics overwhelms logic SMH 25 21-Jun-91 Jaffray and others (4) The Clayton's debate on Coronation Hill SMH 22(L) 21-Jun-91 Peter Hartcher Hawke may have pacified Bula SMH 13 22-Jun-91 Hartcher & Clark Uranium to pit Hawke against Left SMH 4 22-Jun-91 editorial Hawke counts costs of victory SMH 22 22-Jun-91 TV chief sorry for misleading footage Australian 10 22-Jun-91 Frank Devine Unreal imagery of Coronation Hill Australian 10 12-Jan-94 editorial Keating and the RAC Fin Review 12 1-Feb-96 Maria Ceresa Tickner returns land to Jawoyn Australian 9 23-May-96 Julie Earle Miners lobby for review on Kakadu Australian 27 27-May-96 Michael Bachelard Crack shows in Coalition's Kakadu mine policy Canb Times 1 27-May-96 Lisa McLean Miner seeks new Kakadu debate Australian 4 27-May-96 David Shires Export controls over minerals upset Parer Fin Review 11 16-Aug-97 Stephen Lunn Kakadu damages payout unknown W’kend Austn 10 323 Appendix D General format of interviews, including confidentiality protocol
The text below is an example of the interviews conducted. Some questions were omitted in favour of questions specific to interviewees where time constraints so dictated. Every interview contained questions specific to the subject, as well as some combination of the questions below, or similar questions.
Thank you for taking the time to be interviewed. Just for some background, this interview forms part of my doctoral research on the RAC and commonwealth environmental policy making. I am hoping you will be able to help be fill out some details about the work of the RAC.
A few preliminaries about the interview. The interview will be treated as confidential: I may cite your interview in the thesis but without stating your name or exact position. I was also planning to confirm with you the veracity of any quotes from the interview if I wanted to use them, but again your name and exact position will be withheld. Are these arrangements acceptable to you? If I have the opportunity to publish material from the thesis are you happy for these same arrangements to apply?
Thank you. Can we begin by just establishing what positions you held during your time at the RAC, and when you left?
1) Briefly, what was your background prior to going to the RAC?
2) Did the other Inquiry staff have a similar background to yours? If not, what sort of backgrounds did they have?
3) Thinking about the organisation more broadly, were there differences amongst the staff in their views of how the Inquiry should proceed and how it should report? Can you describe these? [probe for differences between Research and Inquiry branches]
4) More specifically, was there much debate in the Commission about whether to make recommendations or rank options for the final report of the Conservation Zone Inquiry? Can you tell me about that debate? 324 5) Can you describe relations between the RAC and the Commonwealth Government and its agencies? [probe for Environment Department, DPIE, IC] The Northern Territory Government and its agencies? What effects do you think these relations had on the Conservation Zone Inquiry? What effect do you think these relations had on the RAC?
6) Can you describe relations between the RAC and non- government organisations that participated (or did not participate) in the Inquiry? What effects do you think these relations had on the Conservation Zone Inquiry? What effect do you think these relations had on the RAC?
7) Which aspects of the RAC’s work do you think were the most effective? Why?
8) Which aspects of the RAC’s work do you think were less effective? Why?
9) Have you any other comments on the rise and fall of the RAC as you observed it?
OR
9) Senator Evans, responding to a question about winding up the RAC, argued that the Government had subsequently developed policies and other institutions that made the RAC superfluous. What do you think of that assessment? 325 Appendix E Raw results of the content analysis of transcripts 1. RAC hearings Witnessa Commiss- Type of Issue Page no. ioner incidentb CHJV nil Tamblyn nil NT gov’t Stewart Hostility personal views / pig-nose 176 turtle Kitching Dispute pig-nose turtle 176 Kitching Hostility national parks 179 McColl Dispute free trade & platinum 183 group metals McColl Dispute impact of mine 191 Stewart Hostility East-West Centre survey 192 Stewart Hostility national parks 195 McColl Dispute use of gross / net value 197 Stewart Other statement in press release 237 disputing claims by NT gov’t minister concerning the RAC Webb Kitching Dispute data & Popperian methods 301-3 Kitching Dispute data & aboriginal issues 311 McColl Dispute resource dependence 319 OSS nil AHC nil AMIC Stewart Hostility contingent valuation 603 McColl Dispute cost-benefit analysis 633 McColl Dispute information costs 635 McColl Dispute legislative process 636 McColl Dispute investor confidence 643 McColl Dispute cartels 646 Stewart Hostility witness’ sense of humour 647 ECNT nil ACF nil AMIC McColl Dispute contents of Kearney report 1371 Kitching Hostility “fallacy” of beliefs 1375 Stewart Dispute mythological beliefs 1379 Kitching Dispute extinction & Webb report 1391 326 CHJV Stewart Dispute appropriateness of 1399 (Quinn) criticisms CHJV nil AMIC Kitching Hostility media portrayal of issues 987 Kitching Dispute media campaigns 993 CRA nil NLC nil NT gov’t Kitching Hostility NT government views on 1257 Jawoyn community goals Stewart Hostility AAPA Act & ‘self- 1290 nomination’ Tamblyn nil ECNT Kitching Dispute rainfall data & modelling 1329 ACF nil Newmont / Kitching Dispute CSIRO data & biodiversity 1536-8 BHP Kitching Dispute special case issue 1541 Kitching / Hostility risk assessment & motives 1553 Stewart of government departments CHJV nilc
2. IC hearings Witnessa Commiss- Type of Issue Page no. ioner incidentb AMIC McBride Dispute transparency and 23 aboriginal land access McBride Hostility land rights 27 McBride Hostility need for evidence 29 McBride Dispute nature of special areas 36 McBride Hostility time management 40 McBride Hostility need for more facts 41-3 McBride Dispute assistance 48 McBride Dispute need more evidence on the 65 costs of duplication NLC / CLC nil ECNT nil NT Gov’t McBride / Dispute operation of Land Rights 421-3 Blandy (NT) Act ACF McBride Dispute objectivity of public 556 servants Horton- Dispute risks of tourism & mining 565 Stephens 327 All Hostility Commissioners very 551-570 abrupt throughout CRA nil CHJV nil OSS Blandy Dispute OSS Budget 1298-9 Blandy Hostility credibility with respect to 1314 CHJV Blandy Hostility appropriateness of research 1320 Blandy Hostility relations with CHJV 1336 Other Commissioners very passim aggressive throughout, cutting off witnesses BHP nil AMIC nil ACF McBride Dispute transparency 1980 McBride Dispute separation of functions 1984 McBride Hostility unwillingness to discuss 1989 witness’ evidence, despite Commission’s request for that evidence Commiss- Other witness expresses 1993 ioners frustration with Commissioners NLC / CLC Smith Other deliberate misreading of 2165 evidence ACF nild BHP Blandy Dispute tax regimes 2426-8 Blandy / Dispute cash bidding for 2437 Smith exploration AMIC Blandy Dispute resource rents 2717 Blandy Dispute auctions 2738 McBride Hostility standards of evidence 2739 NT Gov’t nil CRA Smith / Dispute landholder veto & rent 2789-91 McBride extraction Blandy Dispute exploration, bidding & 2800 allocative efficiency AHC nil NBH McBride Dispute transparency on 2926 (Sherringt’n) environment ACF (Grey) nil
Notes: (a) Only witnesses whose evidence was tested for this study are shown. (b) “nil” indicates there were no defined incidents during the witness’ appearance. (c) Though no conflict is recorded, this is partly because CHJV’s representative, Colin Palethorpe, made a 328 number of retractions and apologies throughout his appearance. (d) Most of this transcript is Horstman (ACF) reading a paper. 329 Bibliography
ABARE, 1990. Mining and the Environment: Resource Use in the Kakadu Conservation Zone. Submission to the Resource Assessment Commission, November 1990, AGPS, Canberra.
Abbott, A., 1992. What do Cases do? Some Notes on Activity in Sociological Analysis. In Ragin, C.C. and Becker, H.S. (eds), What is a Case? Exploring the Foundations of Social Inquiry. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp.53-82.
Abbott, I. and Christensen, P., 1996. Objective Knowledge, Ideology and the Forests of Western Australia. Australian Forestry 59, pp.206-212.
Abel, K., Williams, M. and Smith, P. (eds), 1990. Australian & New Zealand Southern Trawl Fisheries Conference. Issues and Opportunities. Bureau of Rural Resources Proceedings No.10, Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Canberra.
Aboriginal Land Commissioner (Justice Gray), 1996. Jawoyn (Gimbat Area), Land Claim no. 111, Alligator Rivers Area III (Gimbat Resumption - Waterfall Creek) (no. 2), Repeat Land Claim no. 142: Report and Recommendation of the Aboriginal Land Commissioner, Justice Gray, to the Minister for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs and to the Administrator of the Northern Territory, AGPS, Canberra.
Aboriginal Land Commissioner (Justice Kearney), 1988. Jawoyn (Katherine Area) Land Claim. Report by the Aboriginal Land Commissioner, Justice Kearney, to the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs and to the Administrator of the Northern Territory, AGPS, Canberra.
Abrams, R.H., 1990. Water Allocation by Comprehensive Permit Systems in the East: Considering a Move Away From Orthodoxy. Virginia Environmental Law Journal 9, pp.255-285.
Adams, J., 1995. Risk: the policy implications of risk compensation and plural rationalities, UCL Press, London.
Agricola, G., 1556. De Re Metallica, translated from the latin by Hoover, H.C. and Hoover, L.H., Dover Publications, New York.
Allison, G.T., 1971. Essence of Decision, Little, Brown, Boston.
Altman, J.C. and Smith, D.E., 1990. The Possible Economic Impacts of Mining and Tourism in the Kakadu Conservation Zone on Aboriginal People, Report to the RAC Kakadu Conservation Zone Inquiry, Consultancy Series, AGPS, Canberra.
Altvater, E., 1973. Some Problems of State Interventionism. Kapitalistate 1, pp.96-108. 330 Anderson, T.L., 1991. The Market Process and Environmental Amenities. In Bennett, J. and Block, W. (eds), Reconciling Economics and the Environment. Australian Institute for Public Policy, Perth, pp.133-150.
Anderson, T.L. and Leal, D.R., 1991. Free Market Environmentalism, Pacific Research Institute for Public Policy / Westview Press, San Francisco. anon, 1990. It's no to the RAC. Wilderness News 11, p.13. anon, 'Kakadu Boycott'. Sydney Morning Herald, 23 May 1990. anon, 'Miners Slam Kakadu Probe'. Northern Territory News, 7 July 1990. anon, 'Perron Needs Crash Course'. Sunday Territorian, 3 June 1990. anon, 'Codd could well say 'I told you so''. Sun Telegraph, 10 February 1991, p.44. anon, 'Coronation Hill write-down snags Newmont'. Mercury, 6 March 1991, p.11. anon, 'Greenies have win on mining'. Northern Territory News, 9 February 1991, p.10. anon, 'Hard decision on Kakadu required'. Sydney Morning Herald, 9 May 1991, p.14. anon, 'Heavy trade in nervous market'. Canberra Times, 20 June 1991, p.23. anon, 'A hole the Government can't escape'. The Australian, 8 May 1991, p.10. anon, 'Kakadu's prickly puzzle'. Sunday Telegraph (NSW), 17 February 1991, p.48. anon, 'A timely lesson in indecision'. Courier-Mail, 9 May 1991, p.8. anon, 1996. Environmental Regulation Forcing Off-Shore Investment. Business Environmental Forum 18, pp.1,15-16.
Aristotle, 1981. The Politics, Penguin, London.
Arndt, W., 1962. The Nargorkun-Narlinji Cult. Oceania 32, p.304.
Arrow, K., Solow, R., Portney, P.R., Leamer, E.E., Radner, R. and Schuman, H., 1993. Report of the NOAA Panel on Contingent Valuation: Natural Resource Damage Assessments Under the Oil Pollution Act of 1990. 58 Federal Register 4601.
