What it does
The Iron Ore (Goldsworthy-Nimingarra) Agreement Act 1972 (WA) ratifies and gives statutory force to a commercial agreement between the State of Western Australia and a joint venture for the exploration and development of iron ore in the Pilbara region. The Act is one of a series of WA State Agreement Acts that underpin large-scale resource projects in the North West, creating contractual and statutory certainty for significant long-term infrastructure investment.
The Act's operative effect is concentrated in section 3: once the ratifying Bill was passed, the Agreement and all its provisions operate and take effect notwithstanding any other Act or law. This means the Agreement is constitutionally insulated from being overridden by ordinary later legislation without express repeal.
The source document spans the main Act (eight sections) and four Schedules. Schedule 1 is the original 1972 Agreement. Schedules 2, 3, and 4 are variation agreements that have been incorporated into the Act by sections 4, 6, and 8 respectively. Amendments through sections 5 and 7 also vary specific royalty rates and confer a specific power on the State. The result is that readers must read all four Schedules in conjunction with each other and the amending Act sections to understand the current operative terms.