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Enough to make Mabo turn in his grave

By Stephen Hagan - posted Friday, 23 October 2009


The recent decision by the Western Australian government to emphatically dismiss an application by a Goldfield’s Indigenous traditional owner group to prevent BHP Billiton from clearing land for potential uranium extraction, does not surprise me.

After all, successive federal governments have been complicit in perpetuating the implausible myth that Australia was terra nullius (empty land) at the time of settlement and maintained that intransigent position until High Court Justice Gerard Brennan’s ruling in Mabo v Queensland. “Whatever the justification advanced in earlier days for refusing to recognise the rights and interests in the land of the Indigenous inhabitants of settled colonies, an unjust and discriminatory doctrine of that kind can no longer be accepted,” the ruling stated.

But the loud applause from traditional owners and their supporters for the eminent judge’s ruling was sadly short lived.

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Since that historic Mabo judgment was made on June 3, 1992, and enshrined in legislation with the introduction of the Native Title Act in 1993, Indigenous people have had to watch in dismay as their hard-fought native title rights have been slowly stripped of their potency by subsequent amendments through the Wik decision 1996, Howard’s 10 Point Plan 1997, Native Title Amendment Bill 1997 and more recently the Native Title Amendment Bill 2009.

Western Australia’s environment minister, Donna Faragher, dismissed the appeal of the Ngalia people when granting a mining permit to BHP Billiton to clear 10 hectares of native vegetation to drill bores and conduct geological exploration at the proposed Yeelirrie uranium mine site near Wiluna.

Kado Muir, the chairman of the Ngalia Foundation, was reported in ABC Online on September 22 saying the minister’s decision was disappointing but not unexpected.

Faragher, quoted in the same article, recommended that BHP Billiton engage in more consultation with the land’s traditional owners.

Such additional consultations are part of standardised community engagement modelling - an approach governments and business use when dealing with fractured traditional owner groups with the expectation that one group will eventually side with them by offering an opposing view.

Government gives the impression, through ambiguous media releases, that it has the traditional owners’ best interests at heart when it comes to mining activities. In reality it’s the other mob from the smarter end of town they’re out to impress.

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They are patently aware of the palpable divisions that exist in discrete Indigenous communities. In most cases they were the architects in designing that marginalised aspect of Indigenous communities, as we know them to be today.

A bit like watching wild animals fighting over the crumbs swept off the table, so can it be said that some Indigenous people, in impoverished circumstances created by the government, do fight between themselves over money offered by third party interests.

Divide and conquer, used to great advantage in colonial conquests, is still the most proven and preferred strategy employed by multinational corporations in securing their rights to limitless access to the traditional lands of the first Australians.

BHP Billiton’s approach to socially sustainable development, as stated in its 2009 annual report, involves “engaging with those affected by our operations, including employees, contractors and communities; and respecting and upholding fundamental human rights”.

But it is effectively throwing as much money as is deemed necessary - but not disproportionate to its usual pecuniary expectations - to achieve BHP Billiton’s ultimate goal of unlimited access to and use of Indigenous land for mining purposes.

Why wouldn’t Faragher concede to the requests of BHP Billiton in the Yeelirrie uranium mine project when Federal Resources Minister Martin Ferguson was beating his chest like a victorious gorilla having won over a new mate, after cementing in August Australia’s biggest-ever trade deal, a $50 billion contract to supply liquefied natural gas to China.

Ferguson said the deal was another “major economic stimulus” package.

Many traditional owners are not on the whole opposed to mining but have objections to projects on sites of cultural significance. Some traditional owners see the $50 billion Gorgon gas project as a danger to threatened animal species.

Western Australian Green’s senator, Rachel Siewert, was scathing of the aggressive approach the federal and state governments applied to traditional owners to persuade them to be co-operative with consent agreements for the lucrative gas deal with China. “Aboriginal communities should not be forced to trade off resources on their land in order to gain the basic human requirements the rest of us take for granted,”’ Siewert said. “Economic investment, better health outcomes and higher standard of living should not come at the cost of their environment.”

Sounds like the controversy that surrounded Western Australia’s Burrup Peninsula outdoor rock engraving site - reported to be the world’s largest site, dating back 30,000 years, with representation of the first human face in history. The State government agreed to clear it for a natural gas production and processing facility for Woodside Petroleum.

But for those Indigenous people who support the government’s line, there are rewards gifted them by federal and state governments. Executive director of the Kimberley Land Council, Wayne Bergmann, has been taking directions from Kimberley Traditional Owners in relation to an LNG processing facility at James Price Point. The KLC facilitated negotiations with the state and federal governments and Woodside, on behalf of Traditional Owners. Traditional Owners have made all the decisions in relation to the process. However, in recognition for his contribution to this process, Bergmann was recently named chairman, in a voluntary basis, of the Western Australia new Aboriginal Advisory Council.

Speaking on ABC’s 7.30 Report on March 19 with Kerry O’Brien, in defence of his support of the project, Bergmann said: “These are multi-billion-dollar projects and traditional owners should expect no less than a multi-billion-dollar deal. Our people are living in absolute poverty and crisis. We can't turn our back on that. We have a responsibility to try and change that.”

Bardi elder Frank Davey, told the same program: “Money is not really important us to. Our culture is more important. It's a very hard thing for us to sell. We never ever sold any of our culture. And we are there to protect it.”

Another Bardi leader, Albert Wiggan, said: “It is the environment, it is the country and it's a land that makes us who we are.”

Australia prides itself on being an egalitarian society where all its citizens are treated equally. The utopia of a classless society reminds me of the joke about black and white people waiting to board an interstate coach at a major transit centre.

The bus driver, from the step of his gleaming interstater, declares: “On my bus everyone is treated equal, and from now on there will be no black or white people - you’re all going to be green people.”

He then adds, “All the dark green people to the rear and light green people to the front”.

My old mate Eddie Mabo, who attended James Cook University in 1979 at the same time as me, would turn in his grave today if he knew how dismissive governments of all persuasions were of Indigenous people’s traditional land-use aspirations.

More than likely, if he waited in line at an intercity bus terminal in Perth to catch a bus back to Townsville he would see Western Australian Environment Minister Faragher, behind the wheel of a gleaming interstater adorned with BHP Billiton sponsorship, waiting to take his ticket.

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About the Author

Stephen Hagan is Editor of the National Indigenous Times, award winning author, film maker and 2006 NAIDOC Person of the Year.

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