Governance Update: ALC and related corporations

 

… we have done but greenly

In hugger-mugger to inter him.

Hamlet Act four, Scene five.

 

In a recent post updating developments on Groote (link here), I noted that Groote Holdings Aboriginal Corporation GHAC) had inexplicably withdrawn its Little Paradise EIS proposal before the NT EPA (link here). I also commented on the termination of the former CEO, Mr Mark Hewitt, in October 2024 and canvassed the possibility that his termination payment which appeared to have been approved by Minister McCarthy included amounts linked to his executive roles with GHAC and Winchelsea Mining Pty Ltd (which is 70 percent owned by the Anindilyakwa Advancement Aboriginal Corporation (AAAC).

Subsequent governance developments included the resignation of Mr Hewitt from his role on GHAC on 1 November 2024, and from his role as CEO and Director of Winchelsea Mining (date unknown). In April 2025, following a selection process managed by Indigenous owned recruitment agency Pipeline Talent based in Canberra, the ALC announced the appointment of a new CEO, Matthew Bonson (link here). A Gurindji, Jawoyn and Torres Strait Islander man, Mr Bonson is a former ALP member of the NT Legislative Assembly and Minister (link here). According to the National Indigenous Times (link here), he took up the CEO role on 29 April 2025.

In February 2025, the ALC approved an updated set of Ministerially approved Board Rules which lay out the processes which apply to the operation of the ALC Board and its meetings (link here). A new requirement which arose from the recommendations of the Bellchambers Barret review was that the Board appoint an Independent Board Adviser (section 16). The Board appointed Yamagigu Consulting, an Indigenous owned advisory corporation linked to Deloittes to act as the Board Adviser and to develop a new governance framework in consultation with the NIAA (link here).

Eight months on from the termination of Mr Hewitt as CEO of the ALC, there is still a cloak of secrecy around the detailed operations of the ALC and NIAA’s somewhat ambiguous and entwined relationship with the implementation of the post ANAO audit governance reform agenda. As yet, there is no publicly available information on the outcome of the Yamagigu work on a new governance framework; perhaps this will be rolled out once the NACC hands down its report into the investigation of the NIAA referral of Mr Hewitt. Moreover, it is becoming increasingly clear that the operations of the ALC and the associated corporations entrusted with implementing and progressing the ALC’s high level strategic agenda for Groote (including the proposed Winchelsea mine) have begun to stall and falter.

Groote Holdings Aboriginal Corporation (GHAC) is responsible for the Little Paradise development and the Aquaculture projects which have been significant recipients of section 64(3) funding from the ALC. According to GHAC’s submissions to the NT EPA, the Little Paradise project is designed to provide considerable logistical and base camp support for the proposed manganese mine being developed on the adjacent Winchelsea Island by Winchelsea Mining whereas all recent descriptions refer to community training facilities and the like.

For reasons that are unclear, GHAC was unable to lodge its 2024 financial statements and hold its AGM in a timely manner. On 12 March 2025, ORIC granted an extension to the required date of 30 November for the AGM (bizarrely and presumably in error the new date was 31 January, predating the letter). The GHAC Directors Report and the GHAC financial statements for the year to June 2024 were signed off on 16 December 2024 but not uploaded to the ORIC website until March 2025. The financial statements, in a section titled “Events after reporting date’ confirm that the former Managing Director of GHAC Mark Hewitt resigned on 1 November 2024 and the newly appointed Acting Chief Operating Officer, Mr Lino Bruno undertook a review of ongoing projects which led to the role of Chief Operating Officer being made redundant. Mr Bruno is listed on the Winchelsea Mining web site as the manager of Marine Services for Winchelsea Mining. According to GHAC ‘s reports to the NT EPA, the Operations Manager was Xiaoli Liu and thus following the decision to make the position redundant she was presumably entitled to a payout. Ms Liu is Mr Hewitt’s spouse. The timing and focus of these developments suggest that a redundancy payment for Ms Liu may have been part of the termination arrangements for the ALC CEO discussed at the 16 October Board meeting and according ot th Senate Estimates brief released under FOI (link here) apparently approved by the Minister in early 2025.

Anindilyakwa Advancement Aboriginal Corporation (AAC) is the majority owner (70 percent) of Winchelsea Mining. According to the ORIC website, AAAC missed the statutory deadline for both the 2023 and 2024 AGMs. A November 2024 letter from ORIC refused to allow a request for an extension of he 2023 AGM, and a March 2025 letter agreed to an extension of the 2024 AGM (strangely with the same date error as in the GHAC letter discussed above). ORIC have not published the correspondence requesting the extension, so the reasons provided to ORIC by AAAC remain unknown. Nor is it known whether AAAC have in fact held the relevant AGM’s.

