Where does all the money go?

[David]

Shareholders /= the public. I feel like that’s an important distinction. That Fortescue shareholders are happy if the company keeps making profits goes without saying, but it doesn’t really tell us what they’re contributing to the local economy, whether money is being funnelled overseas or whether the long-term costs of digging up non-renewable resources are outstripping the short-term benefits. They may be accountable to their shareholders both here and overseas, but their accountability to the Australian public is a somewhat different matter.

[Pies4shaw]

First - and perhaps we need to go further than first, given the OP's underlying premise that tens of billions of dollars must have been frittered away - the Yindjibarndi People have received no royalties from FMG as a result of this case. FMG has spent the last decade or so trying to run the claimants out of money (including, it would appear, by funding alternative, stooge organisations).

Secondly, the case that has just been decided is an appeal upholding the claimants' contention that they had native title rights in the nature of, amongst other things, exclusive possession over the relevant area. The question of compensation follows - it has never been before the courts in this case.

Thirdly - and following ineluctably from my second point, FMG is not appealing the decision Skids asserts. I say again, no compensation has been paid and none has yet been ordered to be paid. Skids' reference to the Morgan Stanley estimate is to a speculative estimate of the compensation that might be ordered to be paid (if we ever get to that point in this dispute) if the native title claim is upheld.

Fourthly, as the Clayton Utz piece Skids has referred to makes plain, at the time of writing (August 2017), there had only been one contested determination of compensation decided in the Federal Court. That was an order for the $3.3 million of compensation in the Timber Creek case. As Clayton Utz notes, that (trivial) figure was reduced on appeal.

Here's a couple of things you might wish to read and consider:

the decision of Justice Rares in July 2017: http://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/cases/cth/FCA/2017/803.html

the appeal decision that was handed down by the 5-member Full Court: http://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/cases/cth/FCAFC/2019/177.html

http://www.concernedaustralians.com.au/media/distinguished-lecture-paper-2017.pdf

https://www.themonthly.com.au/issue/2017/september/1504188000/paul-cleary/title-fight

Here's the case Cleary refers to about FMG's attempt to orchestrate the applicant being replaced by an "FMG-friendly" applicant: http://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/cases/cth/FCA/2015/818.html

Ultimately, despite Skids' smear attempt, the answer is that - so far as the Yindjibarndi People's claim is concerned, "tens of billions of dollars" haven't gone anywhere. They haven't had money from FMG - that is what the decade-long fight is about.

[stui magpie]

Still maintaining it was a smear attempt. OK.

Anyway, I'll read through that later but that sucks. The local traditional owners of the land should be paid royalties. They shouldn't have to fight in court for it, it should be settled up front by the Government by a formula when the mining licence is granted. That's how I understood rolyalties paid to the Government worked, same should apply.

That's how I thought it worked, at least in the NT, but maybe each state has different rules. I'll look into that.

[Skids]

P4S... what is your problem sunshine?

Is it that I'm a productive member of the community (I could turn your shit into water and make it safe for you to drink) and you, are a leech on society?... Just what do you contribute to society from your ivory tower anyway?

The issue, of the OP, is about where the allocated funds end up... the astronomical amount of those funds, and the people living in squalor, that are meant to be recipients of those monies... Where does all the money go?

The Australian Institute of Criminology previously estimated the cost of fraud in Australia in 2005 to be approximately $8.5b (Rollings 2008)

https://aic.gov.au/publications/tandi/tandi413

Here's something that I've been following... but you won't read it, you'll just label me a racist and rock back in your $10k rocking chair



http://www.concernedaustralians.com.au/media/distinguished-lecture-paper-2017.pdf

[Pies4shaw]

[stui magpie]

Nothing, just your personal bias at play, reading into something what you want to read.

I read it different, I was right.

[watt price tully]

[Skids]

I was wating for one of your pea brain posts to pop up... what for?

[watt price tully]

[Pies4shaw]

[stui magpie]

Classy retort for a Mod.

To reuse a line you threw at me (undeservedly IMO) that's beneath you.

[Pies4shaw]

^ It's OK - it wasn't my intellectual property.