Color Change, a new documentary from Front Yard Films, is a testimony to the wrong done by BHP Billiton to the people of the Western Province of Papua New Guinea and the deceit and genocide that preceded BHPs exit from the mine. http://www.frontyardfilms.com.au/Color%20clip.html

The feature length documentary follows a team of landowners who challenge the large Australian-based mining company, BHP as it goes about securing guarantees of total immunity against legal action following years of environmental damage to the land and rivers of the people of the remote Western province.

The film has been shown at the Reel Earth Environmental Film Festival, the Southern Hemisphere’s leading film festival with an environment focus, and is also being edited to a shorter duration for television.

The story

In a remote Papua New Guinea province the landowners are in a complex struggle with a multinational over their rights and their environment. By 2001, BHP had dumped billions of tonnes of tailings from the Ok Tedi copper mine into the Ok Tedi and Fly River systems.

In 1994, the company was stunned when landowners successfully enlisted the support of Australian lawyers to prosecute a class action because of environmental devastation of their land.

By 2000, after dishonoring an out-of-court settlement to clean up the river, BHP decided to exit the mine. As part of the plan, BHP ‘gave’ its fifty two percent share of the Ok Tedi mine to the Papua New Guinea Government as a gift. In return, they demanded a guarantee of total immunity from prosecution by landowners. The company set out on a campaign to get signatures from local people on their exit documents.

Many villagers, their food supply poisoned by mine pollution and dependent on compensation payments, are strongly attracted to BHP’s offers of money and community projects. A small group of landowners – the protagonists in the film – desperately try to convince local people, lured by company promises, not to sign their rights away.

As pressure builds in the final and secretive stages of BHP’s exit negotiations, confusion reins, divisions grow and death threats are reported. Our protagonists are devastated when village leaders – flown in by company helicopters and feted at company expense – blindly sign the exit agreement.

Disillusioned, some leaders try to give evidence of the methods used by company representatives to get their signatures, but to no avail. The agreement has already been passed into law.

The environment and the people of the Ok Tedi and Fly rivers are slowly being poisoned as the mining operation continues to operate ‘as normal’.

Watch a promotional clip – http://www.frontyardfilms.com.au/Color%20clip.html

Directors statement

The idea of this story is to convey a reality that exists for the people of the Western Province of Papua New Guinea, to this day.

My interpretation of this chronicle of genocide is informed by the stories told by the people themselves and the beliefs, frustrations and hopes they expressed.

The inspiration for the title, Color Change comes from the descriptions they gave of the changes to their natural environment since the mine began discharging mine tailings directly into the rivers. This also inspired the treatment of the images of the film that come in three natural parts.

Part 1, the Prologue, is depicted by a warm almost surreal atmosphere, contained and restricted by the square-like 4:3 framing, which symbolises the escalating situation for the communities along the Ok Tedi and Fly rivers.

Part 2, the central story, uses normal color balance and the benefit of the 16:9 wide screen, to invoke space and normality, suggestive of the hope among the film’s protagonists and their supporters that something good may come of it all.

Part 3, the steel cold look, symbolizes the realisation that bigger forces are at work to disempower people challenging the mine’s modus operandi and continue to cause the destruction of the land.

The music composed by Phillip Houghton, is poetic, haunting, gritty, and in your face most of the time. It is a break away from the heroic overtones of music heralding adventure and the conquest of the wild in a far away country, used in the promotional film produced by BHP, an excerpt of which features in the film’s opening.

Houghton’s music also acts to remind the audience of the workings of a mine, a confronting noise caused by equipment – trucks, bulldozers, explosions – to which local people are exposed daily.

This is perhaps a dark film, but as a lawyer in the film says, ‘the difference between success and failure in this sort of case, is who can exert the greatest economic influence on the outcome.’

The film serves as a testimony to the wrong done by BHP Billiton to the people of the Western Province of Papua New Guinea.

But it also acts as an alarm bell, to warn people of what is to come for all of us if respect is not shown towards local indigenous peoples and their environment.