Unlike GHAC, AAAC is yet to lodge its 2024 financial statements and thus remains in breach of the requirements of the CATSI Act. It is unclear what action, if any, has been taken by ORIC to address this non-compliance. The AAAC’s 2023 financial statements show that in the 2022 and 2023 financial years, the ALC provided $12.7m to AAAC in section 64(3) payments for the project design, feasibility and environmental studies required in relation to the proposed mine. The Winchelsea Mining web site (link here) includes a series of undated photographs of the completed GHAC workers basecamp at Little Paradise thus providing further confirmation of the centrality of Little Paradise and GHAC to the proposed mine. As I mentioned in a recent post, in July 2024 the NT EPA requested additional information on an extensive list of issues form Winchelsea Mining and has asked for an updated EIS to be submitted within two years.

ALC CEO: status

On 18 July an anonymous comment was added to a recent post on this blog stating: “looks like ALC have lost another CEO. resigning after 3 months is surely a sign of issues”. I endeavoured to confirm this development and have been advised by a reliable source that the newly appointed CEO, Matt Bonson, has resigned after a disagreement with the Board. I have however been unable to formally confirm Mr Bonson’s departure. There is nothing on the ALC web site, nor has the Minister made any announcement. I have messaged the ALC but have not received a response. I spoke to an adviser in the Minister’s Office on 25 July seeking a comment from the Minister but have so far not received one.

Given the silence, it seems highly likely that Mr Bonson has in fact resigned. If correct, this suggests that the instability inside the ALC continues and is likely worsening. The overwhelming silence and lack of transparency from both the ALC and the NIAA in itself is a sign of a deep and ongoing management crisis. It is worth noting that the existence of the Board Adviser appears to have been of little use in resolving whatever disagreements were in play in the lead up to the resignation.  

There seem to me to be two possible generic reasons for the short tenure of the new CEO. First, perhaps the recruitment process was flawed or there was some level of interference in the process. There is no evidence on the public record that this in fact occurred. Alternatively (or perhaps additionally) the expectations of Council members (and their families) for access to resources or financial benefits may have exceeded the preparedness of the new CEO to approve or facilitate. Available information on the public record suggests the previous management regime at the ALC was prepared to facilitate an extraordinarily generous allocation of resources from various sources to ensure the maintenance of broad support for the ALC’s wider agenda. Such an approach would almost certainly have raised expectations amongst Board members regarding what is normal and their due. It is also possible that there were multiple informal arrangements in place that a new incumbent would not have been aware of or would not have been prepared to continue.

While there is no definitive proof in the public domain, the pervasive conflicts of interest which existed and the persistent criticism emerging regarding the way the ALC operated under the former CEO adds weight to the possibility that expectations of generous access to financial and other resources reached high levels within the Council’s membership. The fact that notwithstanding their extremely light regulatory oversight, the NIAA were ultimately prepared to refer the former CEO to the NACC also suggests financial expectations may have been and may continue to be excessive. The fact that the Council publicly supported the former CEO right up until the NIAA attended the Board meeting of 16 October 2024 and likely directly intervened to force the CEO’s resignation (perhaps based on intelligence shared by the NACC or perhaps by the increasing accretion of worrisome media stories alleging various forms of misfeasance against the former CEO) suggests that the Council and its members were deeply conflicted. It is salient that the NIAA appear to have directed their complaint to the NACC only against the former CEO and not against the Council as a whole notwithstanding that the Council signed off on virtually all arrangements that facilitated any potential wrongdoing. In other words, it appears that the NIAA were operating on the assumption that the Council was co-opted by the former CEO.

In these circumstances the fact that the new CEO has decided to resign is of particular concern. It suggests that the ALC is at risk of reverting to modes of operation that predated the CEO’s termination. I argued in a previous post (link here) that the facts as we know them are consistent with the NIAA in effect coercing the ALC into terminating the former CEO. If this was in fact the case, then the risk of reversion to former expectations and modes of operation are even more likely to eventuate.

Of course, my analysis is constrained by the fact that there is a complete lack of transparency on the part of both the NIAA and the ALC. I may not have adequate information, and this in turn may mean that my conclusions are wrong. In my defence, all I can say is that I am doing the best I can in the circumstances and the analysis I have put forward is consistent with the facts as we know them. Moreover, why is it that the Minister, the NIAA and the ALC are so determined to provide zero information about the activities and operations of a Commonwealth agency established by statute to protect the interests of traditional owners on Groote Eylandt? It seems to me that it is just as likely that I am underestimating the risks and damage to the public interest as overestimating the risks in relation to the ALC’s effectiveness and probity.

It is my considered view that the most important issue here is not whether the former CEO engaged in corrupt conduct, or whether he breached his legislative responsibility. The most important issue by far relates to whether the ALC can effectively undertake its statutory remit. I have absolutely no confidence that the ALC as presently constituted, and operating under a management culture developed over a decade by a person the NIAA has referred to the NACC, has this capability. The former CEO of the ALC clearly bears some responsibility, but the primary responsibility must fall on the Minister and her predecessors who have allowed the ALC to operate in ways which are inconsistent with the intent of the legislation governing statutory corporations in this space, the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act 1976 (ALRA) and the Public Governance, Performance and Accountability Act 2013 (PGPA). Responsibility also falls on the Parliament and its committees, in particular the relevant Senate Estimates Committee which has since the publication of the ANAO report on Groote in May 2023 failed miserably to interrogate the issues in play despite considerable evidence being presented to them.