Atkinson, M.M. and Coleman, W.D., 1989. The State, Business And Industrial Change In Canada, University of Toronto Press, Toronto. 331 Atkinson, M.M. and Coleman, W.D., 1992. Policy Networks, Policy Communities and the Problems of Governance. Governance: An International Journal of Policy and Administration 5, pp.154-180.
Australian Construction Services, 1990. Risk Assessment of Engineering Aspects of the Coronation Hill Project, Report to the RAC Kakadu Conservation Zone Inquiry, October 1990.
Australian Mining Industry Council, 1981. The Need for a National Consensus: A Discussion Paper on Aboriginal Land Rights, AMIC, December 1991.
Australian Mining Industry Council, 1984. Submission on the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Heritage (Interim Protection) Bill 1984, Australian Mining Industry Council, Canberra.
Australian Mining Industry Council, 1990. Australia's Economic Future: Access to Land, Australian Mining Industry Council pamphlet, June 1990.
Babbie, E., 1995. The Practice of Social Research, Wadsworth Publishing, Belmont.
Bachrach, P. and Baratz, M.S., 1962. The Two Faces of Power. American Political Science Review 56, pp.947-952.
Baden, J.A. and O'Brien, T., 1997. Bringing Private Management to the Public Lands: Environmental and Economic Advantages. In Kamieniecki, S., Gonzalez, G.A. and Vos, R.O. (eds), Flashpoints in Environmental Policymaking. Controversies in Achieving Sustainability. State University of New York Press, Albany, pp.179-205.
Bateman, I.J. and Turner, V.K., 1993. Valuation of the Environment, Methods and Techniques: The Contingent Valuation Method. In Turner, V.K. (ed.), Sustainable Environmental Economics and Management. Belhaven Press, London, pp.120-191.
Bates, G., 1993. Economic, Political and Legal Problems with Resource Security. In Gardner, A. (ed.), The Challenge of Resource Security. Law and Policy. The Federation Press, Sydney, pp.7-14.
Bates, G.M., 1995. Environmental Law in Australia, (4th edn), Butterworths, Sydney.
Bean, C., McAllister, I. and Warhurst, J. (eds), 1990. The Greening of Australian Politics: the 1990 Federal Election, Longman Cheshire, Melbourne.
Beck, U., 1992. Risk Society: Towards a New Modernity (trans. Mark Ritter), Sage, London.
Becker, H.S., 1998. Tricks of the Trade. How to Think About Your Research While You're Doing It, University of Chicago Press, Chicago. 332 Beckerman, W., 1991. Global Warming: A Skeptical Economic Assessment. In Helm, D. (ed.), Economic Policy Towards the Environment. Blackwell, Oxford, pp.52-85.
Beder, S., 1993. The Hidden Messages Within Sustainable Development. In Jolly, B. and Holland, I. (eds), Facing the Future: Ecopolitics VII Conference Proceedings. Imagecraft, Brisbane, pp.138-143.
Beilharz, P. and Murphy, J., 1992. Labor and the State. In Muetzelfeldt, M. (ed.), Society, State and Politics in Australia. Pluto Press / Deakin University Press, Sydney, pp.164-186.
Bell, S., 1989. State Strength and Capitalist Weakness: Manufacturing Capital and the Tariff Board’s Attack on McEwenism. Politics 24, pp.23-38.
Bell, S., 1991. The Travails of Industry Policy in Australia. The Australian Quarterly Autumn 1991, pp.24-35.
Bell, S., 1993. Australian Manufacturing and the State. The Politics of Industry Policy in the Post-war Era, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Bell, S., 1997. Globalisation, Neoliberalism and the Transformation of the Australian State. Australian Journal of Political Science 32, pp.345-368.
Bell, S., 1997. Ungoverning the Economy. The Political Economy of Australian Economic Policy, Oxford University Press, Melbourne.
Bell, S. and Wanna, J., 1992. Business and Government: Context and Patterns of Interaction. In Bell, S. and Wanna, J. (eds), Business-Government Relations in Australia. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Sydney, pp.15-23.
Bennett, B. and Cole, K., 1989. Industrial Relations. In Head, B.W. and Patience, A. (eds), From Fraser to Hawke. Australian Public Policy in the 1980s. Longman Cheshire, Melbourne, pp.177-212.
Bennett, J., 1995. Protecting Nature... Privately. Policy 11, pp.11-15.
Bergstrom, T.C., 1984. Property Rights and Taxation in the Australian Minerals Sector. In Cook, L.H. and Porter, M.G. (eds), The Minerals Sector and the Australian Economy. George Allen & Unwin / Centre of Policy Studies, Monash University, Sydney, pp.175-190.
Berndt, R.M., 1982. Mining Ventures: Alliances and Oppositions. In Berndt, R.M. (ed.), Aboriginal Sites, Rights and Resource Development. Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia / University of Western Australia Press, Perth, pp.233-253. 333 Berry, M. and Garrard, J., 1994. Reducing Lead Exposure in Australia. An Assessment of Impacts, Department of Human Services and Health / AGPS, Canberra.
Blamey, R. and Common, M., 1994. Sustainability and the Limits to Pseudo Market Valuation. In van den Bergh, J.C.J.M. and van der Straaten, J. (eds), Toward Sustainable Development. Concepts, Methods and Policy. Island Press, Washington D.C., pp.165-205.
Block, F., 1977. The Ruling Class Does Not Rule: notes on a Marxist Theory of the State. Socialist Review 33, pp.6-28.
Block, F., 1980. Beyond Relative Autonomy: State Managers as Historical Subjects. In Saville, J. (ed.), The Socialist Register. Merlin Press, London,
Block, F., 1987. Revising State Theory, Temple University Press, Philadelphia.
Block, F., 1990. Political Choice and the Multiple "logics" of Capital. In Zukin, S. and DiMaggio, P. (eds), Structures of capital: the social organization of the economy. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp.293-309.
Boer, B., 1989. The Legal Framework Affecting Aboriginal People in the East Kimberley, CRES, ANU, Canberra.
Bookchin, M., 1990. The Philosophy of Social Ecology: Essays on Dialectical Naturalism, Black Rose, Montreal.
Borchardt, D.H., 1991. Commissions of Inquiry in Australia - a Brief Survey, La Trobe University Press, Melbourne.
Boulding, K., 1991. What Do We Want to Sustain? Environmentalism and Human Evaluations. In Costanza, R. (ed.), Ecological Economics: The Science and Management of Sustainability. Columbia University Press, New York, pp.22-31.
Boyd, R.O. and Dewees, C.M., 1992. Putting Theory into Practice: Individual Transferable Quotas in New Zealand's Fisheries. Society and Natural Resources 5, pp.179-198.
Boyden, S., 1974. Australia and the Environmental Crisis. In Dempsey, R. (ed.), The Politics of Finding Out: Environmental Problems in Australia. Cheshire, pp.3- 16.
Boynton, G.R., 1982. On Getting from Here to There: Reflections on Two Paragraphs and Other Things. In Ostrom, E. (ed.), Strategies of Political Inquiry. Sage Publications, Beverly Hills, pp.29-68.
Braddock, R., 1989. Is There Really a Greenhouse Effect? IPA Review 43, pp.18- 21. 334 Breyer, S., 1982. Regulation and its Reform, Harvard University Press, Cambridge Mass.
Brown, V.A. and Switzer, M.A., 1991. Women and Ecologically Sustainable Development: Engendering the Debate, Discussion Paper for Consideration by the ESD Working Groups, Prepared for the Office for the Status of Women.
Brubaker, E., 1995. Property Rights in the Defence of Nature, Eartscan Publications, London.
Brunker, D., 1985. Empirical Studies of Investment Behaviour - Abstracts, Bureau of Industry Economics, Working Paper 34.
Brunton, R., 1991. Aborigines and Environmental Myths: Apocalypse in Kakadu, Institute of Public Affairs, Canberra.
Brunton, R., 'Hostage to a Bula Legend'. Australian, 2 May 1991, p.11.
Brunton, R., 1991. Letter. Oceania 62, p.70.
Brunton, R., 1991. Will Play Money Drive Out the Real Money? Contingent Valuation Surveys and Coronation Hill, Institute of Public Affairs, Environmental Backgrounder 2.
Bryner, G., 1997. Market Incentives in Air Pollution Control. In Kamieniecki, S., Gonzalez, G.A. and Vos, R.O. (eds), Flashpoints in Environmental Policymaking. Controversies in Achieving Sustainability. State University of New York Press, Albany, pp.85-107.
Buchanan, J.M., 1969. External Diseconomies, Corrective Taxes, and Market Structure. The American Economic Review 59, pp.174-177.
Buchanan, J.M., 1978. From Private Preferences to Public Philosophy: The Development of Public Choice. In Institute of Economic Affairs (ed.), The Economics of Politics. Institute of Economic Affairs, no city, pp.1-20.
Buckley, R., 1994. Resource Security and Environmental Property Rights: Steal, Beg, Borrow, Buy or Hire? Environmental and Planning Law Journal 11, pp.175- 178.
Burgmann, M. and Burgmann, V., 1998. Green Bans, Red Union: Environmental Activism and the New South Wales Builders Labourers' Federation, University of NSW Press, Sydney.
Cairns, A., 1986. The Embedded State: State-Society Relations in Canada. In Banting, K. (ed.), State and society: Canada in comparative perspective. University of Toronto Press, Toronto, pp.53-87.
Cairns, J., 1989. Gold. Agriculture & Resources Quarterly 1, pp.433-434. 335 Cairns, J. and Dermody, T., 1990. Gold. Agriculture & Resources Quarterly 2, p.139.
Cameron, R.F., Bertram, J., Netchael, Small, J. and Tweeddale, H.M., 1991. Risk Assessment for the Coronation Hill Joint Venture, Australian Centre of Advanced Risk and Reliability Engineering, Sydney.
Campbell, D., 1984. Individual Transferable Catch Quotas: Their Role, Use and Application, Dept. of Primary Production, Fisheries Division, Darwin.
Carden, M.F., 1992. Land Degradation on the Darling Downs. In Walker, K.J. (ed.), Australian Environmental Policy: Ten Case Studies. University of New South Wales Press, Kensington, pp.58-83.
Carew, E., 1992. Paul Keating, Prime Minister, Allen & Unwin, Sydney.
Carson, R., 1962. Silent Spring, Penguin, Harmondsworth.
Carson, R.T., Wilks, L. and Imber, D., 1994. Valuing the Preservation of Australia's Kakadu Conservation Zone. Oxford Economic Papers 46, pp.727-749.
Ceresa, M., 'Tickner returns land to Jawoyn'. The Australian, 1 February 1996, p.9.
Chant, J.F., McFetridge, D.G., Smith, D.A. and Nurick, J., 1991. The Economics of the Green Society. In Bennett, J. and Block, W. (eds), Reconciling Economics and the Environment. Australian Institute for Public Policy, Perth, pp.11-96.
Charles-Edwards, D., 1990. The Ecological Significance of the Conservation Zone within Kakadu National Park and the Potential Impacts of Mining, Exploration and Tourism, Report to the RAC Kakadu Conservation Zone Inquiry, Consultancy Series, AGPS, Canberra.
Chirinko, R.S. and Eisner, R., 1983. Tax Policy and Investment in Major US Macroeconomic Econometric Models. Journal of Public Economics 20.
Chisholm, A., Moran, A. and Barns, G., 1993. Conserving Native Flora and Fauna: Application of a Property Rights Approach in the State of Victoria, Tasman Institute, Melbourne.
Christensen, W., 1983. Aborigines and the Argyle Diamond Project, CRES, ANU, Canberra.
Christoff, P., 1994. Environmental Politics. In Brett, J., Gillespie, J. and Goot, M. (eds), Developments in Australian Politics. Macmillan, Melbourne, pp.348-367.