Today at the annual general meeting for the largest mining company in the world, BHP Billiton, aboriginal elders and civil society representatives have attended to share their concerns.

Delegates included:

Uncle Kevin Buzzacott and Peter Watts (Arabunna), Richard Evans – Yeelirrie, Tomohiro Matsuoka – Japan for Peace, Mia Pepper – Conservation Council WA

Dave Sweeney – Australian Conservation Foundation, Donna Jackson – Larrakia nation, Mitch – Arrente and many others – including Christian Miller from Chile.

Uncle Kevin Buzzacott addressed supporters gathered saying, calling on the people of Melbourne to regularly visit BHP headquarters to keep them accountable.

Uncle Kevin Buzzacott is from Arabunna country, directly impacted by BHP Billiton’s uranium mining operations  has brought a ‘Notice of Trespass’ to be served on BHP.

40 supporters gathered to support over 20 delegates who entered the conference to share concerns about many aspects of BHP Operations across Australia, and worldwide.

Conference delegates were greeted by a massive 6 metre high inflatable nuclear waste barrel and were handed copies of a different style of report.

A collective of environment groups from across the country have today released BHP Billiton: Dirty Energy ‘Alternative Annual Report’.

VIDEOS FROM ACTION OUTSIDE BHP BILLITON”S ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING, Melbourne, Australia

Arabunna elder Uncle Kevin Buzzacott was one of a number of traditional custodians who travelled to Melbourne to challenge the board of the world’s biggest mining company, BHP Billiton, over the despoiling of their country. Here he describes his reception at the AGM.
We hear first from Friends of the Earth anti-nuclear campaigner Tully McIntyre, who witnessed proceedings, and Japanese for Peace campaigner Tomohiro Matsuoka.

While traditional custodians and supporters holding proxies were inside the Melbourne Convention Centre challenging the board, other supporters held a protest outside, against the backdrop of a huge blow-up radioactive waste barrel:
hip-hop from Izzy and MC Ollie, satire from No Nukes Calamity Jane (aka Madeline Hudson), song from the Radical Choir, including a solo from Emily…

Plus, on Wednesday Oct. 19, there will be a public event with special guests to talk about BHPB’s operations around the world.

WHO is BHP Billiton? BHPB is the world’s largest diversified resources company and produces coal, oil, gas and uranium. It made record profits of $23.6 billion over the past year and is listed on the London Stock Exchange.
Why Protest BHPB? BHPB makes a massive contribution to worsening climate change and is creating deadly radioactive pollution for hundreds of thousands of years to come. Meanwhile, its operations contribute to and benefit from the involuntary relocation of communities and the destruction of rural communities’ livelihoods.

“It is a bit rich for former BHP Billiton chairman Don Argus to talk about declining productivity growth when an analysis of the figures actually reveals that productivity in the non-mining sectors is growing quite rapidly. The irony is that it is the rapid decline in productivity in the mining industry that is driving down the national figures,” Richard Denniss, The Australian Institute.”

Today The Australian Institute launched its report on the Public perceptions of the size and significance of the mining industry to the Australian economy which are radically different to the facts.

Download the report: Mining the truth: The rhetoric and reality of the commodities boom

In summary, Australians believe that the mining sector:

• Employs nine times more workers than it actually does
• Accounts for three times as much economic activity as it actually does
• Is 30 per cent more Australian-owned than it actually is.

Judge rules against BHP Billiton, Eskom secrecy

by Donwald Pressly
Business Report

Newspaper group Media24 has won a court action to make public the special pricing agreements between Eskom and BHP Billiton, but the mining multinational says it is weighing up its options and it may take the matter on appeal.

Should it not do so, the information about the multibillion-rand secret pricing agreements is likely be made available within a few days. The long-term deals are believed to provide BHP Billiton with favourable electricity pricing of about a quarter of that of other consumers to run its aluminium smelters.

Judge Frans Kgomo, in the South Gauteng High Court, ruled against Eskom, BHP Billiton, Hillside Aluminium, Motraco-Companhia de Transmissão de Moçambique and the minister of justice and constitutional development.