The result has been that the ALC has overseen an ongoing process which privileges the high risk ownership and development of a small mine built on the redirection of substantial section 64(3) royalty equivalents to a narrow constituency of beneficiaries (including select traditional owners, consultants and potential employees who may or may not be Indigenous, and the non-Indigenous co-owners of the Winchelsea mining company) over investments in social, educational, cultural and environmental capabilities across the wider Anindilyakwa community. The reality is that this is not just about whether an economic resource should be developed, it is about whether scarce and finite royalty equivalent payments explicitly designed to compensate local Aboriginal people for the impacts of extensive manganese mining on Groote should be allocated away from Anindilyakwa people to benefit the coalition of largely non-Anindilyakwa interests mentioned above.

In Shakespeare’s time, the word ‘hugger-mugger’ meant ‘secretly, stealthily or furtively’. In more modern usage, it has come to mean disorderly or sloppy. Synonyms include ‘chaotic, cluttered, jumbled, and confused’. The ongoing strategy of the Minister, NIAA and the ALC to avoid informed public discussion about the developments on Groote over the past decade are unashamedly and synergistically hugger-mugger in both senses of the term. The losers will inevitably be the wider Anindilyakwa community on Groote, including future generations, and the public interest more generally.

 27 July 2025

A spokesperson for Minister Malarndirri McCarthy has provided the following comment:

The Minister has been informed by the Anindilyakwa Land Council that Mr Bonson has resigned from his position.

28 July 2025

FOI updates on the ALC and Groote Eylandt

In natures infinite book of secrecy

A little I can read.

Antony and Cleopatra, Act one, Scene two.

 

FOI revelations. The NIAA FOI log contains two recently released documents that expand the information available in the public domain albeit only at the margin. I have also had access to documents released in response to a third FOI but not yet made available on the Disclosure Log. In this post, bolded text has been added by me to emphasise matters of particular salience to the arguments made here. The highlights below were highlighted in the documents provided by NIAA.

Request One FOI/2425/039 dated 30 January 2025 (link here).    This request sought the NIAA’s proposed response to a series of questions on notice from Senator Pocock in late 2024 (which had presumably been delayed in the Minister’s Office and not seen the light of day when the request was made). Once made available, it revealed that the NIAA’s Group Manager Integrity had attended the ALC Board meeting on 16 October 2024 ‘to support Board discussion regarding Mr Hewitt’s employment arrangements.’  The ALC terminated the CEO’s employment at that meeting. NIAA failed to respond substantively to the Senator’s request for information on what legal or policy advice had been provided to the ALC Board by the NIAA attendee.

Request Two FOI/2425/065 dated 14 April 2025 (link here).  This request relating to the February 2025 Senate Estimates hearings (link here) sought All briefs prepared by the agency for the Minister, her staff, senior staff of NIAA, and other Ministers or portfolio agencies which relate to the governance and operations of the Anindilyakwa Land Council, associated corporations in receipt of royalty equivalent payments, the proposed Winchelsea mine, the 2023 ANAO Audit of the ALC; the National Anti-Corruption Commission investigations in relation to Groote Eylandt matters; and/or Groote Eylandt generally."

The response comprised two documents prepared in February 2025. The first document included the following dot points under Key Talking Points:

·       The Ministerial response to the petition was tabled on 29 February 2024. The response states that the Minister has referred the issues raised in the petition and media articles to the NIAA’s Integrity Group for review and referral to relevant Commonwealth and Territory agencies if required.

·       The NIAA received some information that was subsequently referred to the National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC).

·       As part of NIAA’s response, the NIAA commissioned an independent review of the ALC’s responses to the issues and recommendations of the ANAO audit.

In a section headed ‘If asked: What is NIAA doing to address the concerns in relation to ALC governance?’, the brief discussed the Bellchambers Barrett Review, referring to it as ‘independent’, and confirming that that the Group Manager Integrity had determined the scope and composition the review. 

The brief then states:

• The ALC CEO and Board fully cooperated with this independent review….

• In my capacity as NIAA Integrity Group Manager, I accompanied the independent reviewer to Groote Eylandt on 27 and 28 May 2024 to gather additional evidence and meet with the ALC Board and management.

• On 24 Sepember [sic] 2024, I also attended Groote Eylandt to provide the newly elected ALC board members a walkthrough of the issues review report.

• On 15 and 16 October 2024, I attended Groote Eylandt to work with the board members to support their next steps in progressing the governance arrangements of the ALC board.

A second document was the brief prepared for the NIAA CEO.

The CEO brief confirms that the ALC has engaged Yamagigu Consulting to act as Independent Adviser to the ALC Board and to develop a governance framework in consultation with the NIAA. Yamagigu is associated with Deloitte Australia.

