00:01The Nathan River Resources iron ore mine went bust in May, with the Northern Territory holding a $6.2 million
00:09security bond from the company against the site's clean-up.
00:14That number is grossly inadequate.
00:17Like many other collapsed mines, it's on indigenous land. A report commissioned by the Traditional Owners Northern Land Council, obtained
00:27by the ABC, has estimated rehabilitating the mine could cost between $100 million and $1.1 billion.
00:36Mining bonds need a lot more work to go into them in terms of the amount of money that NTG
00:43holds against those activities.
00:45The Land Council says top-end traditional owners are so sick of collapsed mines being left to pollute their land,
00:53they're planning to start requiring companies to guarantee money will be put aside for rehabilitation as a condition of any
01:01new mines.
01:03That is the pathway that traditional owners are forced into, to ensure that there are conditions within the mining agreements.
01:12The Northern Territory Environment Department says the Nathan River Resources security bond is sufficient to remediate the mine in its
01:20current state, and the bond would increase if the mine was to expand further.
01:25It says it carries out independent assessments for determining security bonds.
01:30The Northern Territory Government's approach to the calculation of security bonds is, frankly, bordering on negligent.
01:37The Territory is being encouraged to improve its mine bond calculations by requiring Treasury Department oversight like Queensland does.
01:47I would recommend that Treasury take a very close look at how the liability is accumulating and how the financial
01:54provisioning is addressing it and to what degree.
01:57Traditional owners are warning if the NT Government won't move, they will.
02:02IOPE.
02:03IOPE
02:04IOPE
02:05IOPE
02:06You