Christoff, P., 1995. Market-Based Instruments: The Australian Experience. In Eckersley, R. (ed.), Markets, the State and the Environment. Macmillan, Melbourne, pp.157-193. 336 Christoff, P., 1996. Ecological Modernisation, Ecological Modernities. Environmental Politics 5, pp.476-500.
CIE (Centre for International Economics), 1989. The Resource Assessment Commission. Issues for Inquiries, CIE, Canberra.
CIE (Centre for International Economics), 1991. The Economic Contribution of the Proposed Coronation Hill Mine. A Critique of Some Issues Raised by the Resource Assessment Commission in its Draft Report on the Kakadu Conservation Zone, Prepared for Coronation Hill Joint Venture’s RAC Submission.
Clark, G.L., 1995. Global Competition and Environmental Regulation: Is the 'Race to the Bottom' Inevitable? In Eckersley, R. (ed.), Markets, the State and the Environment. Macmillan, Melbourne, pp.229-257.
Cleary, P., 'Mining Body Slates Kakadu Inquiry'. Sydney Morning Herald, 21 May 1990.
Coase, R.H., 1960. The Problem of Social Cost. The Journal of Law and Economics 3, pp.1-44.
Codd, M., 1988. Recent Changes in the Machinery of Government. Canberra Bulletin of Public Administration 54, pp.25-30.
Cohen, M.J., 1997. Risk Society and Ecological Modernisation. Alternative Visions for Post-Industrial Nations. Futures 29, pp.105-119.
Coleman, W. and Skogstad, G., 1990. Policy Communities and Policy Networks: A Structural Approach. In Coleman, W. and Skogstad, G. (eds), Policy Communities and Policy Networks in Canada. Copp Clark Pitman, Ontario, pp.14-33.
Coleman, W.D. and Skogstad, G., 1995. Neo-Liberalism, Policy Networks, and Policy Change: Agricultural Policy Reform in Australia and Canada. Australian Journal of Political Science 30, pp.242-263.
Commoner, B., 1971. The Closing Circle, Knopf, New York.
Commonwealth of Australia, 1990. Ecologically Sustainable Development. A Commonwealth Discussion Paper, AGPS, Canberra.
Considine, M., 1994. Public Policy: A Critical Approach, Macmillan, Melbourne.
Cooter, R.D., 1987. Coase Theorem. In Eatwell, J., Millgate, M. and Newman, P. (eds), The New Palgrave: A Dictionary of Economics. Macmillan, London, pp.457- 459. 337 Coronation Hill Joint Venture, 1991. Representation to Mr Justice Stewart under section 10(4) Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Heritage Protection Act, Resource Assessment Commission, Submission 4b, March 1991.
Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation, 1994. Walking together : the first steps / report of the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation to Federal Parliament 1991-94, AGPS, Canberra.
Cousins, D. and Nieuwenhuysen, J., 1984. Aboriginals and the Mining Industry, George Allen & Unwin / CEDA, Sydney.
Crawford, J., 1991. The Constitution and the Environment. Sydney Law Review 13, pp.11-29.
Crawford, J., 1992. The Constitution. In Bonyhady, T. (ed.), Environmental Protection and Legal Change. Federation Press, Sydney, pp.1-23.
Crenson, M.A., 1971. The Un-politics of Air Pollution: A Study of Non-Decision Making in the Cities, John Hopkins Press, Baltimore.
Crook, S. and Pakulski, J., 1995. Shades of Green: Public Opinion on Environmental Issues in Australia. Australian Journal of Political Science 30, pp.39-55.
Crough, J.G. and Wheelwright, E.L., 1983. Australia: Client State of International Capitalism. A Case Study of the Mineral Industry. In Wheelwright, E.L. and Buckley, K. (eds), Essays in the Political Economy of Australian Capitalism. Australia & New Zealand Book Company, Sydney, pp.15- 42.
Cummings, R.G., Brookshire, D.S., Schultze, W.D., Bishop, R., Coursey, D.L., Freeman, A.M., Heberlein, T.A., Randall, A. and Smith, V.K., 1986. Valuing Environmental Goods. An Assessment of the Contingent Valuation Method, Rowman & Allanheld, Totowa, NJ.
Cummins, C., 'Banks traded heavily as resources lead price gains'. The Australian, 18 June 1991, p.13.
Cummins, C., 'Dow Jones keeps lid on overseas investors'. The Australian, 19 June 1991, p.36.
Cummins, C., 'Offshore weakness helps cut all ords'. The Australian, 20 June 1991, p.30.
Cuthbertson, S., 1990. Commissions for Industry Assistance and Resource Assessment. Some Comparisons. Canberra Bulletin of Public Administration 62, pp.60-68. 338 Dahl, R., 1958. A Critique of the Ruling Elite Model. American Political Science Review 52, pp.463-469.
Dahl, R.A., 1961. Who Governs?, Yale University Press, New Haven.
Dames & Moore, 1988. Coronation Hill Gold, Platinum & Palladium Project Draft Environmental Impact Statement, Dames & Moore, EIS for CHJV.
Dames & Moore, 1989. Coronation Hill Gold, Platinum & Palladium Project Final Environmental Impact Statement Supplement, Dames & Moore, EIS for CHJV.
DASETT, 1989. Coronation Hill Gold Platinum and Palladium Proposal. Environmental Assessment Report, DASETT, Canberra, Environmental Assessment Report.
Davis, B.W., 1980. The Struggle for South-West Tasmania. In Scott, R. (ed.), Interest Groups and Public Policy: Case Studies from the Australian States. Macmillan, Melbourne, pp.152-169.
Davis, B.W., 1992. Federal-State Tensions in Australian Environmental Management: the World Heritage Issue. In Walker, K.J. (ed.), Australian Environmental Policy. UNSW Press, Sydney, pp.215-232.
Davis, G., Wanna, J., Warhurst, J. and Weller, P., 1988. Public Policy in Australia, (1st edn), Allen & Unwin, Sydney.
Davis, G., Wanna, J., Warhurst, J. and Weller, P., 1993. Public Policy in Australia, (2nd edn), Allen & Unwin, Sydney.
Davis, J., 1994. Greening Business. Managing for Sustainable Development, Basil Blackwell, Oxford. de Vroom, B., 1985. Quality Regulation in the Dutch Pharmaceutical Industry: Conditions for Private Regulation by Business Interest Associations. In Streeck, W. and Schmitter, P.C. (eds), Private Interest Government. Beyond Market and State. SAGE Publications, London, pp.128-149.
Deery, S.J. and Plowman, D.H., 1991. Australian Industrial Relations, (3rd edn), McGraw-Hill, Sydney.
Denzin, N., 1970. The Research Act: A Theoretical Introduction to Sociological Methods, Aldine, Chicago.
Department of Primary Industries and Energy, 1992. Recent Developments in Resource Pricing and Allocation Policy, AGPS, Canberra.
Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, 1990. Annual Report 1989-90, AGPS, Canberra, 339 Dermody, T. and Cairns, J., 1990. Gold. Agriculture & Resources Quarterly 2, pp.442-443.
DiLorenzo, T., 1991. Does Capitalism Cause Pollution? In Chilton, K. and Warren, M. (eds), Environmental Protection: Regulating for Results. Westview Press, Boulder, pp.131-147.
Dixon, R., 1990. In the Shadows of Exclusion: Aborigines and the Ideology of Development in Western Australia. In Dillon, M. and Dixon, R. (eds), Aborigines and Diamond Mining. University of Western Australia Press, Nedlands, Western Australia, pp.155-168.
Dolan, E.G., 1991. Controlling Acid Rain. In Bennett, J. and Block, W. (eds), Reconciling Economics and the Environment. Australian Institute for Public Policy, Perth, pp.205-222.
Doman, M., '$A unfazed by uncertainty'. Australian Financial Review, 19 June 1991.
Downes, D., 1996. Neo-Corporatism and Environmental Policy. Australian Journal of Political Science 31, pp.175-190.
Downs, A., 1972. Up and Down with Ecology: The "Issue Attention Cycle". The Public Interest 28, pp.38-50.
Doyle, T. and McEachern, D., 1998. Environment and Politics, Routledge, London.
Doyle, T.J. and Kellow, A., 1995. Environmental Politics and Policy Making in Australia, Macmillan, Melbourne.
Dryzek, J., 1993. Policy Analysis and Planning: From Science to Argument. In Fischer, F. and Forester, J. (eds), The Argumentative Turn in Policy Analysis and Planning. Duke University Press, Durham, pp.213-232.
Dryzek, J.S., 1987. Rational Ecology: Environment and Political Economy, Blackwell, Oxford.
Dryzek, J.S. and Lester, J.P., 1995. Alternative Views of the Environmental Problematic. In Lester, J.P. (ed.), Environmental Politics and Policy. Duke University Press, Durham, pp.328-346.
Dudley, N., Coelli, M. and Pigram, J.J., 1993. An Integrated Approach to Tradeable Discharge Permits and Capacity Sharing under Australian Conditions, Centre for Water Policy Research, University of New England, Discussion Paper 1993-02.
Dumsday, R.G. and Chisholm, A., 1991. Land Degradation: Economic Causes and Cures. In Bennett, J. and Block, W. (eds), Reconciling Economics and the Environment. Australian Institute for Public Policy, Perth, pp.151-174. 340 Dunstan, B., 1991. ‘So much ado over tinpot gold mine’. Australian Financial Review, 19 June 1991, p.21.
Easter, K.W. and Tsur, Y., 1995. The Design of Institutional Arrangements for Water Allocation. In Dinar, A. and Loehman, E.T. (eds), Water Quantity/Quality Management and Conflict Resolution. Praeger, Westport, Conn., pp.107-118.
Eckersley, R., 1992. Environmentalism and Political Theory: Toward an Ecocentric Approach, State University of New York Press, Albany.
Eckersley, R., 1995. Markets, the State and the Environment: An Overview. In Eckersley, R. (ed.), Markets, the State and the Environment. Macmillan, Melbourne, pp.7-45.
Economou, N., 1992. Problems in Environmental Policy Creation: Tasmania’s Wesley Vale Pulp Mill Dispute. In Walker, K.J. (ed.), Australian Environmental Policy: Ten Case Studies. New South Wales University Press, Sydney, pp.41-57.
Economou, N., 1992. Reconciling the Irreconcilable? The Resource Assessment Commission, Resource Policy and the Environment. Australian Journal of Public Administration 51, pp.461-475.
Economou, N., 1992. Resource Security Legislation and National Environment Policy. New Objectives, Old Dynamics. Current Affairs Bulletin, pp.17-26.
Economou, N., 1993. Accordism and the Environment: The Resource Assessment Commission and National Environmental Policy-Making. Australian Journal of Political Science 28, pp.399-412.
Economou, N., 1996. Australian Environmental Policy Making in Transition: the Rise and Fall of the Resource Assessment Commission. Australian Journal of Public Administration 55, pp.13-22.
Economou, N., 1997. The 'greening' of the Coalition? Environment Policy. In Prasser, S. and Starr, G. (eds), Policy and Change. The Howard Mandate. Hale & Iremonger, Sydney, pp.172-181.
Edelman, M., 1971. Politics as Symbolic Action. Mass Arousal and Quiescence, Academic Press, New York. editorial, 'Keating and the RAC'. Australian Financial Review, 12 January 1994, p.12.
Ehrlich, P.R. and Ehrlich, A.H., 1990. The Population Explosion, Simon Schuster, Sydney.
Ehrlich, P.R. and Ehrlich, A.H., 1991. Healing the Planet. Strategies for Resolving the Environmental Crisis, Surrey Beatty and Sons, Sydney. 341 Ellis, S., 'Bond yields surge on Coronation vote'. Sydney Morning Herald, 20 June 1991, p.30.
Ellis, S., 'Rates surge then slide as politics overwhelms logic'. Sydney Morning Herald, 21 June 1991, p.25.
Emerson, C., 1988. Issues in Mineral Policy. In McKern, B. and Koomsup, P. (eds), The Minerals Industries of ASEAN and Australia: Problems and Prospects. Allen & Unwin, Sydney, pp.51-83.