The CEO Brief states:

·       The August 2024 Bellchambers Barrett review concluded that while significant progress has been made by ALC since May 2023 across the ANAO’s 15 recommendations, none had been fully implemented.

·       The Minister wrote to the ALC Board on 29 August 2024 to advise she was extremely disappointed to read the review’s conclusion.

In a section headed Former Chief Executive Officer Mark Hewitt, the Brief notes:

• The ALC Board terminated the employment of Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Mark Hewitt on 16 October 2024 ….  

• The termination payment made to Mr Hewit [sic] was in accordance with his contract of employment and provisions of the Fair Work Act 2009.

o If asked: Did the Minister approve the termination payment?

o [placeholder - brief was provided to the Minister for approval in February 2025].

• The CEO’s tenure had been a matter for the ALC’s Board.

• The NIAA is aware of public concerns that Mr Hewitt allegedly misused royalties and directed funds into a mining company in which he is a director.

• The NIAA referred the former CEO to the National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC) in July May* 2024. [*Correction made by NIAA FOI Team]

Request Three FOI 2425/066 dated 19 May 2025. This request sought briefing notes and associated file notes and records related to the attendance by NIAA officers at the ALC Board meeting in mid-October 2024 and all records of communications with the Minister or her Office in relation to the attendance at the ALC meeting or in relation to discussions with Mr Hewitt. Six documents were identified as being within the scope of the request. Access to three (documents 1, 2 and 4) was refused in full on the basis that they were legal advice that was subject to legal professional privilege. The remaining documents were released in part. Extensive sections were redacted on the basis of personal privacy exemptions.

Document 3 was an email to either the Minister’s Office or senior NIAA officers dated 18 October 2024 advising inter alia that the ALC had terminated the CEO and had appointed the ALC’s Chief Financial Officer Colin Wakefield as interim CEO.

Document 5 is an email trail dated 5 November 2024 beginning with a request for a brief to support a meeting between the Minister and the ALC the following day. NIAA’s Group Manager Integrity provided a series of talking points under the heading Update on ALC CEO status. After listing the date of the termination, the appointment of an interim CEO and the ALCs intention to appoint a recruitment firm, the brief stated:

·       As part of the termination process, Mark has resigned from the positions of Executive Director Groote Holdings Aboriginal Corporation (GHAC) and CEO of Winchelsea Mining

·       The Boards of GHAC and Winchelsea are considering next steps following Mark Hewitt’s termination, including engagement of an independent advisor to assess current operations and the required way forward.

Document 6 is a NIAA brief to the Minister dated 25 October 2024 responding to the ALC Chair’s correspondence dated 16 October advising that the Board had terminated their CEO. Under a heading Key Points, the NIAA noted that the Chair had advised that the CEO had been terminated ‘on notice’ by the ALC and that the ALC Board had been considering Mr Hewitt’s position for some time. The brief then stated:

5. It is understood ALC will be submitting a supplementary budget request shortly to cover Mr Hewitt’s final entitlements.

 

Commentary on FOI documents released:

What jumps off the page in the documents provided in response to Request One is the determined effort by both the Minister and NIAA to keep the Minister at arm’s length from whatever is going on. This signals, in turn, either prior knowledge of misfeasance within the ALC, a statutory corporation in the Minister’s portfolio for which she is responsible, or an appreciation that the events unravelling on Groote and within the ALC were in some way potential political time bombs.

At least two other issues arise from the Request One documents. First, the close involvement of the NIAA in the Bellchambers Barrett Review – which as I have pointed out previously was focussed solely on the ANAO recommendations and not on the detailed issues identified - (including collecting evidence) and the ‘cooperation of the ALC CEO and Board’ raise serious questions regarding the Review’s independence.

The second issue concerns the reason for the Group Manager’s attendance at the Board meeting. In the response to Senator Pocock’s questions, it was stated that it was ‘to support Board discussion regarding Mr Hewitt’s employment arrangements.’ In the Estimates brief, it was ‘to work with the board members to support their next steps in progressing the governance arrangements of the ALC board’.

The visit took place in the context of a series of previous events: the prior visits to Groote by the Group Manager; a letter from the Minister to the ALC expressing her ‘extreme disappointment’ in relation to the poor ALC response to the Review that her agency had been involved in developing for months; the referral by the NIAA of the former CEO to the NACC four months previously. The visit coincided with the NACC attendance at the ALC Office on Groote to obtain evidence. Given NACC protocols to allow it to work with Commonwealth agencies on investigations, it is possible that the NIAA had been provided with progress reports by the NACC. The differences in the explanations set down in the two documents, although nuanced and not definitive, point to something more than NIAA engaging in a purely passive support role. Why else would legal advice have been necessary (bearing in mind that the ALC employs its own legal advisers)?