The judgment noted that South Africa had been experiencing power outages – “so-called load shedding” – since 2008 and residents faced regular and sustained price increases on electricity, “while the Billiton Group’s businesses enjoy security of supply without having to worry about increases until 2026 at the least and 2028 at the most”.

He found that public interest overrode concerns about commercial harm to the BHP Billiton group.

Sake24 journalist Jan de Lange, the first applicant, and Media 24, the second applicant, requested in September 2009 information concerning the pricing agreements.

This included all documents relating to the formula “or manner of determination of the price” for the supply of electricity by Eskom to two smelters owned by BHP Billiton – the Hillside smelter in Richards Bay and the Mozal smelter in Maputo, Mozambique.

They also sought documents relating to all signatories to written agreements between Eskom and BHP Billiton, or its affiliates, for the supply of power to the smelters and all documents relating to the date of commencement and termination of written agreements between the parties.

Eskom argued that the bulk purchase agreement contained commercial and technical information “of a highly confidential nature” belonging to BHP Billiton, “the disclosure of which will cause significant harm to the commercial and financial interest of the group, thereby putting it at a disadvantage in its contractual negotiations”.

The applicants argued that Eskom’s refusal to release the information was unlawful. They argued that if all public bodies were allowed to hide behind confidentiality agreements of clauses to avoid disclosure “that would be a negation of the spirit and purpose of the Promotion of Access to Information Act”.

The judge found that the confidentiality agreement was not applicable to the agreements “in issue here”. They were confidentiality agreements between Hillside Smelters and Billiton before the present agreements were signed. The agreements related, instead, to the supply of electricity to Bayside’s aluminium pot lines.

The judge noted that the two smelters consumed 5.68 percent of Eskom’s total base load capacity, supporting “the conclusions by the applicants and the general public that the extent of the rolling electricity blackouts experienced in South Africa since 2008 would have been substantially reduced.”

Johnny Dladla, BHP Billiton’s spokesman, said: “We respect the laws of the countries in which we operate. However, we also have an obligation to protect the interests of our employees, customers and shareholders. We will carefully consider the court’s ruling with the view of determining whether there are grounds for an appeal.”

Willem de Klerk, an attorney representing the applicants, said the court had not ordered any time limit for the provision of the information. If there was no appeal from BHP Billiton and Eskom it was likely that the information would be public within a few days.

Eskom said it would abide by the court’s ruling.

Al Jazeera reports on the true costs of Australia’s mining boom which includes the ‘Big Australian’ BHP Billiton’s role in the growing concerns of the destruction to the environment, families, Aboriginal communities and the future of Australia as a sustainable, clean and just country.

__________________________

Barry FitzGerald
Sydney Morning Herald
March 16 2011

AS THE struggle continues to bring the crippled Fukushima Daiichi power plant north of Tokyo back under control, BHP Billiton is weighing up a $30 billion expansion of its Olympic Dam copper, uranium and gold mine.

Copper is the most important metal in the South Australian outback in terms of revenue and profits, but Olympic Dam’s status as the world’s biggest uranium deposit (it is the world’s fourth biggest copper deposit) means that the outlook for uranium is also a vital consideration in BHP’s expansion plans.

A final investment decision – expected early next year – will depend on economic conditions at the time, most notably the outlook on the price of copper. 

However, the earthquake in Japan has altered the landscape for uranium. High-growth scenarios for nuclear power are now too bullish and BHP will have to factor in the potential for a stable- to low-growth uranium outlook.

The ability of the world’s nuclear industry to soak up the massive increase in the supply of uranium that would come with an expansion of Olympic Dam is suddenly open to question.

Annual capacity at Olympic Dam is now rated at 235,000 tonnes of copper, 4500 tonnes of uranium and 100,000 ounces of gold. Fully expanded, that capacity rises to 750,000 tonnes of copper, 19,000 tonnes of uranium and 800,000 ounces of gold.

The planned increase in uranium output represents 20 per cent of present world production.