Emy, H. and Hughes, O.E., 1991. Australian Politics: Realities in Conflict, (2nd edn), Macmillan, Melbourne.
Environment Australia, 1997. Proposal to Extract, Process and Export Uranium from Jabiluka Orebody #2: the Jabiluka Proposal. Environment Assessment Report, Environment Asessment Branch, Environment Australia, Canberra.
Environment Australia. Information on World Heritage Areas: Kakadu National Park. Online: http://www.erin.gov.au/portfolio/dest/wha/kakadu.html, accessed July 1997.
Erickson, G.K., 1977. Work Commitment Bidding. In Crommelin, M. and Thompson, A.R. (eds), Mineral Leasing as an Instrument of Public Policy. University of British Columbia Press, Vancouver, pp.61-77.
Ewer, P. and Higgins, W., 1986. Industry Policy Under the Accord: Reform Vs Traditionalism in Economic Management. Politics 21, pp.28-39.
Faber, D. and O'Connor, J., 1989. The Struggle For Nature: Environmental Crisis and the Crisis of Environmentalism in the United States. Capitalism, Nature, Socialism 2.
Feyerabend, P.K., 1975. Against Method, Verso, London.
Firmin-Sellers, K., 1995. The Politics of Property Rights. American Political Science Review 89, pp.867-881.
Firth, M., 1977. The Valuation of Shares and the Efficient-Markets Theory, Macmillan, London.
Fischer, F. and Forester, J. (eds), 1993. The Argumentative Turn in Policy Analysis and Planning, Duke University Press, Durham.
Fischoff, B. and Furby, L., 1988. Measuring Values. Journal of Risk and Uncertainty 1.
Fisher, B., 1990. Australia's Commodity Sector: Issues for the 1990s. Agriculture and Resources Quarterly 2, pp.56-60. 342 Fisher, B., 1991. Australian Commodities - Short and Medium Term Prospects. Agriculture and Resources Quarterly 3, pp.47-52.
Fisher, D.E., 1991. The Proposed Forest Resource Security Scheme: Sovereign Risk or Resource Security? Australian Law Journal 65, pp.453-467.
Fisse, B. and Braithwaite, J., 1993. Corporations, Crime and Accountability, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Forbes, J.R.S., 1993. Mabo and the Miners. In Stephenson, M.A. and Ratnapala, S. (eds), Mabo: A Judicial Revolution. The Aboriginal Land Rights Decision and Its Impact on Australian Law. University of Queensland Press, St Lucia, pp.206-225.
Ford, R. and Poret, P., 1990. Business Investment in the OECD Economies: Recent Performance and Some Implications for Policy, OECD Department of Economics and Statistics, Working Papers 88.
Foreman, D. and Haywood, B., 1987. Ecodefense: A Field Guide to Monkeywrenching, Ned Ludd Books, Tucson, Az.
Formby, J., 1986. Environmental Policies in Australia: Climbing the Down Escalator. In Park, C.C. (ed.), Environmental Policies: an International Review. Croom Helm, London, pp.183-221.
Formby, J., 1989. Where Has EIA Gone Wrong? Lessons from the Tasmanian Woodchips Controversy. In Hay, P., Eckersley, R. and Holloway, G. (eds), Environmental Politics in Australia and New Zealand. Centre for Environmental Studies, University of Tasmania, Hobart, pp.3-17.
Forsyth, P. (ed.) 1992. Microeconomic Reform in Australia, Allen & Unwin, Sydney.
Foster, J., 1997. Introduction: Environmental Value and the Scope of Economics. In Foster, J. (ed.), Valuing Nature? Ethics, Economics and Environment. Routledge, London, pp.1-17.
Foster, J. (ed.) 1997. Valuing Nature? Ethics, Economics and Environment, Routledge, London.
Fowler, R.J., 1993. Implications of Resource Security for Environmental Law. In Gardner, A. (ed.), The Challenge of Resource Security. Law and Policy. The Federation Press, Sydney, pp.51-88.
Frankel, O.H. and Soulé, M.E., 1981. Conservation and Evolution, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Fries, P., 'Smoke and Mirrors'. The Australian, 21 May 1997, p.25. 343 Fussler, C., 1996. Driving Eco-Innovation. A Breakthrough Discipline for Innovation and Sustainability, Pitman Publishing, London.
Galligan, B., 1987. Politics of the High Court, University of Queensland Press, St Lucia.
Galligan, B. (ed.) 1989. Australian Federalism, Longman Cheshire, Melbourne.
Galligan, B., 1989. Utah & Queensland Coal, University of Queensland Press, St Lucia.
Galligan, B. and Lynch, G., 1992. Integrating Conservation and Development: Australia’s Resource Assessment Commission and the Testing Case of Coronation Hill. Environmental & Planning Law Journal 9, pp.181-194.
Gardner, A. (ed.) 1993. The Challenge of Resource Security. Law and Policy, The Federation Press, Sydney.
Garran, R. and Kitney, G., 'PM forces Cabinet into Kakadu ban'. Australian Financial Review, 19 June 1991, p.1.
Geen, G. and Nayar, M., 1992. Individual Transferable Quotas and the Southern Bluefin Tuna Fishery. In Wallace, N. (ed.), Natural Resource Management: an Economic Perspective. Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Canberra, Chapter 20.
George, A.L., 1979. Case Studies and Theory Development: The Method of Structured, Focused Comparison. In Lauren, P.G. (ed.), Diplomacy. New Approaches in History, Theory, and Policy. The Free Press, New York, pp.43-68.
Gill, N., 1991. Resource Security - A Leap Backwards. Chain Reaction 63/64, pp.57-59.
Gillespie, J.A., 1994. New Federalisms. In Brett, J., Gillespie, J. and Goot, M. (eds), Developments in Australian Politics. Macmillan, Melbourne, pp.60-87.
Gilpin, A., 1980. Environmental Policy in Australia, University of Queensland Press, St Lucia.
Glacken, C.J., 1967. Traces on the Rhodian shore, University of California Press, Berkeley.
Glaser, B.G. and Strauss, A.L., 1967. The Discovery of Grounded Theory: Strategies for Qualitative Research, Weidenfeld and Nicholson, London.
Glezer, L., 1982. Tariff Politics, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne.
Gomez, B., 'Govt 'plans to bar mining' in Kakadu'. The Australian, 6 May 1991, p.23. 344 Goodin, R.E., 1992. Green Values and the Buying of Environmental Indulgences, Paper presented at the Environmental Conference 'Working Our Land to Death? Knowledge, Values and Action', University of Melbourne, July 1992.
Goudie, A., 1990. The Human Impact on the Natural Environment (3rd edition), Basil Blackwell, Oxford.
Grabosky, P., 1993. Green Markets, RSSS, Australian National University, Canberra.
Grabosky, P.N., 1995. Governing at a Distance: Self-Regulating Green Markets. In Eckersley, R. (ed.), Markets, the State and the Environment. Macmillan, Melbourne, pp.7-45.
Grattan, M., 'Senator to challenge report on Kakadu'. The Age, 18 February 1991, p.3.
Grattan, M. and Peake, R., 'Hawke gets his way on Kakadu'. The Age, 19 June 1991, p.1,17.
Green, R., 1983. Battle for the Franklin, Fontana/ACF, Sydney.
Gregory, R., 1972. Conservation, Planning and Politics: Some Aspects of the Contemporary British Scene. International Journal of Environmental Studies 4, pp.33-39.
Grubb, M., 1995. Seeking Fair Weather: Ethics and the International Debate on Climate Change. International Affairs 71, pp.463-496.
Gruen, F. and Grattan, M., 1993. Managing Government. Labor's Achievements and Failures, Longman Cheshire, Melbourne.
Gunningham, N., 1994. Proactive Environmental Management: Business and Regulatory Strategies. Australian Journal of Environmental Management 1, pp.121- 133.
Habermas, J., 1976. Legitimation Crisis, Heinemann Educational, London.
Ham, C. and Hill, M., 1984. The Policy Process in the Modern Capitalist State, Harvester Wheatsheaf, New York.
Hamilton, C., 1994. The Mystic Economist, Willow Park Press, Fyshwick ACT.
Hamilton, C., 1996. Generational Justice: the Marriage of Sustainability and Social Equity. Australian Journal of Environmental Management 3, pp.163-73.
Hancock, D.A. (ed.) 1994. Recreational Fishing: What's the Catch? Australian Society for Fish Biology Workshop Proceedings, Canberra, 30-31 August 1994, AGPS, Canberra. 345 Hanemann, W.M., 1991. Willingness To Pay and Willingness To Accept: How Much Can They Differ? American Economic Review 81, pp.635-647.
Hardin, G., 1968. The Tragedy of the Commons. Science 162, pp.1243-1248.
Hardin, G., 1991. Paramount Positions in Ecological Economics. In Costanza, R. (ed.), Ecological Economics: The Science and Management of Sustainability. Columbia University Press, New York, pp.47-57.
Hardin, G., 1994. The Tragedy of the Unmanaged Commons. Trends in Ecology and Evolution 9, p.199.
Harris, A., 1989. Corporate Management: A Departmental View. In Davis, G., Weller, P. and Lewis, C. (eds), Corporate Management in Australian Government: Reconciling Accountability and Efficiency. Macmillan, Melbourne, pp.48-63.
Harris, G.T., 1991. Cost Benefit Analysis: Its Limitations and Use in Fully Privatised Infrastructure Projects. Australian Journal of Public Administration 50, pp.526-538.
Harris, S., 1984. Dimensions of Resource Dependence in Exporting Countries. In Pearce, D.W., Siebert, H. and Walter, I. (eds), Risk and the Political Economy of Resource Development. Macmillan Press, London, pp.113-133.
Harrison, G.W., 1992. Valuing Public Goods with the Contingent Valuation Method: A Critique of Kahneman and Knetsch. Journal of Environmental Economics and Management 22, pp.248-257.
Hartcher, P., 'Bob Versus Bob in Five-Hour Bula Session'. Sydney Morning Herald, 20 June 1991, pp.1,6.
Hawke, R.J.L., 1989. Our Country Our Future. Statement on the Environment, AGPS, Canberra.
Hawke, R.J.L., 'The effect on the Jawoyn outweighs economic benefit'. Australian Financial Review, 19 June 1991, p.8.
Hawke, R.J.L., 1994. The Hawke Memoirs, William Heinemann, Melbourne.
Hawke, S. and Gallagher, M., 1989. Noonkanbah, Freemantle Arts Centre Press, Freemantle.
Hay, P.R., 1988. Ecological Values and Western Political Traditions: from Anarchism to Fascism. Politics 8, pp.22-29.
Head, B. and Bell, S., 1994. Understanding the Modern State: Explanatory Approaches. In Bell, S. and Head, B. (eds), State, Economy and Public Policy in Australia. Oxford University Press, Melbourne, pp.25-74. 346 Héritier, A., 1996. The Accommodation of Diversity in European Policy- Making and its Outcomes: Regulatory Policy as Patchwork. Journal of European Public Policy 3, pp.149-167.
Hess, P., 1983. Issues in Corporate Finance, Stern Stewart Putnam & Mackliss, New York.
Hextall, B., 'Coronation Hill to make or break industry: miners'. Sydney Morning Herald, 4 May 1991, p.32.
Hill, R., 1998. Reform of Commonwealth Environment Legislation. Consultation Paper, Department of the Environment, Canberra.
Hindmarsh, R., Lawrence, G. and Norton, J. (eds), 1998. Altered Genes. Reconstructing Nature: The Debate, Allen & Unwin, Sydney.
Hodgson, G., 1997. Economics, Environmental Policy and the Transcendence of Utilitarianism. In Foster, J. (ed.), Valuing Nature? Ethics, Economics and Environment. Routledge, London, pp.48-63.
