David Brereton

Managing the cumulative impacts of coal mining on regional communities and environments in Australia

The expansion and contraction of the coal mining industry in Australia has placed pressure on regional communities and environments and multiplied the extent, magnitude and profile of cumulative impacts. While some mining communities have benefited from the expansion of the coal industry through the creation of jobs and the investment in economies, the compounding impacts of multiple mining operations have stretched environmental, social, human and economic systems and rendered conventional mine-by-mine governance approaches ineffective. In this paper we draw from examples in the Bowen Basin, Hunter Valley and Gunnedah Basin to traverse the range of cumulative impacts resulting from mining activities, and detail working examples of management and assessment practices that aim to enhance positive, and avoid and mitigate negative, cumulative impacts.

Indigenous Employment in the Australian Mining Industry

In the last decade or so Australian mining companies have begun to take a more proactive approach to increasing indigenous participation in the mining workforce. This article provides an overview of key trends and reviews recent research on the outcomes for indigenous people of increased participation in the mining workforce. The article concludes that the industry’s performance in providing employment opportunities for indigenous people has been highly variable and there is still much to be achieved. However, research data from two large mines with substantial indigenous workforces show that there is potential for positive outcomes to be delivered for indigenous people who do obtain work in the sector.

Risk assessment as a tool to explore sustainable development issues: lessons from the Australian coal industry

Risk assessment is a familiar tool in the minerals industry. Originally introduced to explore areas of safety and health in the workplace, the tool is now increasingly used by the industry in other areas such as environmental management. As the industry grapples with the concept of sustainable development, risk assessment represents a potentially useful methodology to engage operations with the broader range of issues involved. However, a limitation of the traditional risk mitigation approach is that it focuses on avoiding negative outcomes, whereas a sustainability focus requires consideration of positive impacts as well. This paper describes an initial attempt to use modified risk assessment methodologies to engage with three Australian coal mining operations on the subject of sustainable development. It describes the rationale for the project, the outcomes from the trials and the overall lessons from the exercise.

Cumulative Social Impacts

This chapter provides guidance for practitioners on assessment and management strategies to enhance positive, and avoid and mitigate adverse, cumulative social impacts. We define cumulative impacts as the successive, incremental and combined impacts of one or more activities on society, the economy or the environment (Moran et al., 2007; Brereton et al., 2008). Cumulative impacts are also commonly referred to as cumulative effects. Cumulative impacts can be very important to communities, economies and environments because it is the accumulation of impacts that they actually experience (Kennett, 1999). While cumulative impacts can be generated from the aggregation and interactions of the impacts resulting from a single intervention, in general the term refers to the issues of assessment and management across multiple activities and actors in the one region. Sometimes called cumulative effects assessment (Damman et al., 1995; Hegmann et al., 1999), cumulative impact assessments are rarely done, and when they are done they tend to focus on biophysical impacts rather than social impacts. Social impact assessment (SIA) too has probably not given sufficient attention to cumulative impacts (Lockie et al., 2008; Canter and Ross, 2010). [Introduction extract]

‘Real Rape’, Law Reform and The Role of Research: The Evolution of the Victorian Crimes (Rape) Act 1991

This paper provides a brief history of the Victorian Crimes (Rape) Act 1991 and examines the role which social science research played in the development of this legislation. The Crimes (Rape) Act was modelled closely on a report of the Law Reform Commission of Victoria. In preparing this report, the Commission undertook a comprehensive quantitative study of rape prosecutions in Victoria, as well as drawing on empirical studies from other jurisdictions. The paper concludes that the impact of the research on the development of the legislation was limited by a number of factors: the decision-making process was relatively unstructured, involved a large number of players, was highly politicised, and had a high symbolic content. However, the collection and dissemination of reliable data did take some of the heat and hyperbole out of the debate, and thereby facilitated a more constructive dialogue. This factor alone made the research worthwhile, given that the rape law reform had in the past been a highly divisive issue in Victoria.