At today’s prices, total uranium output at Olympic Dam would account for about 25 per cent of its revenues. And because of Olympic Dam’s mineralisation, uranium has to be produced (separated from the copper). It is not a case of simply leaving it behind, even if copper prices are such that Olympic Dam would be a big money-spinner on copper alone.

Because of its uranium content, the Olympic Dam expansion project has had to jump through more approval hoops than a standard copper or gold mine.

An environmental impact statement was released in May 2009 and then entered a public comment period, during which 4000 public submissions were received, most of which raised concerns about uranium and its role in the global nuclear power cycle.

BHP was then required to submit a supplementary environmental impact statement that includes responses to those submissions.

The backlash from anti-nuclear groups in response to Japan’s damaged nuclear generators means government clearance of the supplementary environmental impact statement is a hot issue all of sudden.

Sunday, March 6, 2011
Kerryn Williams

Mining company BHP Billiton’s whopping $10.5 billion profit for the second half of 2010 highlights the shameless greed of those making a fortune out of Australia’s valuable resources.

Remember the tantrum thrown by BHP, Rio Tinto and Xstrata less than a year ago after then-PM Kevin Rudd proposed the Resource Super Profits Tax (RSPT)?

The RSPT wasn’t a radical proposal. Part of the revenue from the modest 40% tax would have been returned to the corporate sector, helping to fund a cut in the already low corporate tax rate and various subsidies to mining. 

But if we believed the scare campaign by the mining giants, the RSPT was going to cripple the mining industry, and force these poor companies to take their capital and invest it elsewhere, at the expense of Australian jobs.

Now BHP is on track to break an Australian record. Its profit for this financial year will likely be more than $20 billion. Rio Tinto and Xstrata have also announced huge profits.

The mining companies’ multi-million-dollar advertising campaign against the RSPT was one big con job.

After the ALP machine ditched Rudd and installed Julia Gillard as PM, Gillard dropped the RSPT and gave the big mining companies a better deal.

Recent Treasury estimates indicate the watered down Minerals Resource Rent Tax (MRRT), which will reduce the RSPT’s 40% tax to just 30%, will bring in well under half the revenue.

The original tax was supposed to raise about $99 billion starting from the 2012-13 financial year until 2020-21. But it now looks like this figure will be only $38.5 billion.

That’s $60.5 billion that could have been spent on health care, education or the shift to renewable energy.

Greens leader Bob Brown has called for the original 40% tax to be restored. But Gillard insisted the MRRT would not be renegotiated, telling media on February 16: “We will deliver through the Australian parliament that tax as I agreed it with Australia’s biggest mining companies.”

Even the paltry corporate tax rate is to high for the corporate elite.

The February 28 Sydney Morning Herald said tax department research revealed an higher gap between expected and collected corporate tax revenue, which taxation commissioner Michael D’Ascenzo suggested could be attributed to the mining sector.

This is nothing new; creative tax avoidance is a part of Australian corporate culture.

The big corporations are always trying to convince us that high profits are good for everyone. The argument goes that the more they make, the more they’ll share around. But as the mining giants have shown, the more they make, the more they line their pockets.

It’s true that some mining workers earn relatively high wages. But these wages, often for dangerous and difficult work, are peanuts compared to mining super-profits.

The Australian Council of Trade Unions pointed out in June 2010 that over the last decade, mining profits grew by 530%. This was more than eight times the rate of increase in mining workers’ wages. The recent hike in profits would make the gap even larger.

We can also forget any idea that that the mining giants might voluntarily raise their contribution to social spending. The corporate elite’s response to the recent floods was indicative.

Graham Bradley, president of the Business Council of Australia (which represents the CEOs of Australia’s 100 biggest companies), told ABC Radio on February 14 that the government should consider cutting disability pensions and foreign aid to fund flood reconstruction in the eastern states.

The massive super-profits in the hands of the already filthy rich are especially sickening when you consider how Australia’s natural resources could be put to the common good.

Just half of BHP’s expected $20 billion annual profit over a decade would be enough to bring the level of Indigenous health, education and housing in line with the rest of the population. BHP would surely manage with the remaining $10 billion a year!