Holland, I., 1992. The New Ethic. In Smith, J. (ed.), The Unique Continent. Uni of Queensland Press, St Lucia, pp.197-205.
Holmes, M., 1989. Corporate Management: A View from the Centre. In Davis, G., Weller, P. and Lewis, C. (eds), Corporate Management in Australian Government: Reconciling Accountability and Efficiency. Macmillan, Melbourne, pp.29-47.
Honner, J., 1984. The Theology of Hugh M. Morgan, Miner. In Brennan, F., Egan, J. and Honner, J. (eds), Finding Common Ground: an Assessment of the Bases of Aboriginal Land Rights. Dove Communications, Blackburn Vic., pp.70-79.
Hooker, C.A., 1983. On Deep Versus Shallow Theories of Environmental Pollution. In Elliot, R. and Gare, A. (eds), Environmental Philosophy. University of Queensland Press, St Lucia, pp.58-84.
Hutton, D., 1987. What is Green Politics? In Hutton, D. (ed.), Green Politics in Australia. Angus & Robertson, Sydney, pp.1-34.
Imber, D., Stevenson, G. and Wilks, L., 1991. A Contingent Valuation Survey of the Kakadu Conservation Zone, Resource Assessment Commission, RAC Research Paper 3.
Independent Committee of Inquiry, 1993. National Competition Policy, AGPS, Canberra.
Industries Assistance Commission, 1989. Annual Report 1988-89, AGPS, Canberra. 347 Industry Commission, 1990. Annual Report 1989-90, AGPS, Canberra.
Industry Commission, 1991. Mining and Mineral Processing in Australia, AGPS, Canberra.
Industry Commission, 1991. Recycling, AGPS, Canberra.
Industry Commission, 1992. Annual Report 1991-92, AGPS, Canberra.
Industry Commission, 1992. Cost Recovery for Managing Fisheries, AGPS, Canberra.
Industry Commission, 1992. Water Resources and Waste Water Disposal Inquiry Report, AGPS, Canberra.
Industry Commission, 1993. Annual Report 1992-93, AGPS, Canberra.
Industry Commission, 1995. Study into Australian Gas Industry and Markets, AGPS, Canberra.
Industry Commission, 1997. A Full Repairing Lease: Inquiry Into Ecologically Sustainable Land Management. Draft Report, Industry Commission, Canberra.
Inglehart, R., 1977. The Silent Revolution, Princeton University Press, Princeton.
Irving Saulwick and Associates, 1993. Survey of Opinions About the Work of the Resource Assessment Commission, AGPS, Canberra.
Jackson, S. and Cooper, D., 1993. Coronation Hill Payback: the Case of MacArthur River. Arena Oct-Nov 1993, pp.20-22.
Jacobs, M., 1993. 'Free Market Environmentalism': A Response to Eckersley. Environmental Politics 2, pp.238-241.
Jacobs, M., 1995. Financial Incentives: The British Experience. In Eckersley, R. (ed.), Markets, the State and the Environment. Macmillan, Melbourne, pp.113-128.
Jacobs, M., 1997. Environmental Valuation, Deliberative Democracy and Public Decision-Making Institutions. In Foster, J. (ed.), Valuing Nature? Ethics, Economics and Environment. Routledge, London, pp.211-231.
Jaensch, D., 1992. The Politics of Australia, Macmillan, Melbourne.
James, D., 1990. Pollution Control and Environmental Property Rights: An Economic Perspective. In Boer, B. and James, D. (eds), Property Rights and Environmental Protection. Environment Institute of Australia, Brisbane, pp.16-26.
Janicke, M., 1990. State Failure, State University Press, Pennsylvania. 348 Jawoyn Association, 1989. Just Sweet Talk, The Jawoyn Response to the Coronation Hill Joint Venture Draft Environmental Impact Statement.
Jessop, B., 1990. State Theory. Putting the Capitalist State in its Place, Polity Press, Cambridge.
Johnson, M. and Rix, S. (eds), 1993. Water in Australia. Managing Economic, Environmental and Community Reform, Pluto Press / Public Sector Research Centre UNSW, Sydney.
Johnston, R.J., 1989. Environmental Problems: Nature, Economy and State, Belhaven Press, London.
Jolly, B. and McCoy, E., 1993. Ecologically Sustainable Development and the Fragmentation of Policy: A Critical Review. Policy, Organisation and Society 7, pp.34-39.
Jolly, B.n.V. and Holland, I., 1993. Making Sense of Policy Networks and Policy Communities, Paper presented to the Australasian Political Studies Association Conference, Monash University, 29 September-1 October.
Josif, P., 1988. Report on the social and cultural effects of the proposed Coronation Hill project and the Conservation Zone upon the Jawoyn and other effected Aborigines, Northern Land Council.
Jupp, V. and Norris, C., 1993. Traditions in Documentary Analysis. In Hammersley, M. (ed.), Social Research. Philosophy, Politics and Practice. Sage Publications / Open University, London, pp.37-51.
Kahneman, D. and Knetsch, J.L., 1992. Contingent Valuation and the Value of Public Goods: A Reply. Journal of Environmental Economics and Management 22, pp.90-94.
Kahneman, D. and Knetsch, J.L., 1992. Valuing Public Goods: The Purchase of Moral Satisfaction. Journal of Environmental Economics and Management 22, pp.57- 70.
Keat, R., 1997. Values and Preferences in Neo-Classical Environmental Economics. In Foster, J. (ed.), Valuing Nature? Ethics, Economics and Environment. Routledge, London, pp.32-47.
Keen, I., 1993. Aboriginal Beliefs vs. Mining at Coronation Hill: The Containing Force of Traditionalism. Human Organisation 52, pp.344-355.
Keen, I. and Merlan, F., 1990. The Significance of the Conservation Zone to Aboriginal People, Report to the RAC Kakadu Conservation Zone Inquiry, Consultancy Series, AGPS, Canberra. 349 Keen, I. and Merlan, F., 1991. The Validity of Aboriginal Beliefs about the Conservation Zone, Letter to Ministers.
Kellow, A., 1989. The Dispute Over the Franklin River and South-West Wilderness Area in Tasmania. Natural Resources Journal 29, pp.129-146.
Kellow, A., 1994. Is the Rest of the World Watching? Prospects for Environmental Politics in Australia, Griffith University, Brisbane.
Kellow, A., 1996. Thinking Globally and Acting Federally: Intergovernmental Relations and Environmental Protection in Australia. In Holland, K., Morton, T. and Galligan, B. (eds), Federalism and the Environment. Environmental Policymaking in Australia, Canada, and the United States. Greenwood Press, Westport CT, pp.135-156.
Kellow, A., 1997. Problems in International Environmental Governance or 'A Policy Analyst Looks at the World...This Being a Tale of How the Hopes of Mice and Men in Geneva are Dashed in Canberra'. Australian Journal of Public Administration 56, pp.54-64.
Kellow, A.J., 1988. Australian Federalism: the Need for New Zealand (as well as Canadian) Comparisons. Australian-Canadian Studies 6, pp.59-72.
Kelly, P., 'Cabinet the loser, whatever it decides'. The Australian, 8 May 1991, pp.1,6.
Kelly, P., 1992. The End of Certainty, Allen & Unwin, Sydney.
Kelly, P., 1995. November 1975, Allen & Unwin, Sydney.
Kerin, J., 1989. Resource Assessment Commission Bill, Second Reading. Debates, House of Representatives 3 May 1989, pp.1822-25.
Kerin, J., 1990. Making Decisions We Can Live With. Canberra Bulletin of Public Administration 62, pp.18-22.
King, S. and Maddock, R., 1996. Unlocking the Infrastructure: Reform of Public Utilities in Australia, Allen & Unwin, Sydney.
Kinhill Engineers and ERA Environmental Services, 1996. The Jabiluka Project Draft Environmental Impact Statement, ERA, Brisbane.
Kinlaw, D.C., 1993. Competitive and Green. Sustainable Performance in the Environmental Age, Pfeiffer & Co., Amsterdam.
Kinrade, P., 1995. Towards Ecologically Sustainable Development: the Role and Shortcomings of Markets. In Eckersley, R. (ed.), Markets, the State and the Environment. Macmillan, Melbourne, pp.86-109. 350 Kitching, R.L., 1992. Science, Scientists and the Coronation Hill Decision - A Retrospective. Search 23, pp.161-164.
Knapman, B. and Stanley, O., 1991. A Travel Cost Analysis of the Recreation Use Value of Kakadu National Park, Report to the RAC Kakadu Conservation Zone Inquiry, Consultancy Series, AGPS, Canberra.
Knapman, B. and Stanley, O., 1992. The Economics of Mining Coronation Hill, Northern Australia Research Unit, Darwin, Discussion Paper.
Knetsch, J., 1993. Environmental Valuation: Some Practical Problems of Wrong Questions and Misleading Answers, AGPS, Canberra.
Koepping, P.K., 1988. Nativistic Movements in Aboriginal Australia. In Swain, T. and Rose, D.B. (eds), Aboriginal Australians and Christian Missions: Ethnographic and Historical Studies. Australian Association for the Study of Religions, Bedford Park, S.Aust., pp.423-489.
Kolig, E., 1987. The Noonkanbah Story, University of Otago Press, Dunedin.
Kraft, M.E., 1974. Ecological Politics and American Government: A Review Essay. In Nagel, S.S. (ed.), Environmental Politics. Praeger Publishers, New York, pp.139-159.
Krippendorff, K., 1980. Content Analysis. An Introduction to its Methodology, Sage, Beverly Hills.
Krutilla, J.V., 1967. Conservation Reconsidered. American Economic Review 57, pp.787-796.
Lakatos, I., 1974. Falsification and the Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes. In Lakatos, I. and Musgrave, A. (eds), Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp.91-196.
Lane, B., 'Mine ban case to be reopened'. The Australian, 6 February 1996, p.4.
Lane, M., Dale, A., Ross, H., Hill, A. and Rickson, R., 1990. Social Impact of Development: An Analysis of the Social Impact of Development on Aboriginal Communities of the Conservation Zone Region, Report to the RAC Kakadu Conservation Zone Inquiry, Consultancy Series.
Lane, M.B. and Rickson, R.E., 1997. Resource Development and Resource Dependency of Indigenous Communities: Australia's Jawoyn Aborigines and Mining at Coronation Hill. Society and Natural Resources 10, pp.121-142.
Larkin, J., 'Cabinet tipped to block Kakadu mine'. Courier Mail, 9 May 1991, p.18.
Laver, M., 1986. Social Choice and Public Policy, Basil Blackwell, Oxford. 351 Lee, R.M., 1993. Doing Research on Sensitive Topics, Sage, London.
Leeson, S.M., 1979. Philosophical Implications of the Ecological Crisis: The Authoritarian Challenge to Liberalism. Polity 11, pp.303-318.
Leonard, H.J., 1988. Pollution and the Struggle for World Product: Multinational Corporations, Environment, and International Comparative Advantage, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Levitus, R., 1990. Historical Perspective, Aboriginal Areas Protection Authority, Appendix 1 to Submission to Kakadu Conservation Zone Inquiry 77.
Lewis, M.W., 1992. Green Delusions. An Environmentalist Critique of Radical Environmentalism, Duke University Press, Durham.
Libby, R.T., 1989. Hawke's Law. The Politics of Mining and Aboriginal Land Rights in Australia, University of Western Australia Press, Nedlands.
Liberal and National Parties, 1991. Fightback! Taxation and Expenditure Reform for Jobs and Growth, Liberal Party of Australia / National Party, no city.
Lieberson, S., 1992. Small N's and Big Conclusions: An Examination of the Reasoning in Comparative Studies Based on a Small Number of Cases. In Ragin, C.C. and Becker, H.S. (eds), What is a Case? Exploring the Foundations of Social Inquiry. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp.105-118.
Lindblom, C., 1977. Politics and Markets, Basic Books, New York.
Lindblom, C., 1980. The Policy Making Process, (2nd edn), Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ.