The complete absence of any preparatory briefing (except perhaps the emailed legal advice), as well as the absence of any file notes recording the ‘support’ offered by the NIAA officer suggests a deliberate effort to avoid future scrutiny and serves to reinforce the sensitivity (and potential irregularity) of the discussions. This is the bureaucratic equivalent of a police officer turning off his/her bodycam prior to engaging with a person of interest.

The Request One CEO Brief (document two) confirms that notwithstanding NIAA’s awareness of allegations that ‘Mr Hewitt allegedly misused royalties and directed funds into a mining company in which he is a director’, and their decision to refer the CEO to the NACC presumably in relation to at least these allegations, the ALC decided to pay Mr Hewitt an unspecified termination payment and the Minister appears to have been asked to approve that payment in February 2025. This strikes me as unusual insofar as if it was entirely consistent with the CEO’s land council employment contract and assuming that the contract which has never been made public adheres to standard employment practice), there would have been no need to obtain the Minister’s approval. On the other hand, if the ALC proposed to pay any amount related to his termination as CEO of GHAC and/or Co-CEO of Winchelsea Mining, the ALC may well have found it necessary or convenient to seek ministerial approval for an expansion of its section 64(1) operational budget approval or for an approval under section 36 of the ALRA (link here). I have previously argued that the former CEO’s simultaneous roles constituted misfeasance insofar as the ALC CEO salary set by the Remuneration Tribunal is for a full-time position, and it seems unlikely that the Tribunal’s approval was sought and granted for the CEO to engage in additional paid employment.

The fact that the document 5 of Request Three makes clear that the Mr Hewitt resigned from his roles on Winchelsea and GHAC ‘as part of the termination process’ adds to the likelihood that the Minister was made aware of and agreed to termination payments for Mr Hewitt linked to a notice period for these roles. Importantly, the apparent willingness of the ALC to intrude financially into the internal affairs of GHAC and AAAC/Winchelsea Mining (apparently with the tacit assent of the NIAA)  also reinforces the argument I have made on numerous occasions that the ALC exercises effective control over these corporations through the allocation of section 64(3) payments and is thus in effect allocating royalty equivalent funds to itself in contravention of the intent of the ALRA.

The CEO Brief also confirms that NIAA’s referral to the NACC was in May 2024, a year after the ANAO report was issued. The allegations mentioned above that likely formed the basis for the NIAA referral of the then CEO to the NACC were two of numerous concerns described in the ANAO performance audit over a year before the referral. Why then did it take a year for the Minister and NIAA to make the referral? And what changed to persuade them to act in May 2024?

As I have long argued in my posts on this blog, there appears to have been a deliberate and sustained attempt by NIAA and the last two Ministers to ignore and downplay the concerns raised by the hundreds of signatories to the February 2024 petition to Parliament and the numerous serious issues raised by the ANAO report. Whether intentional or not, it amounts to complicit behaviour with respect to these issues. As mentioned above the tactic adopted was to establish a review that focussed solely on the ANAO recommendations, and to ignore the myriad concerns and red flags raised in the detail of the 2023 ANAO report. What is less clear is why this policy of regulatory neglect was pursued.

I have long taken the view that not only were there shortcomings in the ALC’s management processes, but that the NIAA and its ministers have failed in their role as the ‘regulator’ oversighting the operations of the ALC and particularly its royalty and royalty equivalent distributions.

The unexplained termination of the ALC’s CEO in October 2024, the determined efforts of all involved to downplay those events, the complete absence of any justification or rationale form the ALC, and the secrecy imposed until now on the termination payments made to him notwithstanding the concerns that were significant enough to underpin a yearlong investigation by the NACC, suggests that there is much more to this than is currently available on the public record.

One hypothesis that is consistent with the facts as we know them is that the Government decided (utterly belatedly) that the ALC should terminate the CEO to set up a situation where a potentially adverse NACC report could be defended with the blithe response that the individual responsible for whatever egregious flaws are determined to have existed has already been dealt with. Persuading the ALC would be simple: the Minister had the leverage of only partially approving the ALC’s budget for 2024/25 as well as numerous ways in which to make the land council’s ongoing operations difficult. Persuading the former CEO (and his spouse) to depart quietly would be trickier. The offer of generous termination payments would assist, but other inducements are also conceivable. In this scenario, the ongoing silence of the terminated CEO would be more securely achieved if the termination payments were accompanied by a formal non-disclosure agreement.

Concluding comment

In my view, the pervasive veil of secrecy that has been thrown over this whole episode would be necessary only if the decisions taken were not able to be justified according to law and were not able to meet the so-called ‘pub test’. The fact that questions from Senator David Pocock have been ignored or answered with misleading diversions serves to emphasise the determination of the Commonwealth to avoid public scrutiny. The fact that the veil of secrecy remains substantially in place merely reinforces doubts regarding the appropriateness and propriety of the actions (and inactions) of ministers and the NIAA related to the oversight of the ALC over the past decade.