But to carry out such a measure, the government would actually have to take on the mining giants.

If these companies cry poor, they should be made to open their books. If they threaten to take their operations offshore, the government should offer the mining companies a simple choice: continue to operate here and make substantial profits while paying a meaningful tax, or the mining sector will be placed in public hands.

But clearly this isn’t going to happen — under an ALP or a Coalition government.

The only real solution to the rampant greed of the mining giants is nationalisation of the mining sector. Bringing this industry — Australia’s most profitable sector — under public control would raise huge funds that could be put towards vital projects such as the shift to renewable energy.

Destructive, dangerous and unsustainable mining could be phased out and workers retrained in other areas.

Placing mining in public hands would require a determined and large-scale struggle by mining workers and the community.

As we move closer each day to major climate catastrophe, and the Gillard government wastes precious time with false solutions like the carbon tax, such a move becomes increasingly necessary.

Mar 06 2011 15:25
Johannes Myburgh

Johannesburg – The apparent mismanagement at the BHP Billiton [JSE:BIL] Mozal plant in Matola, 17km outside Maputo, has led to inspection visits by three international complaints directorates.The plant’s mismanagement led to the near-breakdown of a few filters and now officials are being accused of not communicating properly with civil society organisations, which has led to a breakdown of trust with the surrounding communities.

This has prompted investigations by the International Finance Corporation, the European Investment Bank and the National Contact Point United Kingdom.

In November last year, Mozal started emitting tars and toxic gases directly into the air while repairing its two-fume treatment centres (FTCs) that had corroded to the point of collapse.

This raised the ire of civil society organisations and prompted formal complaints to the JSE’s Socially Responsible Investment index and investors.

University of Johannesburg academic Harold Annegarn told City Press that the potential collapse was not a minor problem.

He said: “It is the serious breakdown of the whole plant. Now they’re trying to patch it up and keep it going.”

Built 10 years ago for $1.3bn, Mozal was the largest capital injection in one of the world’s poorest countries. African leaders lined up to see the industrial success story during an African Union summit in Maputo.

But a decade later, the plant has bypassed its FTCs for more than four months, the longest shutdown experts know of and a “highly unusual condition”, according to Annegarn.

“It is an indication of poor operating conditions, poor maintenance or fundamental design faults,” Annegarn said.

At one point, the ducts that connected the aluminium furnaces with air supply caught on fire, a situation indicating “seriously poor management”, he said.

Mozal Assets president Mike Fraser last year attributed the deterioration to “suboptimal engineering” and “overproduction”, comparing the filters to “a small exhaust for a Ferrari”.

During a biannual public meeting in Maputo last week, Fraser said: “We have really tracked this down to the failure of the FTCs in 2003. They were repaired, but if you look at the filters, it wasn’t adequate.”

The FTCs were being reconstructed to allow easier access for inspection in future, he said.

In spite of the seriousness of the filter bypass, the subsidiary of the world’s largest mining company avoided engagement with civil society and complicated access to its environmental studies, leaving little time for independent analysis of its contingency plans.

The communications bungle triggered an unprecedented reaction.

An NGO coalition tested every possible legal measure to question Mozal’s lack of transparency. In December the smelter relented, agreeing to set up a stakeholders’ forum.

Yet its regular publication of air quality monitoring data has not healed its relationship with some Matola residents.

During last week’s public meeting, the plant said its emission levels were within World Health Organisation (WHO) limits.

Its independent consultants measured 11 grams per cubic metre of PM, 2.5 on average daily up to the beginning of February, at its northern fence.

The WHO limit for 24-hour exposure to the carcinogenic particulate matter, small enough to penetrate the human lung, is 25g per cubic metre.

But some community members were still doubtful that the emissions were harmless, and accused the plant of not doing enough to engage with them.

“Somebody should come explain the secondary effects to us,” said one widow.

“I live close to a market built by Mozal and there have been no meetings,” said Manuel Gomez, another resident.