Lindesmith, A., 1947. Opiate Addiction, Principia Press, Bloomington.
Little, G., 1989. Leadership Styles: Fraser and Hawke. In Head, B.W. and Patience, A. (eds), From Fraser to Hawke. Australian Public Policy in the 1980s. Longman Cheshire, Melbourne, pp.9-36.
Lloyd, C., 1989. The Politics of Kakadu. In Hay, P., Eckersley, R. and Holloway, G. (eds), Environmental Politics in Australia and New Zealand. Centre for Environmental Studies, University of Tasmania, Hobart, pp.103-118.
Lorie, J.H., Dodd, P. and Kimpton, M.H., 1985. The Stock Market: Theories and Evidence, (2nd edn), Dow Jones-Irwin, Homewood, Ill.
Lovelock, J.E., 1979. Gaia. A New Look at Life on Earth, Oxford University Press, Oxford.
Lovett, I., 'Tokyo provides a shot in the arm'. Australian, 22-23 June 1991, p.41. 352 Low, P. (ed.) 1992. International Trade and the Environment, World Bank, Washington DC.
Low, P. and Yeats, A., 1992. Do "Dirty" Industries Migrate? In Low, P. (ed.), International Trade and the Environment. World Bank, Washington DC, pp.89-103.
Lowe, I., 1989. The Political Role of Energy Forecasting Mythology. In Hay, P., Eckersley, R. and Holloway, G. (eds), Environmental Politics in Australia and New Zealand. Centre for Environmental Studies, University of Tasmania, Hobart, pp.33-44.
Lowe, I., 1993. Queensland Moves Into Space. New Scientist 21 August, p.46.
Lowe, I., 1994. The Greenhouse Effect and the Politics of Long-term Issues. In Bell, S. and Head, B. (eds), State, Economy and Public Policy in Australia. Oxford University Press, Melbourne, pp.315-333.
Lucas, R.E.B., Wheeler, D. and Hettige, H., 1992. Economic Development, Environmental Regulation and the International Migration of Toxic Industrial Pollution: 1960-1988. In Low, P. (ed.), International Trade and the Environment. World Bank, Washington DC, pp.67-86.
Lukes, S., 1974. Power. A Radical View, Macmillan, London.
Lunn, S., 'Kakadu damages payout unknown'. The Weekend Australian, 16-17 August 1997, p.10.
Lynn White Jr, J., 1967. The Historical Roots of Our Ecologic Crisis. Science 155, pp.1203-1207.
Macleay, J., 'How sceptics have made the global warming issue go cold'. The Australian, 21 May 1997, p.25.
MacRae, D. and Whittington, D., 1988. Assessing Preferences in Cost-Benefit Analysis: Reflections on Rural Water Supply in Haiti. Journal of Policy Analysis and Management 7, pp.246-263.
Maddock, K., 1986. Yet Another 'Sacred Site' - The Bula Controversy. In Wright, B., Fry, G. and Petchovsky, L. (eds), Contemporary Issues in Aboriginal Studies: Procedings of the First Nepean Conference. Firebird Press, Sydney,
Maddock, K., 1988. God, Caesar and Mammon at Coronation Hill. Oceania 58, pp.305-310.
Maddock, K., n.d. Report on Bula, unpublished report to Resource Assessment Commission Conservation Zone Inquiry.
Maddox, G., 1991. Australian democracy : in theory and practice (2nd edn), Longman Cheshire, Melbourne. 353 Maddox, J., 1972. The Doomsday Syndrome, Macmillan, London.
Main, A.R. and Yadav, M., 1971. Conservation of Macropods in Reserves in Western Australia. Biological Conservation 3, pp.123-132.
March, J.G. and Olsen, J.P., 1986. Popular Sovereignty and the Search for Appropriate Institutions. Journal of Public Policy 6.
Marsh, I., 1983. Politics, Policy Making and Pressure Groups: Some Suggestions for Reform of the Australian Political System. Australian Journal of Public Administration 42, pp.164-189.
Marx, K. and Engels, F., 1983. Manifesto of the Communist Party, International Publishers, New York.
Mather, A.S., 1990. Global Forest Resources, Belhaven Press, London.
McArthur, R.H. and Wilson, E.O., 1967. The Theory of Island Biogeography, Princeton University Press, Princeton.
McClelland, J.S., 1996. A History of Western Political Thought, Routledge, London.
McConnell, G., 1965. The Conservation Movement: Past and Present. In Burton, I. and Kates, R.W. (eds), Readings in Resource Management and Conservation. Chicago University Press, Chicago, pp.189-201.
McCormick, J., 1989. The Global Environmental Movement, Beacon Press, London.
McDougall, J.N., 1985. Natural resources and national politics. A look at three Canadian resource industries. In Doern, G.B. (ed.), The politics of economic policy. University of Toronto Press, Toronto, pp.163-219.
McEachern, D., 1986. Corporatism and Business Responses to the Hawke Government. Politics 21, pp.19-26.
McEachern, D., 1991. Business Mates: The Power and Politics of the Hawke Era, Prentice Hall, Sydney.
McGuinness, P., 'Giving voice to utter confusion'. The Australian, 10 May 1991, p.11.
McGuinness, P., 'Mines, myths, and misinformation'. The Australian, 21 May 1991, p.9.
Mead, W.J., 1977. Cash Bonus Bidding for Mineral Resources. In Crommelin, M. and Thompson, A.R. (eds), Mineral Leasing as an Instrument of Public Policy. University of British Columbia Press, Vancouver, pp.46-57. 354 Meadows, D.H., Meadows, D.L., Randers, J. and Behrens III, W.W., 1972. The Limits to Growth, Pan, London.
Mercer, D., 1991. A Question of Balance, Federation Press, Sydney.
Merchant, C., 1989. Ecological Revolutions. Nature, Gender, and Science in New England, University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill.
Merlan, F., 1991. Letter [In reply to Ron Brunton]. Oceania 62, p.71.
Merlan, F., 1991. The Limits of Cultural Constructionism: The Case of Coronation Hill. Oceania 61, pp.341-352.
Miliband, R., 1969. The State in Capitalist Society, Basic Books, New York.
Miller, M.H. and Modigliani, F., 1961. Dividend Policy, Growth, and the Valuation of Shares. Journal of Business 34, pp.411-433.
Mills, C.W., 1956. The Power Elite, Oxford University Press, New York.
Mills, R., 1992. Letter to the editor. Environmental & Planning Law Journal 9, pp.295-296.
Mills, R., 1994. The Resource Assessment Commission: Policy Advice and Who to Believe. In Weller, P. (ed.), Royal Commissions and the Making of Public Policy. Macmillan Education / Centre for Australian Public Sector Management, Melbourne, pp.163-185.
Milne, G., 'A Sacred Site Littered With Landmines'. Australian, 3 May 1991, p.9.
Mitchell, R.C. and Carson, R.T., 1989. Using Surveys to Value Public Goods: The Contingent Valuation Method, Resources for the Future, Washington DC.
Mitnick, B.M., 1980. The Political Economy of Regulation, Columbia University Press, New York.
Moore, C. and Miller, A., 1994. Green Gold: Japan, Germany, the United States and the Race for Environmental Technology, Beacon Press, Boston.
Moran, A., 1991. Property Rights and Efficiency - Ownership of Innovations and Mineral Prospects. In Economic Planning Advisory Council (ed.), Issues in the Pricing and Management of Natural Resources. AGPS, Canberra, pp.113-130.
Moran, A.J., Chisholm, A. and Porter, M.G., 1991. Markets, Resources and the Environment, Allen & Unwin, Sydney.
Morozow, O., 1990. Legislated Multiple Land Use in South Australia. In APEA (ed.), Land Use and Environmental Protection in Australia. 355 Mundey, J., 1987. From Red to Green: Citizen-Worker Alliance. In Hutton, D. (ed.), Green Politics in Australia. Angus & Robertson, Sydney, pp.105-121.
Naess, A., 1984. Identification as a Source of Deep Ecological Attitudes. In Tobias, M. (ed.), Deep Ecology. Avant Books, San Diego, pp.256-270.
Nash, R., 1984. Rounding Out the American Revolution: Ethical Extension and the New Environmentalism. In Tobias, M. (ed.), Deep Ecology. Avant Books, San Diego, pp.170-181.
Nash, R.F., 1989. The Rights of Nature. A History of Environmental Ethics, Primavera Press / The Wilderness Society, Sydney.
National Institute of Economic and Industry Research (NIEIR), 1990. The Economic Significance of the Proposed Coronation Hill Mine Project, Report to the Australian Conservation Foundation for the purpose of its Submission to the RAC Conservation Zone Inquiry.
Newland, N., 1989. Exploring the Multiple Land Use Concept - a South Australian Model. In anon. (ed.), Proceedings of the Cooper and Eromanga Basins Conference, Adelaide, 1989.
Niskanen, W., 1971. Bureaucracy and Representative Government, Aldine Atherton, Chicago.
O'Faircheallaigh, C., 1990. Minerals and Energy Policy. In Jennett, C. and Stewart, R. (eds), Hawke and Australian Public Policy. Macmillan, Melbourne, pp.137-154.
O'Neill, J., 1993. Ecology, Policy and Politics, Routledge, London.
O'Neill, J., 1995. Public Choice, Institutional Economics, Environmental Goods. Environmental Politics 4, pp.197-218.
O'Neill, J., 1997. Value Pluralism, Incommensurability and Institutions. In Foster, J. (ed.), Valuing Nature? Ethics, Economics and Environment. Routledge, London, pp.75-88.
OECD, 1991. Environmental Policy: How to Apply Economic Instruments, OECD, Paris.
Office of the Supervising Scientist, 1993. Annual Report 1992-93, AGPS, Canberra.
Olson, M., 1965. The Logic of Collective Action: Public Goods and the Theory of Groups, Harvard University Press, Cambridge.
Opshoor, H. and Turner, K. (eds), 1994. Economic Incentives and Environmental Policies. Principles and Practice, Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht. 356 Ostrom, E. (ed.) 1982. Strategies of Political Inquiry, Sage Publications, Beverly Hills.
Ostrom, E., 1990. Governing the Commons. The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Paehlke, R.C., 1989. Environmentalism and the Future of Progressive Politics, Yale University Press, New Haven.
Papadakis, E., 1990. Minor Parties, the Environment and the New Politics. In Bean, C., McAllister, I. and Warhurst, J. (eds), The Greening of Australian Politics: the 1990 Federal Election. Longman Cheshire, Melbourne, pp.33-53.
Papadakis, E., 1991. Does the New Politics Have a Future? In Castles, F.G. (ed.), Australia Compared. People, Policies and Politics. Allen & Unwin, Sydney, pp.239- 257.
Papadakis, E., 1993. Politics and the Environment: The Australian Experience, Allen & Unwin, Sydney.
Papadakis, E., 1996. Environmental Politics and Institutional Change, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Parkinson, T. and Downie, P., 'Cabinet likely to back PM on Coronation Hill veto'. The Australian, 18 June 1991, p.1.
Parliament of Australia, 1987. Fiscal Measures and the Achievement of Environmental Objectives, AGPS, Canberra.
Parliament of Australia, 1988. The Potential of the Kakadu National Park Region, AGPS, Canberra.
Parliament of Australia, 1991. Building a Competitive Australia, AGPS, Canberra.
Parliament of Australia, 1992. National Greenhouse Response Strategy, AGPS, Canberra.
Peake, R., 'PM Backs Aborigines on Mining'. Age, 18 June 1991, p.1.
Pearce, D., Barbier, E. and Markandya, A., 1990. Sustainable Development: Economy and Environment in the Third World, Gower Pub. Co., Aldershot.
Pearce, D., Markandya, A. and Barbier, E.B., 1989. Blueprint for a Green Economy, Earthscan Publications, London.
Pearce, D.W., 1983. Cost-Benefit Analysis, Macmillan, London.
