Focusing on the issue of entrepreneurialism brings the tension between collective or communal rights and the rights of the individual into stark relief, although this chapter has not explored this tension in Aboriginal political process. Reconciling these apparently opposing Aboriginal values and practices is a key challenge in utilising the mainstream opportunities that the agreements offer (see Martin 1995, 2001). Mining agreements could be about offering choice and acknowledging the diversity of expectation within the Aboriginal stakeholder group, rather than operating as an experiment in social engineering. In the context of the LUAs discussed here, Indigenous entrepreneurialism is not just about engaging in the ‘real economy’, but also about enabling and encouraging individuals in all their heterogeneity to pursue a diverse economy. As an Aboriginal ‘beneficiary’ of the YLUA, Keith Lethbridge, suggested ‘company structures … [should not only] be to generate money’ (Ethical Investor 2004: 33), and it may be added, not just to be directly supportive of the mining industry (see Scambary 2007, Chapter 8).

The 2002 Review into GIPL and the Trusts showed that where Aboriginal businesses are supported, they have had to be low risk and show a direct ‘community benefit’ (Hoffmeister 2002). Such businesses tend to be in industries that service the mine economy (see Hamersley Iron 2000). Rio Tinto’s Aboriginal Training and Liaison Unit provides examples of the ‘diversity and scope of business opportunities that are made possible by the Hamersley program’, all are supportive of the industry. Two businesses—Wanu Wanu (discussed above) and Ngurra Wangkamagayi—run cross-cultural training courses to Hamersley Iron (now Pilbara Iron) and other companies; Ieramugadu gardening services provide contracting maintenance to Hamersley’s port operations in Dampier; GEPL which operate a contracting arm (earth moving); and Gumala Eurest which operates camp accommodation and associated services.

Although clearly this is where most business opportunity exists in this region, such mainstream ‘opportunity’ is only taken up by 30 per cent of Indigenous adults (Taylor and Scambary 2005: 28). This suggests that looking beyond the life of the mining industry is a fanciful exercise when the pressing issue now is ‘how can more Aboriginal people benefit from an LUA in terms that suit them rather than the industry?’ As indicated above, these terms may be less driven by economic imperatives, than by cultural and political ones. Some realism is needed here in regard to diversifying the range of benefits that can be gained from LUAs, as it seems that the majority of those imputed to be ‘beneficiaries’ in fact benefit very little, if at all, unless they are directly employed by the Company or sit on the range of committees to undertake the process work.

While an important component of LUAs is to enable engagement with the mainstream economy through employment and training programs, choice should not be limited to this. Nevertheless, such mainstream opportunities need to be more inclusive of the disadvantaged and disenfranchised. More of the agreement capital could be allocated to building diverse forms of capital—human, social and cultural—to encourage entrepreneurialism in its many forms. The issue of whether business development proposals are specifically driven by the market should not be the only consideration in approving proposals, and nor should the size of the benefit group or community. Importantly, establishing a business development assistance scheme emerged as a means to enable a greater range of individuals, not only those that are business ready, to access a greater range of opportunity. Because the success of an individual is not an isolated achievement, the provision of scholarships to schools of the parents’ choice, for instance, is a crucial element of this. It seems that the Rio Tinto WA Future Fund with the Graham (Polly) Farmer Foundation, and Gumala’s new program, offers some scope here.

Limitations on choice create social pressures and fissures which highlight contestation over value and need, and Aboriginal notions of success. To capture these values, a broader consideration of ‘opportunity’ needs to be canvassed. This concept of opportunity, perhaps like ‘capacity building’, is currently based on channeling Aboriginal interests toward engagement with the mainstream and formal economies, primarily through the uptake of employment in the mine economy. When individuals are targeted by agreement programs, it tends to be in terms of specific training for skills appropriate for employment in the mining sector, and aiming at full-time employment. Engaging with this employment regime or meeting the guidelines for businesses funded under the trust structures is premised on ‘opportunity’, which refers to the opportunity to change—that is, to change value systems, if one is not already ‘business ready’ for instance (Holcombe 2006).

This issue of what might constitute Indigenous entrepreneurialism is perhaps nascent in remote Australia, as is the notion of community economies in these regions. Nonetheless, it is clear that an emergent hybrid economy is evolving in the mine hinterland region of the Pilbara. By leveraging the right to negotiate under the native title act and striking land use agreements, individuals are less focused on harvesting game (the customary economy) and more driven to harvesting heritage, through site clearances for mine works, and the development of homelands. While not every Gumala member seeks to reside on a homeland, or indeed has the customary right to establish one, neither do all Gumala members chose to, or are enabled to, work in the mining industry. Getting the balance right in the YLUA between catering for the range of expectations of outcomes is of course unique to it, as it is to other agreements. The purpose of this chapter has been to re-direct or refocus attention onto individuals and the ways in which they are able to articulate with the Agreement through the transformation of economic capital into social, cultural and political capital. The development of the Marnda Mia Central Negotiating Committee is a powerful example of the Agreement acting as one lever, of several, to build political capital. Likewise, local economies which revolve around cultural and eco-tourism, the manufacture of bush products and so on, also deserve space and should not be overlooked, even in the context of a regional mining boom. I return to an earlier quote: ‘if the money is not being spent, it is not doing good’. This chapter has hopefully opened up the field of discussion in this space about what ‘good’ might mean as it is applied to a remote nascent entrepreneurialism.