Suki Dorras-Walker:
“While the Territory Government struggles to find the money to fund much needed domestic violence and homelessness services, it’s implementing a new scheme which lowers the royalty rate for new mines and therefore the revenue of the Territory Government.”
“This new mining royalties scheme reveals that we don’t have a budget deficit problem, we have a problem with a Territory Government that is unwilling to make its corporate mates pay their fair share when extracting our public resources.
“These resources belong to Territorians and we should be getting bang for our buck.”
“While the current reduction in royalties does not apply to existing mines, it leaves the door open for them to adopt the same model. That’s a major threat to the Territory’s revenue. Given a large proportion of royalties come from mining on Aboriginal Land, there is reason to believe this could disproportionately affect First Nations Territorians.”
“Territorians are feeling the cost of living squeeze. But, once again, the mining industry gets exactly what they want – more profit at the expense of Territorians.”
“We’ve just had a budget where the NT Government is emphasising revenue created in the Territory and cutting essential services. It makes no sense to change the rules so that mines pay less royalties for our public resources instead of more – it’s a rip off.”
“Unlike the CLP and Territory Labor, the NT Greens do not take donations from mining corporations looking to buy influence. So we will always be advocating for the best deal for Territorians, not big corporations.”