The issues and concerns raised by the ANAO and by the concerned community members who signed the 2024 petition to Parliament are yet to be addressed in any rigorous and comprehensive way. The fact that the NACC is investigating unspecified matters without any transparency in relation to the focus of its investigation is no substitute for an open, transparent and rigorous examination of what has transpired.

Unfortunately, the reluctance to initiate such a forensic and strategic review appears to be an essential element of the Commonwealth’s approach to the operations of the ALC (and also reinforces the likelihood that the hypothesis outlined above is in play). This means that we are reliant on the efficacy of the various accountability institutions with a role on Groote to ensure that the systemic issues that allowed the imbroglio on Groote to emerge and to flourish are identified, and curtailed. I don’t see the NACC as the institution best placed to address these systemic issues (though I hope they at least go some of the way to doing so).

The ANAO in my view should step up. It could undertake a follow up report to its 2023 performance audit. It might also take a long close look at the issue of the effective control by the ALC over the corporations involved in the Winchelsea mine and the Little Paradise infrastructure hub, and which are in receipt of ongoing and significant flows of royalty equivalents. A decision to qualify the annual financial statements of the ALC (and the concomitant ramifications of such a decision) would go a long way to addressing the systemic defects in the current sector wide administration of the ABA and ALRA.

 

25 June 2025

June 2025 Update on Groote Eylandt Issues

 

'twere a concealment
Worse than a theft, no less than a traducement,
To hide your doings; and to silence that,
Which, to the spire and top of praises vouch'd,
Would seem but modest.

Coriolanus Act one, Scene nine.

 

I have not published any posts on Groote or the Anindilyakwa Land Council (ALC) since February, when I published two posts on the inadequacies of the NIAA’s responses to previous Senate Estimates Questions on Notice (link here and link here) and a more general post explaining why pursuing an understanding of what has transpired on Groote, and how it has been allowed to occur, is important (link here).

Since then, several noteworthy developments have occurred or come to my attention.

Manganese sales. Perhaps of most significance in economic terms has been the resumption of sales of manganese ore by South32 subsidiary GEMCO (link here and link here) following the considerable cyclone damage to the Alyangula wharf last year. That damage disrupted sales and export of manganese ore from the GEMCO mine and led to a temporary halt to the flow of royalty payments to the Groote Eylandt Aboriginals Trust (GEAT), to the Anindilyakwa Mining Trust (AMT) and a halt in section 64(3) royalty equivalent payments from the Aboriginals Benefit Account (ABA) to the ALC for onward distribution to local corporations.

GEMCO legal action. In October 2024, the Supreme Court of the NT published a decision on a largely procedural matter relating to a longstanding dispute between GEAT and the ALC regarding rights to be paid royalties over yet to be developed mineral leases held by GEMCO on Groote Eylandt (link here). As an aside, that decision lays out a very useful account of the history of mining on Groote, including the prescient taking up of exploration permits by the Church Missionary Society which were then used to leverage a royalty payment from BHP and led to the establishment of GEAT and the payments of royalties based on that commercial agreement (and not Indigenous rights per se).

According to GEAT’s website (link here), GEMCO took legal action to clarify the required allocation of royalty payments to GEAT and the ALC derived from the new South and East mineral leases on Groote. The dispute has been ongoing since 2016. The GEAT website reports that following a mediation in February 2025, the parties to the litigation signed a Heads of Agreement, and that subject to the finalisation of some technical legal conditions, the dispute between GEAT and the ALC will be resolved. The terms of the mediation were to remain confidential. I am yet to see any confirmation that the resolution has occurred and on what terms. The GEAT Management Committee notes that the resolution of the dispute will be ‘a big step forward’ for GEAT and its beneficiaries and ‘a great outcome for the community’.

ALC staff changes. Following the termination for unspecified reasons of the former CEO, Mark Hewitt by the ALC in October 2024 (link here), the ALC appointed its Chief Financial Officer, Colin Wakefield, as Acting CEO. In April the ALC announced (link here) the appointment of Matthew Bonson, a former ALP member of the NT Parliament from 2001 to 2008. He served in several ministerial roles during that period (link here).

Winchelsea and Little Paradise EPA updates. The EPA website includes a detailed web page with a chronological listing of the initial application and all subsequent EPA decisions and proponent variations.

 Winchelsea Mining lodged its initial application with the NT Environmental Protection Authority in 2020, signed by Winchelsea CEO Mark Hewitt (link here). The initial proposal was accepted for consideration by the EPA in 2021 (link here and link here) where the EPA advised that an Environmental Impact Statement would be required. The proposal described the mine on Winchelsea Island and the supporting infrastructure:

To develop and operate an open cut manganese mine at Winchelsea Island (Akwamburkba) and Groote Eylandt, East Arnhem, about 600 km southeast of Darwin. Strip mining using free digging and rock breaking would be undertaken to extract ore and overburden. Mine infrastructure would include run-of-mine and ore stockpiling areas, a processing plant, workshops, haul and access roads, a product conveyor from the processing area to the wharf, a jetty and a boat ramp. Product would be direct loaded from the conveyor onto ships for export. Supporting infrastructure would be located at Little Paradise Bay on Groote Eylandt, approximately 6 km southwest of the mine site, and include a barge landing ramp and jetty, access roads, a logistics hub and a 100-person accommodation camp. The disturbance footprint is 659 hectares, and the mine life would be approximately 14 years (emphasis added).

