Nuclear Lucre

JABILUKA | THE NORTHERN TERRITORY

In 1995-96, Energy Resources Australia sold uranium worth about $180 million, and paid $26.7 million to shareholders. The Commonwealth Government received $22.9 million in taxes and duties and the Northern Territory Government got $1.7 million in royalties. ERA's workers received $8.6 million.

ERA also paid the Commonwealth $5.8 million to be passed as "royalty equivalents" to the Aboriginals Benefit Trust Account (ABTA).

The only direct payments to traditional owners were lease payments of $273,000 for the Ranger and Jabiluka leases.

The ABTA received and distributed $4.67 million from uranium mining at Ranger in 1995-96, of which only 30% - $1.4 - million was distributed to Aboriginal organisations in the Kakadu region. Most of this money ends up in the hands of the Gagadju Association which has developed and owns considerable tourist infrastructure. However, the indebtedness of the Gagadju Association means that few benefits other than some wages for employment have been flowing on to the people of Kakadu.

Traditional owners directly receive $500, four times a year from mining royalties. Surveys have found the Jabiru region has the highest proportion of social security recipients and the highest proportion of those on annual incomes of less than $12,000, of all Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC) regions.

The Commonwealth Government is estimated to have received about $29 million from taxes on ERA and it's employees alone. Total expenditure - including all payments in Social Security, for Kakadu, and to ATSIC and other Aboriginal organisations - was estimated at $16.8 million.

Clearly the numbers game played by the Government and ERA is falling seriously short of the economic boom for the local peoples that they continually espouse.

(Compiled from research prepared for Kakadu Region Economic and Institutional Overview Study, 1997 - provided by the Gundjehmi Aboriginal Corporation), & ANAWA

Only when
the last tree has died

and the last river
been poisoned

and the last fish
been caught

will we realise
we cannot eat
money

- cree indian saying