Goro Nickel Refinery Focus of Investigative Probe

Sydney - If times are hard for investigative reporters in today’s downsized media industry, spare a thought for those investigating international issues.

The Back to the Source investigative journalism conference held in Sydney on the weekend by the Australian Centre for Investigative Journalism drew professionals from around the world.

Keynote speaker Robert Rosenthal came from the United States where he leads America’s oldest not-for-profit journalism research body – the Centre for Investigative Reporting.

And closer to home, investigative journalists spoke of their challenges in breaking stories in the public interest, but a little far afield to attract much attention.

Nicole Gooch is a journalist with the ACIJ and was born in New Caledonia. She is coming to the end of a year-long investigation into the country’s new nickel refinery in the southern district of Goro, which is owned by Vale New Caledonia.

“Vale New Caledonia will be using high acid pressure leaching to refine the low-grade nickel,” she said.

“This technology has never been tried before on such a large scale. Once production at the mine starts, scheduled for about 2013, Vale aims to produce 60,000 tonnes of nickel and 4500 tonnes of cobalt a year, making the Brazilian mining company a world leader in nickel production.”

Environmental impacts
It’s no shock that big Brazilian mining companies are reaching out across the Pacific, but what Gooch is investigating are the protests, violent clashed and the environmental impact of the work.

“The refinery has been plagued by huge costs, indigenous and environmental protests, at times quite violent, and in particular, protests against the pipeline which will be carrying liquefied metal waste, treated, from the refinery into the sea, bordering the UNESCO world heritage-listed lagoon.”

Gooch said previously during testing, the company “caused a couple of major acid spills, one of which lead to pollution of a nearby river”.

While many Australians were involved in constructing the refinery, there was absolute silence about the issues within Australia.

So Gooch is finding out why.

“It is a challenging story to cover,” she said.

“It impacts on so many areas of New Caledonia's complex life - be it political, social or environmental.

“The backdrop is the fact that nickel mining in New Caledonia is ingrained in society and is the island's main export, by far, and therefore it is a heated issue in the context of a country becoming more autonomous and needing to develop its own independent economy.”

Cultural advantage
Being able to share the language and culture of both countries has been helpful.

“It definitely helped in terms of gaining insight into some of the issues surrounding the mine - as an English speaker I was aware of issues that I would not have necessarily known about otherwise,” she said.

Also on hand at the conference was chief producer of SBS’ Dateline programme Geoff Parish. He spoke about the Breaking Point report about Ahmad Al Akabi, who took his own life while in an Australian detention centre, leaving behind his wife and children back in Iraq.

Parish, along with former Iraqi film student Fouad Hady, both of whom have won the United Nations Media Peace Prize, and Walkleys for their work on war-torn Baghdad, followed the story back to Iraq and asked the hard questions surrounding how a confident man considered the leader of his group could come to such a point.

The report was aired in May this year, in the same week that the United Nations and the Australian Human Rights Commission condemned Australia’s mandatory detention of refugees.

Parish also spoke about the challenges of picking up a story on Australian soil, but bringing in the full context, which was the investigation in Iraq. The report begins with emotive scenes of Al Akabi’s wife mourning over his grave, and later asking demanding questions to the Australian authorities over the tragedy.

Dr David Robie, director of the Pacific Media Centre and associate professor at AUT University, highlighted the challenges and risks of investigative reporting in the Pacific.

He mentioned several Pacific reporters who had been banned from Pacific countries and shone the spotlight on the Samoan government and their practice of using agencies such as the New Zealand Broadcasting Standards Authority in a "vindictive" attempt to stifle investigations.

Threats 'are mounting'
The former head of journalism at the University of Papua New Guinea and University of the South Pacific in Fiji and editor of Pacific Scoop and PMC Online said threats to investigative journalism and journalists with a track record in the Pacific “are mounting”.

Dr Robie gave an example of Fiji’s Solicitor-General Christopher Pryde, a New Zealander, who reacted against a 2008 Radio New Zealand segment featuring an interview with journalist Michael Field, who was critical of the Fijian regime.

The BSA upheld four complaints of inaccuracy against Field. And it did it again in 2009 when the Samoan government filed a complaint against TVNZ Pacific affairs reporter Barbara Dreaver and TVNZ for her controversial "Gangs, guns and drugs" report on Samoan youth and their access to weapons and marijuana.

Dr Robie noted the Samoan government had not been so successful in its 2010 action against TV3 and John Campbell for a report on the Samoan government’s accounting of the tsunami donations.
But the government had threatened a High Court appeal.

Dr Robie said while Pacific investigative journalism commentators considered the NZ the complaints process a good system, he called on governments such as Fiji to "lift bans and censorship on journalists".

“Advocacy groups should also be alert to any potential abuse of the complaints system by governments,” he said.

See video at www.pacmediawatch.aut.ac.nz

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