Subsequently there were two significant variations made by the proponents (in 2021 and 2023) and subsequent consultation processes undertaken by the EPA. In October 22023, the EPA issued terms of reference outlining the required content of the necessary EIS. The proponent’s EIS was finalised in December 2023 (link here). It is an extensive document (the Executive Summary runs to 89 pages). Section Two of the Executive Summary titled Project Purpose places the proposed mine within its institutional context. This section makes clear that the proposed mine is seen as part of the ALC’s high level strategic objectives:

In response to the need for a self-sufficient and sustainable local economy following cessation of mining by GEMCO, and the desire for greater self-governance, the Anindilyakwa Land Council (ALC) developed the 15-Year Strategic Plan 2012- 2027 (ALC, 2012). In line with its Strategic Plan, the ALC entered into a series of agreed reforms with the NT Government to take over control of core services and functions for the communities and region. As part of the reforms, the NT Government and ALC established Local Decision-Making Agreements (LDMAs), with the aim of transitioning control for services and decision-making to the Anindilyakwa people, as the Traditional Owners of the Groote Archipelago. A key commitment by the NT Government in the LDMAs was the support and advice to Traditional Owners to conduct exploration and mining in the Groote Archipelago, in accordance with recognised rights of Traditional Owners to utilise their natural resources [page 14].

The Winchelsea Funding structure laid out in Figure E-3 [page16] makes no mention of Little Paradise. In section 8 headed Holistic Impacts, the Little Paradise development being progressed by Groote Holding Aboriginal Corporation (GHAC) is cast as ancillary to the mine and not part of it.

Public consultation on the Draft EIS took place in the first half of 2024. In July 2024, the EPA issued a Direction to include Additional Information in relation to an extensive list of matters (link here) and required that a revised EIS be prepared and submitted within two years. Two issues caught my attention: first, the EPA concluded that the draft EIS did not demonstrate how the claimed transformational residual economic benefits the Groote Archipelago and Indigenous residents and directed the proponents to more specific details [item 25]. Second, the EPA also noted that the EIS did not provide adequate information in relation to the proposed 50-person accommodation camp and other supporting infrastructure to be developed by a separate entity [ie GHAC’s Little Paradise development] and directed that it be included in the EIS.

The EPA website also includes details of an application lodged by GHAC in relation to the Little Paradise marine and logistics hub in August 2024 (link here). According to the proposal (page i), the project is designed to support the long-term economic and social future of all Anindilyakwa clans of the Groote Archipelago, and includes a marina facility, associated biosecurity compounds, logistics camp and aquaculture facility. The development is a key component of GHAC’s plan to secure a sustainable long-term economy for the Anindilyakwa. According to GHAC’s Little Paradise Development Report:

GHAC was formed as a commercial entity to support Traditional Owner commercial activity on their land that accords with the governance requirements in section 23 of the Land Rights Act. GHAC was initiated in the 2012 ALC 15-year Strategic Plan — a plan driven by Community Elders to reverse the decisions made over the last 100 years and reassert control over Anindilyakwa destiny. In line with its Strategic Plan, the ALC in 2018 entered a series of agreed reforms with the NT Government to take over control of core services and functions….

…The mandate of GHAC is to support and progress major projects and hold in-trust major infrastructure and assets as well as provide services for social and economic development of all Traditional Owners. ALC and GHAC are actively working to establish projects that deliver a living cultural economy providing inter-generational opportunities to participate in the learning and delivery of both contemporary pursuits and culturally significant traditional practices

The EPA website indicates that on 25 March 2025, the GHAC proposal for a marine infrastructure development at Little Paradise was withdrawn (link here). No reasons were given.

Senate Estimates Committee Hearings. The most recent Hearings were held on 28 February 2025. The transcript (link here) is rather desultory reading; not helped by the fact that the Committee has no effective process in place to efficiently manage what is an extensive agenda spanning the Indigenous policy domain.

