THE Minerals Council of Australia (MCA) has told the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet (PM&C) that the mining industry should not be a surrogate for Governments’ responsibilities for the provision of social and physical infrastructure.
The comments came after a meeting between PM&C Secretary Dr Peter Shergold and MCA chief executive Mitchell Hooke to discuss sustainable indigenous communities.
“We agreed with the Secretary that while the industry should not be a surrogate for Governments’ responsibilities for the provision of social and physical infrastructure, the minerals industry is a critical complement in providing the commercial enterprise for the socio-economic wellbeing of Indigenous communities, in which we operate,” Hooke said.
“We discussed the existing array of formal arrangements, notably, the Memorandum of Understanding on Indigenous Employment and Enterprise Development, Indigenous Land Use Agreements, and other Indigenous agreements,” he said.