Letter to the City of Greater Bendigo Council - Community Engagement? Where?

The following is a lightly edited transcription of a letter that was sent to the CoGB Council on 10 November, 2014.

Only two Councillors have so far contacted us to acknowledge receipt. We note here that Cr Elise Chapman actually asked why we didn't just contact the mine and offer to sell them our property and go and live somewhere where there was no mine (!). We replied that our property is contiguous with a family property that has been farmed continuously since Selection in the 1850s and would not be sold... 

What was she thinking?

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To the City of Greater Bendigo Council – Re: Admittance refused to Costerfield ERC meeting

Dear Councillor,

On November 6, 2014, as I, a landowner and ratepayer in Costerfield, attempted to attend the Mandalay Resources Environmental Committee Meeting, I was confronted and asked to leave by the General Manager.

I had not entered the meeting room. I had already greeted and shaken hands with Mandalay Resources’ Sustainability Manager, but was then met by the General Manager. He refused to shake my hand or greet me personally. "Please leave my mine," he said.

I asked why I was being barred from attending and was advised: "You are writing a blog attacking my mine, you are not welcome. Please leave my mine." I replied: "The blog is attacking the regulators not the mine. I wish to talk to you about it, please". He repeated his request. So I left. I spoke to the DSDBI Principal Facilitator on my way out and related this information to him.

This is a wholly unsatisfactory state of affairs. As all Councillors will be well aware, I have at no time attacked the present mine or its current operators. I am and have been intensely and vociferously concerned with the under-regulation of the mine and the regulators themselves. I have also been providing documentary evidence to back my concerns. And I am unapologetic for my vehemence. In fact my ejection from the site is further evidence of the regulatory inadequacy that plagues this operation and needs addressing immediately.

On numerous occasions over the past decade, local resident Members of the ERC have urged that meetings be held at a public venue so that this very thing could not happen. This common-sense action would have removed from the mine the temptation (and ability) to exercise its absolutely justifiable right to refuse entry to particular people it does not want on its site. That site is, of course, private property.

The fact that this has not been done indicates a lack of respect for the people of Costerfield by, and their further disenfranchisement at the hands of, the regulators and Public Servants. Why has Council allowed a situation to occur where ratepayers and landowners are silenced in expressing their objections by prevailing, unjustifiable and much-protested conditions?

I do not blame the General Manager of the mine at all for this occurrence or criticise his actions. Of course, he has every right to keep people whom he feels may pose a threat to his mine or his workers from his property, no matter how mistaken I think he may be. Once again, it is the fault of the regulators who have allowed this unfortunate event to occur through a failure to ensure fairness and equability for the citizens of Costerfield.

I had attended the previous ERC meeting – my first – as an observer and had been active in discussion. I still have an unaddressed matter of business arising from the previous Minutes – which should therefore not be accepted at this time on that basis alone – that will now have to wait until the next meeting. Will I be barred from attending that meeting, too? I do not intend changing my position on the mine’s regulation unless I am given evidence that contradicts my position. I am not anti-mine or anti-mining. I have worked for the Division of Geo-mechanics at the CSIRO’s Queensland Centre for Advanced Technologies, a government-mining industry CRC, for goodness sake! But no one would know that because no one engages with me.

Councillor, even if I were "writing a blog attacking the mine", is this cause to be excluded from debate? In a democracy? Is it Council's and the other regulatory authorities’ position that only those who are supportive of the standard of regulation of this mine should be allowed at the table? Or to even observe.

I was, quite frankly, surprised by the General Manager's reaction. I had been hoping to be able to engage with him in some way regarding our, the landowners and ratepayers’, concerns. I realised he wouldn't be very happy with me, of course, but I certainly didn't expect him to merely put his fingers in his ears and pretend I am not here. He is allowed his opinion and I, mine. I am allowed to disagree with him and with the regulators of the mine. I should not be able to have my concerns discounted simply because I have voiced them.

I was not in attendance and so cannot comment on the manner in which the meeting was chaired, but it seems questionable to me that the meeting should have even been allowed to proceed in such an exclusionary atmosphere. No wonder there was anger on the day!

Because of our concerns, and the way they have played out over the last few weeks, the frustration of all of the residents at the meeting should be viewed with some sympathy. We said there would be dust: there was dust; and the roads and the noise were, like us, ignored, and we had to chase around madly on Public Holidays to get anyone anywhere to respond or even reply to us. My near neighbour, Mr Brian Leehy has lived with these same issues of noise, dust, water and property rights, for over a decade and is absolutely furious that no lessons have been learned. By anyone. I am not condoning or excusing Mr Leehy (I was not there… I had been excluded, you will recall) but I do understand why he is angry and I feel he has some justification. I note that Mr Neil Harris offered Mr Leehy his full support.

