Recommendations to the Australian Government
In summary, the Working Group recommends that:
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In many cases there is no need for the totality of an agreement to be confidential. While information that is genuinely commercially or culturally sensitive should be protected, much of the structural and technical content of agreements could be made public, assisting future drafters and enabling greater transparency and accountability.
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Agreements (or examples of best practice agreement provisions) should be able to be accessed from a central database or repository.
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Traditional owners should have available to them the means reasonably necessary to assist them in negotiating and implementing agreements. NTRBs and PBCs should be better resourced to assist traditional owners, including at the implementation stage of agreements.
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The Minerals Council of Australia, NNTC and the Australian and State and Territory Governments should produce guidance materials on the negotiation, content and implementation of agreements. Specifically, the guidance should:
a) highlight leading practice approaches for all parties in the agreement making process;
b) identify the characteristics of good agreements; and
c) provide guidance on generic clauses that should be a feature of such agreements. -
The Australian, State and Territory Governments should invest in developing a pool of work-ready Indigenous Australians who can be employed in the mining and associated industries.
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Consideration should be given to favourable tax treatment for model trust deeds that have an intergenerational benefit for Indigenous communities.
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Immediate priority should be given to changes to the current tax policy of not allowing for tax effective accumulation of charitable trust funds.
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Consideration should be given to adopting a new model of Indigenous corporation that provides tax and other incentives for agreement making with Indigenous communities that promotes long-term benefits.
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Section 193X of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Act 2005 should be amended to ensure the activities of the Office of Evaluation and Audit do not act as a disincentive to joint ventures with Indigenous corporations.
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Consideration should be given to the provision of full and immediate tax deductibility (on a flow through basis) for expenditure incurred on specific capacity building in Indigenous organisations, key to ensuring the necessary skill base and governance arrangements for the effective long-term management of funds held.
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Consideration should be given to the provision of full and immediate tax deductibility (on a flow through basis) for expenditure on the establishment of community infrastructure, recognising that industry investment is undertaken in an absence of government investment and where there is significant market failure. Such an approach would recognise that this is essential expenditure, akin to capital works and R&D.
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Consideration should be given to the provision of flow through tax treatment coupled with tax exempt income and capital gains for venture capital partners in Indigenous enterprise development, subject to the enterprise meeting minimum Indigenous ownership and equity arrangements.