Pearce, D.W. and Turner, R.K., 1990. Economics of Natural Resources and the Environment, Harvester Wheatsheaf, New York. 357 Pearman, G.I. (ed.) 1988. Greenhouse: Planning for Climate Change, CSIRO, Melbourne.
Pepper, D., 1993. Eco-socialism. From Deep Ecology to Social Justice, Routledge, London.
Perlin, J., 1989. A Forest Journey. The Role of Wood in the Development of Civilization, WW Norton, New York.
Pigou, A.C., 1920. The Economics of Welfare, Macmillan, London.
Pigram, J., 1993. Property Rights and Water Markets in Australia: an Evolutionary Process Toward Institutional Reform. Water Resources Research 29, pp.1313-1319.
Plunkett, R., 'Overseas falls drag all ords down'. The Age, 20 June 1991, p.21.
Polanyi, K., 1975 (1944). The Great Transformation, Octagon Books, New York.
Polsby, N.W., 1960. How to Study Community Power: the Pluralist Alternative. Journal of Politics 22, pp.474-484.
Ponting, J.R., 1985. The Impact of Public Policy on Locational Decision-Making by Industrial Firms. Canadian Public Policy 11, pp.731-744.
Popper, K., 1959. The Logic of Scientific Discovery, Heinemann, London.
Porter, M., 1990. The Competitive Advantage of Nations, Free Press, New York.
Porter, M., 1991. America's Green Strategy. Scientific American 264, p.96.
Possingham, H., 1991. Comment on the Webb Report to AMIC, Report to the Australian Conservation Foundation, (Report 6, ACF Submission 179, pp.88-90), 15 Mar 1991.
Potts, D., 'The environment may be facing RAC or ruin'. Australian, 25 October 1989, p.25.
Pressman, J.L. and Wildavsky, A., 1984. Implementation: How Great Expectations in Washington are Dashed in Oakland, University of California Press, Berkeley.
Proctor, J.D., 1996. Whose Nature? The Contested Moral Terrain of Ancient Forests. In Cronon, W. (ed.), Uncommon Ground: Rethinking the Human Place in Nature. W. W. Norton and Company, New York, pp.269-297.
Productivity Commission, 1996. Stocktake of Progress in Microeconomic Reform, AGPS, Canberra.
Pross, A.P. and McCorquodale, S., 1990. The State, Interests, and Policy Making in the East Coast Fishery. In Coleman, W.D. and Skogstad, G. (eds), 358 Policy Communities and Public Policy in Canada. Copp Clark Pitman, Ontario, pp.34-58.
Przeworski, A. and Wallerstein, M., 1988. Structural Dependence of the State on Capital. American Political Science Review 82, pp.11-20.
Pusey, M., 1991. Economic Rationalism in Canberra. A Nation-Building State Changes its Mind, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Queensland Department of Natural Resources, 1996. Rural Water Pricing and Management, Department of Natural Resources, Brisbane.
Ragin, C.C., 1994. Constructing Social Research, Pine Forge Press, Thousand Oaks, Calif.
Ralph, P., 'ANI price dropped but still they stayed away'. Australian Financial Review, 20 June 1991, p.20.
Ramsay, A., 'How the ambush of BHP took place'. Sydney Morning Herald, 30 September 1989, p.27.
Ramsay, R. and Rowe, G., 1995. Environmental Law and Policy in Australia. Text and Materials, Butterworths, Sydney.
Ranger Uranium Environmental Inquiry, 1976. Ranger Uranium Environmental Inquiry First Report, AGPS, Canberra.
Ranger Uranium Environmental Inquiry, 1977. Ranger Uranium Environmental Inquiry Second (Final) Report, AGPS, Canberra.
Rattigan, A., 1986. Industry Assistance. The Inside Story, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne.
Read, P., 1995. Saving Sites of Significance: Wilderness and the Built Environment. People and Physical Environment Research 48, pp.13-24.
Redclift, M., 1984. Development and the Environmental Crisis: Red or Green Alternatives?, Methuen, London.
Reeve, I. and Kaine, G., 1991. Ecosystem-Coupled Markets: A Policy Approach for Sustainable Land Management. In Henriques, P. (ed.), Sustainable Land Management, Napier, New Zealand, 17-23 November 1991, pp.227-234.
Resource Assessment Commission, 1990. Corporate Plan 1990-91, Resource Assessment Commission, Canberra.
Resource Assessment Commission, 1990. Kakadu Conservation Zone Inquiry Background Paper, RAC, Canberra. 359 Resource Assessment Commission, 1990. Resource Assessment Commission Annual Report 1989-90, AGPS, Canberra.
Resource Assessment Commission, 1991. Kakadu Conservation Zone Inquiry Draft Report (volume 1), AGPS, Canberra.
Resource Assessment Commission, 1991. Kakadu Conservation Zone Inquiry Final Report (volume 1), AGPS, Canberra.
Resource Assessment Commission, 1991. Kakadu Conservation Zone Inquiry Final Report (volume 2), AGPS, Canberra.
Resource Assessment Commission, 1991. Resource Assessment Commission Annual Report 1990-91, AGPS, Canberra.
Resource Assessment Commission, 1992. Forest and Timber Inquiry Final Report (volume 1), AGPS, Canberra.
Resource Assessment Commission, 1992. Forest and Timber Inquiry Final Report (volume 2b), AGPS, Canberra.
Resource Assessment Commission, 1992. Methods for Analysing Development and Conservation Issues: The Resource Assessment Commission's Experience, AGPS, Canberra.
Resource Assessment Commission, 1992. Resource Assessment Commission Annual Report 1991-92, AGPS, Canberra.
Resource Assessment Commission, 1993. Coastal Zone Inquiry Final Report, AGPS, Canberra.
Resource Assessment Commission, 1993. Resource Assessment Commission Annual Report 1992-93, AGPS, Canberra.
Richardson, G., 1994. Whatever it Takes, Bantam Books, Sydney.
Richardson, J., 1997. Interest Groups, Multi-Arena Politics and Policy Change, Paper presented to the Panel on Policy Networks, Communities and Coalitions, American Political Science Association, Washington DC.
Richardson, J.J., 1983. Overcrowded Policymaking: Some British and European Reflection. Policy Sciences 15, pp.247-268.
Richardson, J.J. and Jordan, A.G., 1979. Governing Under Pressure: the Policy Process in a Post-parliamentary Democracy, Robertson, Oxford.
Robinson, B., 1995. Smarter Regulation and Intergovernmental Cooperation in the Environmental Field. In Carroll, P. and Painter, M. (eds), Microeconomic 360 Reform and Federalism. Federalism Research Centre, Australian National University, Canberra, pp.191-199.
Rosengren, K.E. (ed.) 1981. Advances in Content Analysis, Sage, Beverly Hills.
Rowse, T., 1994. Aborigines: Citizens and Colonial Subjects. In Brett, J., Gillespie, J. and Goot, M. (eds), Developments in Australian Politics. Macmillan, Melbourne, pp.182-201.
Rutland, R., 1990. Mineral and Petroleum Resource Supply for Sustainable Development, Paper presented to the National Agricultural and Resources Conference, 1990.
Ryan, L., 1989. Aborigines and Islanders. In Head, B.W. and Patience, A. (eds), From Fraser to Hawke. Australian Public Policy in the 1980s. Longman Cheshire, Melbourne, pp.394-408.
Ryle, M., 1988. Ecology and Socialism, Century Hutchinson, London.
Sagoff, M., 1988. The Economy of the Earth, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Saunders, C., 1996. The Constitutional Division of Power with Respect to the Environment in Australia. In Holland, K., Morton, T. and Galligan, B. (eds), Federalism and the Environment. Environmental Policymaking in Australia, Canada, and the United States. Greenwood Press, Westport CT, pp.55-76.
Sawer, G., 1967. Australian Federalism in the Courts, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne.
Sbragia, A., 1996. Environmental Policy. In Wallace, H. and Wallace, W. (eds), Policy-Making in the European Union. Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp.235- 256.
Schumacher, E.F., 1974. Small is Beautiful, Abacus, London.
Scrimgeour, F., 1995. Protecting Water Resource Quality: Designing an Emission Charge System in New Zealand. In Dinar, A. and Loehman, E.T. (eds), Water Quantity/Quality Management and Conflict Resolution. Praeger, Westport, Conn., pp.359-368.
Seaman, P., 1984. The Aboriginal Land Inquiry, WA Ministry of Aboriginal Affairs, Perth.
Seccombe, M., 'Coronation Hill report due today'. Sydney Morning Herald, 7 May 1991, p.8.
Seccombe, M., 'Hawke wins Kakadu fight'. Sydney Morning Herald, 19 June 1991, p.1. 361 Seccombe, M., 'Report sinks Kakadu mining'. Sydney Morning Herald, 8 May 1991, p.1.
Self, P., 1993. Government By The Market? The Politics of Public Choice, Westview Press, Boulder.
Silverman, D., 1985. Qualitative Methodology and Sociology, Gower, Aldershot, Hants.
Simeon, R., 1976. Studying Public Policy. Canadian Journal of Political Science 9, pp.19-33.
Simon, J.L. and Kahn, H. (eds), 1984. The Resourceful Earth. A Response to Global 2000, Blackwell, Oxford.
Sinden, J., 1992. A Review of Environmental Valuation in Australia, 36th Annual Conference of the Australian Agricultural Economics Society, Canberra.
Singelton, G., 1994. Accord VII: Collective Bargaining in a Labourist Framework, Paper presented at the 1994 Australasian Political Science Association Conference, University of Wollongong, 2 October 1994.
Skocpol, T., 1985. Bringing the State Back In. In Evans, P.B., Rueschemeyer, D. and Skocpol, T. (eds), Bringing the State Back In. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp.3-37.
Skocpol, T. and Finegold, K., 1982. State Capacity and Economic Intervention in the Early New Deal. Political Science Quarterly 97, pp.255-278.
Smil, V., 1993. Global Ecology. Environmental Change and Social Flexibility, Routledge, London.
Smith, B. and Ulph, A., 1982. Property Rights Issues in the Extraction of Australia's Exhaustible Resources. In Webb, L.R. and Allan, R.H. (eds), Industrial Economics. Australian Studies. George Allen & Unwin, Sydney, pp.395- 421.
Smith, V.K., 1992. Arbitrary Values, Good Causes, and Premature Verdicts. Journal of Environmental Economics and Management 22, pp.71-89.
Smith, W.L., 1989. Resource Assessment Commission Bill, Debate. Debates, House of Representatives 11 May 1989, pp.2559-2562.
Solomon, D., 'What the Lemonthyme Forest Ruling Really Means'. The Australian, 16 March 1988, p.13.
Specht, R.L., Roe, E.M. and Boughton, V.H., 1974. Conservation of the Major Plant Communities in Australia and Papua New Guinea. Australian Journal of Botany Supplementary Series 7, pp.1-667. 362 Spiegel, H., 1991. The Growth of Economic Thought, Duke University Press, Durham.
Spirn, A.W., 1996. Constructing Nature: The Legacy of Frederick Law Olmsted. In Cronon, W. (ed.), Uncommon Ground: Rethinking the Human Place in Nature. W. W. Norton and Company, New York, pp.91-113.
Spretnak, C. and Capra, F., 1984. Green Politics. The Global Promise, Paladin / Grafton Books, London.
State of the Environment Advisory Council, 1996. Australia - State of the Environment 1996, CSIRO Publishing, Melbourne.
Stewart, D., 1991. Report to the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs on the Kakadu Conservation Zone, under the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Heritage Protection Act 1984, AGPS, Canberra.
Stewart, D., 1993. Chairman's Remarks at Manly Beach. Resource Assessment Commission Bulletin December 1993, pp.2-4.
Stewart, D. and McColl, G., 1994. The Resource Assessment Commission: An Inside Assessment. Australian Journal of Environmental Management 1, pp.12-23.
