Social Impact Assessment - McArthur River Mining

Introduction
1.2.2 Understanding Expectations – Where does the Community want to be?
This step involved identification and assessment of key stakeholder and community drivers and expectations
specific to the Project. It looks at objectives set by the community as to ‘where they want to be’.
This information will be used to determine how best to meet these expectations through the successful
mitigation and / or management of impacts and issues identified, and exploration of the benefits and / or
opportunities raised.
This information has been collected using an equitable, all-inclusive, comprehensive approach to undertake a
series of in-depth key stakeholder and community consultation tactics specifically focusing on the Project.
1.2.3 Consultation
This section provides a summary of the consultation activities to date. This process involved the development
and implementation of strategies to ensure identified key stakeholders and the local community were
effectively engaged on the Project in a range of forums where their specific issues, concerns, questions and
comments were addressed. These strategies draw from the International Association of Public Participation
(IAP2) Spectrum of inform, consult, involve, collaborate, and empower and are summarised as follows.
Inform
The inform stage saw key stakeholders and the community provided with information advising of MRM’s
intention to conduct an environmental assessment for the Project and provided a variety of appropriate
channels to receive information, including meetings in Darwin, Borroloola and Robinson River, meetings of
the MRM Community Reference Group, four site visits to MRM, presentations to community organisations,
one on one briefings, preparation of factsheets on specific topics, and internet communication.
This activity occurred during March at the announcement of the project, coincided with the consultation
phase to provide supporting communication tools and will continue in post EIS lodgement when a
community engagement program will advise on the outcomes of the SIA and the proposed strategies to
mitigate or maximise issues and opportunities raised.
Consult
The principles behind the consultation process were that it was to be comprehensive, equitable in its reach,
all-inclusive, thorough and detailed in its reporting.
It involved systematically working with key stakeholders and community members to gain their participation
in the engagement process. This process was conducted in July and August 2011.
The consult phase has reached 293 people through personal meetings and focus group discussion.
All stakeholders were identified and classified according to their level of interest and influence on the Project,
and consultation was designed around the results of this analysis.
The nature of the consultation took into account a number of external influences and considered a number
of factors to ensure an effective methodology. These included:
• Inclusiveness – ensuring all stakeholders had a chance to ‘have their say’. This was achieved by
conducting consultation one-on-one or in small, focus group-style scenarios where discussion,
involvement and questions were encouraged and recorded.
• Literacy levels – ensuring all written consultation materials (such as factsheets) were written in plain
English to encourage interest and ensure understanding.
Phase 3 Development Project ----- Social Impact Assessment 8