A few facts about the NSW Minerals Council and how it operates as an industry lobbyist in 2019

Stephen John Galilee is currently Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the NSW Minerals Council, a private sector lobby group for the mining industry with less than 100 members – not all of which are directly engaged in mining activities.

The council conducts public and policy advocacy on behalf of the mining sector, with a staff of 15 full-time equivalent employees – 6 of whom are primarily engaged in work on policy and 5 or 6 engaged in public advocacy, communications & media activity.

Stephen Galilee’s previous employment was as chief of staff to then Liberal MP for Manly Mike Baird when he was Treasurer in the O’Farrell Coalition Government and, before that he was employed as chief of staff to Liberal MP for Groom Ian Mcfarlane when he was Minister for Industry, Tourism and Resources.

On 21 October Galilee gave evidence under oath before a NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption inquiry into lobbying practises in this state.

During his evidence Galilee confirmed that the NSW Minerals Council:

• income is derived from annual membership fees which are set at a percentage or proportion of the value of members commodity production;

• annual revenue is between est. $4 million to $8 million;

• is an associate member of the Minerals Council of Australia;

• meets with government officials “on a regular basis” and such meeting are sometimes with government ministers;

• probably has face-to-face meetings with between four or five individual ministers at some point during the year which include council policy directors and/or the CEO;

• has a “regular engagement with the Deputy Premier in his capacity as Minister for Resources”;

• requests to see ministers are generally submitted by letter to their chiefs of staff (with reasons given), then followed up with a ‘phone call;

• shadow ministers are also lobbied on occasion;

• CEO has met with between 8 and 10 NSW Government ministers over the last 2 to 3 years and with 10 to 15 ministerial chiefs of staff. These often involve follow up meetings with ministers' offices, departments or specific policy personnel;

• meets with the Resources Regulator and Environmental Protection Authority “every couple of months” and with the Dept of Planning’s Division of Resources and Geoscience “every two or three months”;

• in the past four years has made “around 150 public submissions in response to government proposals for changes to legislation, policy or regulations”;

• at the moment is regularly engaging with the Department of Planning concerning planning system issues, in particular provisions in the Environmental Planning & Assessment Act;

• does not use the official form required since 2017 to request meetings with the Dept. of Planning;

• has meetings with the Dept. of Planning which are not minuted;

• CEO does not keep records of meeting he attends - often his record comprises only diary entry of meeting date and "three dot points on a piece of paper" to aid memory;

• current focus in relation to policy advocacy regarding planning system issues is to reduce financial risk for mining/commodity investors which has been spurred on by United Wambo determination, Bylong Project decision and actions of the Independent Planning Commission;

• is currently "running a public campaign against the Planning Minister and his planning system".

• states that the government departments “take a lot of industry money to deliver services for us. So we like to make sure those services are being delivered...”; and

• holds "a lot of functions and events for the industry and we invite local MPs, for example, to attend and ministers and shadow ministers from time to time come along to our functions and events".

[https://www.icac.nsw.gov.au/investigations/current-investigations/2019/lobbying-and-the-nsw-public-sector-operation-eclipse/the-regulation-of-lobbying-access-and-influence-in-nsw-a-chance-to-have-your-say-april-2019]

The NSW Department of Planning, Industry and Environment apparently considers the NSW Minerals Council an organisation containing 'inhouse' lobbyists not a third party lobbyist and therefore doesn't record contact with this group in its Lobbyist Contact Register to date.

Based on the evidence given  on 21 October, it is possible that there may have been times when no other person has been present at a meeting between a NSW Minister and the NSW Minerals Council.

It is also clear from the evidence that the NSW Minerals Council would be unhappy with any new legislation or regulations requiring a greater degree of transparency with regard to its lobbying activities.

At the same time the NSW Minerals Council does not appear to always trust that public officials and public authorities make decisions on cogent evidence in a balanced, detached, informative way - blaming public interest advocacy and "noisy objectors" for what it perceives as skewing outcomes.

As it now stands the NSW Minerals Council as a lobbyist group seems to be minimally regulated with regard to its activities.

BACKGROUND

NSW Minerals Council membership on its official website as of 23 October 2019:

Full Members

Alkane Resources Ltd

Anchor Resources Limited
Australian Pacific Coal Limited
BHP

Bengalla Mining Company Pty Ltd
The Bloomfield Group
Centennial Coal Company Ltd
Chase Mining Limited.
Cobalt Blue Holdings Ltd
China Molybdenum Co
Clean Teq
Evolution Mining
Fortescue Metals Group Ltd
Glencore Coal (NSW) Pty Limited
Gloucester Resources Ltd
Great Southern Energy Pty Ltd T/A Delta Coal
Heron Resources Limited
Hillgrove Mines Pty Ltd
Idemitsu Australia Resources Pty Ltd
Iluka Resources Pty Ltd
Kepco Bylong Australia Pty Ltd
Mach Energy Australia Pty Ltd

Malabar Coal Limited

Newcrest Mining - Cadia Valley Operations
New South Resources Pty Ltd
Omya Australia Pty Ltd
Peabody Energy Australia
Regis Resources Limited
South 32 Illawarra Coal Holdings
Shenhua Watermark Coal Pty Limited
Shoalhaven Coal Pty Ltd
Silver Mines Ltd
Thiess Pty Ltd
Whitehaven Coal Limited
Wollongong Coal Limited
Wyong Areas Coal Joint Venture
Yancoal Australia Limited

Associate Members

Ampcontrol Pty Ltd
ARTC - Australian Rail Track Corporation
Ashurst
Aurizon Holdings LTD
B Marheine Holdings Ltd
Centre for Mined Land Rehabilitation
Civeo Pty Ltd
Coal Services Pty Ltd
ElectraNet
Emeco International Pty Ltd
EMM Consulting
EMS Group Pty Ltd
Genesee & Wyoming Australia Pty Ltd
Gold and Copper Resources Pty Limited
Golden Cross Resources Ltd
Helix Resources Ltd
Herbert Smith Freehills
Hunter Business Chamber 
Hughes Mining Services
Hansen Bailey Pty Ltd
Jervois Mining Limited
Sydney Mining Club
Jennmar Australia
Johnson Winter Slattery
Geos Mining
McCullough Robertson
Mitsubishi Development Pty Ltd
MRS Services Group Pty Ltd
NuCoal Resources Ltd
NSW Aboriginal Land Council
Niche Environment & Heritage
Newcastle Coal Infrastructure Group
Orica Australia Pty Ltd
Pacific National Pty Ltd
Paradigm Resources Pty Ltd
Peel Mining Ltd 
PricewaterhouseCoopers
Port Waratah Coal Services Limited
Hetherington Exploration and Mining Title Services Pty Ltd
Hughes Mining Services
Rangott Mineral Exploration Pty Ltd
Quarry Mining & Construction Equipment P/L
Rimfire Pacific Mining NL
Resource Strategies Pty Ltd
RW Corkery and Company
Sapphire Resources
Seyfarth Shaw Australia
Silver City Minerals Limited
Sparke Helmore Lawyers
UNSW Mining Engineering
TAFE NSW
Thomson Resources Ltd
Umwelt (Australia) Pty Limited
University of Wollongong
XCoal Energy and Resources