The Chair, Senator Pratt, invited the land councils to make extended opening statements which conveniently serve to limit the time available for serious questions. The ALC Chair, Cherelle Wurrawilya limited her pre-prepared comments (at page 39) to good news:  ‘We have made strong changes and will make more changes to continue what is best for the Anindilyakwa people’. She mentioned that recruitment of the new CEO was underway without commenting in any way on why the Council had terminated the former CEO. She mentioned progress in establishing the Groote Archipelago Regional Council: ‘A local council is what we always wanted for our people to ensure we take back control for our local services’. She reported that construction for the boarding school at Milyakburra will commence this year, with the bilingual school system to begin operating in 2026. Finally, she noted ‘It is a new year and the ALC board is committed to look forward, not backwards, to determine our future. We will be getting on with the important functions of the Anindilyakwa Land Council and delivering for the Anindilyakwa people…’ No mention of an ongoing National Anti-Corruption Committee Investigation into the ALC and/or its former CEO. No mention of the GEMCO litigation and the ALC’s dispute with GEAT. No mention of the progress (or lack of progress) of the Winchelsea Mine which the ALC has allocated tens of millions of dollars in section 64(3) payments (see below). No mention of the progress (or lack of progress) of the Little Paradise infrastructure hub which previously had been touted as central to the ALC’s economic strategy for Groote, and which within a month would seemingly be placed on the backburner (see above). Nothing to see here.

The rather lame Committee members were seemingly oblivious to the extent to which they were being taken for a ride, nor of their Panglossian complicity in gaslighting the public at large that all is now well in this best of all possible worlds on Groote Eylandt.

Senator Nampijinpa Price (at page 41) asked about the ANAO’s audit recommendations, and in particular which recommendations remain outstanding, the action taken to implement the recommendations and a timeline for implementation. The acting CEO’s response was a virtuoso display of technical and process-laden verbosity. Senator Price moved on to ask whether Mr Hewitt had been involved in the selection of the ALC Board [a strange question given that no-one to my knowledge has ever suggested that he had been]. The Acting CEO responded: ‘Not to my knowledge, no. It goes through a process as set out in the ILUA [sic: should read ALRA]. The clans nominate their representatives to represent them, the 14 clans on the board, and that process takes place. If there are more than the number of nominees, it goes through the normal NT election process.

In response to a question from ALP Senator Ghosh, seeking information from each land council on their most promising programs, the Acting CALC CEO stated (page 50):

At ALC, we distribute 64-3 royalty money to many corporations. We receive funding applications to be considered by a finance committee based on how the project will benefit our Anindilyakwa people and how it falls in line with local decision-making and aligns with our ALC strategic plan. So we go through that process. Ultimately, funding decisions are made by the ALC board.

Narrowly factual and succinct. No mention however of how the ALC handles the vexed issues of conflicts of interest. No mention of the millions invested in the ALC backed agenda for a mine on Winchelsea. No mention of the governance changes made since the termination of the former CEO.

All in all, the Estimates Hearing was hardly a forensic tour de force by the Senators present. Labor Senators only wanted to hear the good news; the Opposition spokesperson Senator Price, consistent with her previous approaches to the accountability concerns with the ALC (link here and link here), did enough to allow her to claim in the future that she had not ignored the issues being investigated by the NACC while not pursuing anything of substance. The officials present delivered a sophisticated exercise in ensuring the Parliament, the media and the public at large remain in the dark by proactively avoiding any issues of contention or involving defective accountability.  

NACC status. In early 2024, the National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC) received several complaints, including from the NIAA in May 2024. At some point thereafter they initiated an investigation into unspecified matters involving the ALC and potentially other corporations based on Groote Eylandt. Multiple media outlets reported that they had visited the ALC’s Offices on 16 October (the same day that the ALC terminated the appointment of the former CEO Mark Hewitt). There have been no subsequent statements from the NACC relating to these investigations. While rational assessment would suggest it is a fool’s errand to predict when the investigation might be finalised, the odds of this occurring over the next six months must be increasing.

Concluding comment

This overview of recent developments, most of which have received little or no coverage in the media nor in the public statements emanating from the ALC and the Minister, provide a partial insight into the complexity of the wheels within wheels that are currently revolving on Groote, in the ALC offices in Groote, Cairns and Darwin, in the Board rooms of South32 and GEMCO, in various agencies of the NT Government in Darwin, and in various agencies of the Federal Government in Canberra. What is easily forgotten is that the lives of some 1500 people on Groote, and the opportunities of their descendants, are impacted for better or worse by the decisions reached as those wheels continue to revolve.

Over the past decade, a series of developments have occurred which raise serious questions regarding the quality of regulatory oversight over the actions of the ALC and its staff. The decision of the ALC to in effect engage directly in commercial activities, and particularly mining has been highly problematic. Its involvement was funded largely by the allocation of royalty equivalents to corporations which it appears to effectively control and was based on a ministerially approved agreement which was fundamentally compromised by the fact that the key individuals involved simultaneously sat on both sides of the negotiation. Where was the regulatory oversight as all this was set in train and continued?

It is my considered assessment that the quality of regulatory oversight by successive ministers for Indigenous Australians and the agency that serves them, NIAA, has been an egregious disaster. The case for greater transparency as a counterbalance to the vested interests in play, and as a guarantee that the Minister will ensure public accountability and the ALC will protect the interests of its constituents (which is its fundamental statutory raison d’etre) is inarguable.

In a forthcoming post, I consider the outcomes of some recent FOI decisions in relation to the operations of the ALC and its rather nebulous relationship with the NIAA.

 

 23 June 2025