Stewart, D.G., 1991. National Concerns and the Resource Assessment Commission. In Stewart, D.G., Mills, R. and Hamilton, C. (eds), Perspectives on the RAC. AGPS, Canberra, pp.1-9.
Stewart, R. and Ward, I., 1992. Politics One, Macmillan, Melbourne.
Stewart, R.B., 1993. Environmental Regulation and International Competitiveness. The Yale Law Journal 102, pp.2039-2106.
Stewart, R.G. (ed.) 1994. Government and Business Relations in Australia, Allen & Unwin, Sydney.
Stillman, P.G., 1974. Ecological Problems, Political Theory and Public Policy. In Nagel, S.S. (ed.), Environmental Politics. Praeger Publishers, New York, pp.49-60.
Stone, J., 'Put environmental altruism to real test'. Australian Financial Review, 7 February 1991, p.11.
Streeting, M.C., 1990. A Survey of the Hedonic Price Technique, Resource Assessment Commission, Canberra, RAC Research Paper 1.
Stretton, H., 1976. Capitalism, Socialism and the Environment, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Stroup, R.L., 1991. Chemophobia and Activist Environmental Antidotes: Is the Cure More Deadly than the Disease? In Bennett, J. and Block, W. (eds), 363 Reconciling Economics and the Environment. Australian Institute for Public Policy, Perth, pp.185-204.
Swank, D., 1992. Politics and the Structural Dependence of the State in Democratic Capitalist Nations. American Political Science Review 86, pp.38-54.
Tainter, J.A., 1988. The Collapse of Complex Societies, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Taplin, R., 1989. Environmental Politics in the Wran Style: A Decade of Juggling Rainforest Preservation with Urban and Industrial Developmentalism. In Hay, P., Eckersley, R. and Holloway, G. (eds), Environmental Politics in Australia and New Zealand. Centre for Environmental Studies, Hobart, pp.19-31.
Taplin, R., 1992. Adversary Procedures and Expertise: The Terania Creek Inquiry. In Walker, K.J. (ed.), Australian Environmental Policy: Ten Case Studies. New South Wales University Press, Sydney, pp.156-182.
Tatalovich, R. and Daynes, B.W. (eds), 1988. Social Regulatory Policy : Moral Controversies in American Politics, Westview Press, Boulder.
Taylor, L., 'Coronation Hill Test for Sacred Sites'. Australian, 9 May 1991, p.2.
Taylor, L., 'Get the hint: don't mine the hill'. The Australian, 8 May 1991, p.1.
Taylor, L., 'Key question unanswered'. The Australian, 9 February 1991, p.8.
The Ecologist, 1993. Whose Common Future? Reclaiming the Commons, Earthscan Publishing, London.
The Wilderness Society, 1989. Response to the CHJV Coronation Hill Draft EIS, Unpublished, Sydney.
The World Heritage Information Network, The World Heritage List. Kakadu National Park. Online: http://www.unesco.org/whc/sites/147.htm, accessed July 1997.
Tilzey, R.D.J. (ed.) 1994. The South East Fishery : a Scientific Review with Particular Reference to Quota Management, Bureau of Resource Sciences, Canberra.
Tobias, M., 1985. After Eden. History, Ecology and Conscience, Avant Books, San Diego.
Touraine, A., Hegedus, Z., Dubet, F. and Wieviorka, M., 1983. Antinuclear Protest: The Opposition to Nuclear Energy in France, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Toyne, P., 1994. The Reluctant Nation, ABC Books, Sydney. 364 Trioli, V., 'Coronation Hill may be PM's answer to his son'. Age, 18 June 1991, p.15.
Trollope, D. and Heatley, A., 1994. CEOs, Policies and Public Bodies. Australian Journal of Public Administration 53, pp.212-221.
Uhrig, J., 1984. Review of the Industries Assistance Commission. Report, AGPS, Canberra.
United States General Accounting Office, 1982. A Market Approach to Air Pollution Control Could Reduce Compliance Costs Without Jeopardizing Clean Air Costs, United States General Accounting Office, Washington DC. van Waarden, F., 1985. Varieties of Collective Self-regulation of Business: the Example of the Dutch Dairy Industry. In Streeck, W. and Schmitter, P.C. (eds), Private Interest Government. Beyond Market and State. SAGE Publications, London, pp.197-220.
Vaughan, D., 1989. Regulating Risk: Implications of the Challenger Accident. Law and Policy 11, pp.330-349.
Vaughan, D., 1990. Autonomy, Interdependence, and Social Control: NASA and the Space Shuttle Challenger. Administrative Science Quarterly 35, pp.225-257.
Vaughan, D., 1992. Theory Elaboration: the Heuristics of Case Analysis. In Ragin, C.C. and Becker, H.S. (eds), What is a Case? Exploring the Foundations of Social Inquiry. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp.173-202.
Vernon, B., 1996. Greening Government from the Inside: the Life and Times of the Australian Department for the Environment, Paper presented to the Ecopolitics X Conference, ANU Canberra, September 1996.
Vogel, D., 1983. The Power of Business in America: a Reappraisal. British Journal of Political Science 13, pp.19-43.
Vogel, D., 1987. Political Science and the Study of Corporate Power: A Dissent from the New Conventional Wisdom. British Journal of Political Science 17, pp.385-408.
Vogel, D., 1989. Fluctuating Fortunes: the Political Power of Business in America, Basic Books, New York.
Vogel, D., 1995. Trading Up. Consumer and Environmental Regulation in a Global Economy, Harvard University Press, Cambridge Mass.
Vogel, D., 1997. Trading Up and Governing Across: Transnational Governance and Environmental Protection. Journal of European Public Policy 4, pp.556-571. 365 Waite, P.J., 1991. Risk Assessment, RAC Conservation Zone Inquiry, Consultancy Series, AGPS, Canberra.
Waldron, J., 1988. The Right to Private Property, Clarendon Press, Oxford.
Walker, K.J., 1988. The Environmental Crisis: A Critique of Neo-Hobbesian Responses. Polity 21, pp.67-81.
Walker, K.J., 1991. The Political Ecology of Environmental Destruction. In Harding, R. (ed.), Ecopolitics V, University of NSW, Sydney, pp.3-9.
Walker, K.J. (ed.) 1992. Australian Environmental Policy: Ten Case Studies, UNSW Press, Kensington.
Walker, K.J., 1992. Business, Government and the Environment: Unresolved Dilemmas. In Bell, S. and Wanna, J. (eds), Business-Government Relations in Australia. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Sydney, pp.243-254.
Walker, K.J., 1992. Conclusion: The Politics of Environmental Policy. In Walker, K.J. (ed.), Australian Environmental Policy: Ten Case Studies. New South Wales University Press, Sydney, pp.233-254.
Walker, K.J., 1992. Introduction. In Walker, K.J. (ed.), Australian Environmental Policy: Ten Case Studies. New South Wales University Press, Sydney, pp.1-18.
Walker, K.J., 1992. The Neglect of Ecology: The Case of the Ord River Scheme. In Walker, K.J. (ed.), Australian Environmental Policy. UNSW Press, Sydney, pp.183-202.
Walker, K.J., 1994. The Political Economy of Environmental Policy: an Australian Introduction, University of New South Wales Press, Kensington.
Wall, D., 1994. Green History. A Reader in Environmental Literature, Philosophy and Politics, Routedge, London.
Wallace, C., 'Scepticism on Role of New Commission'. Business Review Weekly, 3 November 1989, p.32-33.
Wallace, D., 1995. Environmental Policy and Industrial Innovation. Strategies in Europe, the USA and Japan, The Royal Institute of International Affairs / Earthscan Publications, London.
Walsh, P., 1995. Confessions of a Failed Finance Minister, Random House, Sydney.
Ward, B. and Dubos, R., 1972. Only One Earth. The Care and Maintenance of a Small Planet, Penguin, Harmondsworth.
Warhurst, J., 1982. Jobs or Dogma? The Industries Assistance Commission and Australian Politics, University of Queenland Press, St Lucia. 366 Warhurst, J., 1983. Single Issue Politics: the Impact of Conservation Groups and Anti-Abortion Groups. Current Affairs Bulletin 60, pp.19-31.
Warhurst, J. and Stewart, J., 1989. Manufacturing Industry Policies. In Head, B.W. and Patience, A. (eds), From Fraser to Hawke. Longman Cheshire, Melbourne, pp.159-176.
Weale, A., 1992. The New Politics of Pollution, Manchester University Press, Manchester.
Webb, G., 1990. Mining and Environmental Management - Some Current Trends, , Report to the Australian Mining Industry Council (AMIC Submission 101 to Conservation Zone Inquiry), 7 Nov 1990.
Weber, R.P., 1990. Basic Content Analysis, (2nd edn), Sage, Newbery Park.
Weiss, C., 1977. Introduction. In Weiss, C. (ed.), Using Social Research in Public Policy Making. Lexington Books, Lexington, Mass., pp.1-22.
Welford, R., 1996. Beyond Environmentalism and Towards the Sustainable Organization. In Welford, R. (ed.), Corporate Environmental Management: Systems and Strategies. Earthscan Publications Ltd, London, pp.239-256.
Welford, R. and Gouldson, A., 1993. Environmental Management and Business Strategy, Pitman, London.
Whipple, W.J., 1994. New Perspectives in Water Supply, Lewis Publishers, Boca Raton.
White, D., 1986. Kakadu - A Detailed Assessment of its Mineral Potential. The Mining Review December, pp.19-29.
Wieviorka, M., 1992. Case Studies: History or Sociology? In Ragin, C.C. and Becker, H.S. (eds), What is a Case? Exploring the Foundations of Social Inquiry. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp.159-172.
Wilkenfeld, G., Hamilton, C. and Saddler, H., 1995. Australia's Greenhouse Strategy: Can the Future be Rescued?, The Australia Institute, Canberra.
Wilks, L.C., 1990. A Survey of the Contingent Valuation Method, Resource Assessment Commission, RAC Research Paper 2.
Wills, I., 1997. Economics and the Environment, Allen & Unwin, Sydney.
Woinarski, J.C., Gambold, N., Menkhorst, K. and Braithwaite, R.W., 1989. Wildlife Survey of Stage III Kakadu National Park, CSIRO Division of Wildlife, Darwin, Final Report to ANPWS. 367 Woinarski, J.C.Z. and Braithwaite, R.W., 1990. The Terrestrial Vertebrate Fauna and Vegetation of the Kakadu Conservation Zone: Results of a Field Survey and Interpretation of Available Data, RAC Conservation Zone Inquiry, Consultancy Series, AGPS, Canberra.
Woodward, A.E., 1973. Aboriginal Land Rights Commission: First Report, AGPS, Canberra.
Woodward, A.E., 1974. Aboriginal Land Rights Commission: Second Report, AGPS, Canberra.
World Commission on Environment and Development, 1990. Our Common Future, (Australian edn), Oxford University Press, Melbourne.
Yandle, B., 1989. The Political Limits of Environmental Regulation: Tracking the Unicorn, Greenwood Publishing Group, Westport.
Young, J., 1990. Post Environmentalism, Belhaven Press, London.
Young, L., 'Kakadu mining survey criticised'. The Age, 31 January 1991, p.15.
Young, L., 1993. A Consideration of ‘Environmental Accordism’ - its Theoretical Utility and Limitations. In Jolly, B. and Holland, I. (eds), Facing the Future: Ecopolitics VII Conference Proceedings, Griffith University, Brisbane, Imagecraft, pp.162-168.
Young, L., 1995. Rhetoric and Strategy: Australian Mining and the Conflict Over Coronation Hill. Policy, Organisation and Society 11, pp.1-24.
Young, O.R., 1981. Natural Resources and the State: The Political Economy of Resource Management, University of California Press, Berkeley.
Young, O.R., 1982. Resource Regimes. Natural Resources and Social Institutions, University of California Press, Berkeley.
Znaniecki, F., 1934. The Method of Sociology, Holt, Rinehart & Winston, New York.