At 8am on Cup Day I was forced to report to the EPA horrendous noise from Lot 2 (I’d been woken by the racket at 7am)… on [Melbourne] Cup Day, a Public Holiday – noise we measured at 67dB… the limit for a Public Holiday is 36dB. I am over a kilometre from Lot 2. Mr Leehy also reported the noise. He is further from Lot 2 than I am. As video and audio I have of the morning shows, after the call was made the work quietened down to very acceptable levels (at my place at least), but why did the call need to be made in the first place? Where was the monitoring of this new project? Who was watching on our behalf? Who was regulating?

Water is being sprayed on the South Costerfield-Graytown Road. Where is that water sourced? Who is ensuring that the source remains constant? If it is sourced from rainwater, where is the testing to confirm that no subsequent contamination through contact with tailings or other mine waste during its collection and storage has occurred? No mine water is to be used for dust suppression; is this being adhered to? These are questions you, as the Responsible Authority should require answers to. For the sake of our health and wellbeing.

By the time this meeting arrived, we had already waited three months, and then a further three months, for the announcement of an ERC community member. A community voice. And that announcement was still not forthcoming. This is indicative of yet another lack in community engagement. Please do try to put yourself in our shoes. People were frustrated because the choice of venue had allowed the mine to exclude us from the site and, after six months, Council has still not chosen a community representative.

While this mine is something that crosses your path only sometimes (more frequently recently, I’m sure) it is something that the community lives with each and every moment of the day. The noise is always there. Always. Not just from Splitters Creek. From the mine. The noise does not stop.

Why do you think I keep annoying all of you, all of the time? It’s to show you what a mining operation in your backyard sounds like.

Ms King was barred for abusing mine staff. This is something she admits: shouting down a phoneline. Once again, I was not there, but I think her reactions, while perhaps not being very polite or considerate, are forgivable if one knows and understands the circumstances. The call took place on the day that works commenced at Splitters Creek… which was the morning after the passing of Mr Leask’s mother, Mrs Mary Leask, at the age of 100. So Mr Leask awoke, on his first morning without a mother, to the overwhelming roar of heavy machinery and a mouthful of dust from Lot 2. By the time the ‘abusive phone call’ took place, Ms King had called many numbers and sent many texts but had received no response from anyone.*

[* This is not strictly correct. We admit and apologise for our mistake. Ms King managed to speak to both the Mayor, Cr Barry Lyons, and Cr Helen Leach. Certainly, then, contact was made, but the 'response' was to commit to following it up the next day... when the horse races were over.]

It was a Public Holiday in Bendigo and so the world stopped. But not the dust and noise in Costerfield.

When she eventually got through to Mandalay, Ms King was grief-stricken, livid and frustrated that those very things she had taken to VCAT were now unfolding and no one was listening. And the dust was falling and the noise was hammering. And a pregnant mare she had moved to a distant paddock to calm her was so distressed by the noise she delivered a premature, dead colt. Ms King let loose. Not wise or polite... but, surely understandable?

Still no one has contacted her, Councillor. No one from the City of Greater Bendigo has instituted in any way the Community Engagement Policy detailed in the city’s policy document that I have attached so you may refresh your memory. Has anyone asked Ms King about her and Mr Leask’s pain and grief and offered to facilitate things at this very difficult time? No. No one has.

Mr Leask and Ms King require sampling and monitoring at Glenlea. They have a chemical-free farm to protect. And a Shetland pony stud. But they want it done according to their requirements for their businesses, rather than being limited by the mine's narrow testing scope that does not address their livestock concerns. Is this really too much to ask? No discussion has been entered into by the mine. It is their way or no way.

Once again, we are angry and frustrated at the game of catch up the various departments are running with this project. Despite it being months since the VCAT decision was handed down, next to nothing was in place to look after us, the residents, our health and wellbeing or our property rights. Again. And for weeks leading up to this we have been running a blog telling the regulators and you about this need to pay attention to the regulations. Regulations that are supposed to protect us, the citizens. You’ve ignored us.

Engagement works both ways. At present, everyone must engage with the mine (but only at the mine… if they are allowed to attend!) or they are barred from taking any part in the conversation. Perhaps if Council had engaged more appropriately with Ms King and Mr Leask it may have been able to inform Mandalay of the turmoil in Mr Leask and Ms King’s lives, so that things may have been undertaken differently...

I understand that there are moves afoot to have police attendance at ERC meetings in future. Please don't bring in the police. It really will be very demeaning for everyone and will only serve to inflame things. The ridiculous casting of the regulators and the mine as victims facing radical, anti-mining activists was tried successfully in 1998; it won’t work in 2014.

I have related that sorry tale of unwarranted public shaming on the blog with contemporary newspaper clippings and other supportive documents. It would be an insult to the people of Costerfield to think that this would be attempted again. There is no need for the police. No need to over-react. No violence is pending, just anger because we are not being served well or listened to.

If you would like to meet to discuss these things face-to-face please do contact me. My pen’s bark is much worse than my real bite, I assure you.

We just want things done properly, at last, Councillor. That's all.

Please do something to help us get that accomplished…

Sincerely

Steve Blackey