Photographs from a rally in Sydney, protesting against Federal Government plans to establish a nuclear waste dump at Brewarrinain North Western NSW, on Ngemba land. Traditional custodians of the land, the Ngemba, are opposed to the dump.
Speakers at the rally included organiser Natalie Wasley, Ngemba and Brewarrina representatives, Trish Frail and Natalie Eastwood, Nathan Moran from the Metropolitan Local Aboriginal Land Council, Dave Sweeney from the Australian Conservation Foundation, Jim Green from Friends of the Earth, and NSW Greens parliamentarians Jamie Parker and David Shoebridge, as well as others. The Wakagetti dance troupe provided dance performances and a smoking.
About 100 people from all around Australia then marched from Bligh Street outside the Commonwealth offices, through Sydney’s CBD to NSW Parliament House, chanting, “No bundabunda (poison) on Ngemba land”.
“Whilst this program is allowed to continue,
there are kids not getting food on the table and communities
are being pushed into further poverty and disadvantage,” Senator Siewert said.
‘Key points:
* Greens claim scheme is worsening poverty and hunger in Aboriginal communities
* Participants receive more penalties than every other Australian jobseeker combined
* Greens senator renewed calls to scrap penalty that freezes welfare for eight weeks ‘
‘The Government has conceded the Community Development Programme (CDP) needs a “complete rejigging”.
But it has indicated an overhaul will not be fully implemented until July 2019. …
‘Remote work for the dole participants work up tothree-times longer
than city-based jobseekers to receive Centrelink payments.
‘The CDP covers three-quarters of Australia’s landmass,
and the overwhelming majority of its 33,000 participants
are Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander. … ‘
“Whilst this program is allowed to continue,
there are kids not getting food on the table and communities
are being pushed into further poverty and disadvantage,”
Senator Siewert said. ‘Key points:
* Greens claim scheme is worsening poverty and hunger in Aboriginal communities
* Participants receive more penalties than every other Australian jobseeker combined
* Greens senator renewed calls to scrap penalty that freezes welfare for eight weeks ‘
‘The Government has conceded the Community Development Programme (CDP) needs a “complete rejigging”.
But it has indicated an overhaul will not be fully implemented until July 2019. … ‘Remote work for the dole participants work up to three-times longer than city-based jobseekers to receive Centrelink payments.
8 March 2018
‘At a smoking ceremony outside Queensland Parliament today the Wangan & Jagalingou Family Council
called on the Queensland government to rule out extinguishing W&J Native Title for Adani,
the week before a crucial Wangan & Jagalingou Council’s Federal Court case commences.
High quality stills and vision can be made available.
‘Spokesperson Adrian Burragubba said,
“The Queensland Government has the power to extinguish our Native Title,
but they don’t have to go down this path.
Premier Palaszczuk should rule out ever extinguishing our native title for Adani.
‘“We are demanding a meeting with the Premier to explain why there is
no consent from us for Adani’s dirty land deal,
why the Queensland Government should remove its support for the Adani’s sham ILUA,
stop opposing W&J Traditional Owners in the courts
and not extinguish our native title.
‘“Adani’s destructive mine has no part in our future and would tear the heart out of our ancestral lands.
Premier Palaszczuk must pledge to not extinguish our native title for a deal with Adani. [1]
‘“We are determined to prevent our land being taken without our consent
and to protect our country and sacred places from destruction,
for an empty promise of jobs and some trinkets.
‘“We have never given consent to this mine or the surrender of our land rights
and have voted to reject a deal with Adani four times since 2012.
We will not rest until this destructive proposal is abandoned..
‘“A clear majority of Queenslanders are with us and
do not support the government pushing ahead with Adani’s mine
without the consent of Traditional Owners. [2] … ‘ wanganjagalingou.com.au/traditional-owners-opposing-adani-hold-smoking-ceremony-at-qld-parl-call-on-premier-not-to-extinguish-native-title/ wanganjagalingou.com.au/category/latest-news/
The Minerals Council of Australia is lobbying the federal government for urgent changes to native title laws which they say will remove uncertainty over the status of mining leases and tenements following recent court cases.
Nuclear weapon testing killed and blinded Aussies in our own backyard But Australia isn’t among the 122 countries that banned them. now to love, FEB 28, 2018 BY KATE WAGNER
When we hear about nuclear weapons, we think of the notorious and devastating Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings, but what about Australia? For years, Indigenous communities in South Australia endured extreme nuclear weapon testing at the hands of the British government. It resulted in devastating, long-lasting health effects, if not death. But unlike the bombings in Japan, Australia’s history of atomic testing is rarely discussed.
The British and Australian governments said they chose barren, largely unpopulated areas to conduct the testing. But people were living there and, in the fallout, some suffered immediate health problems like rashes and skin infections while others were hit with autoimmune diseases later in life.
From 1947 until 1996, the Pacific underwent315 nuclear testsand it was Indigenous people who felt the brunt of the fallout.
In Australia specifically, the UK carried out 12 major nuclear tests, even dropping a 15-kilotonned atomic device in Maralinga – a weapon with the same explosive strength as the infamous Little Boy dropped on Hiroshima, although a completely different design.
Hundreds of nuclear tests were conducted in Australia
They also carried out a few hundred smaller scale tests at Emu Field and Maralinga in South Australia throughout the ’50s and ’60s. Although the testing was shrouded in secrecy for decades, through oral history the Yankunytjatjara, Anangu and Pitjantjatjara people remembered the day the ground shook and the suffocating black mist rolled in.
The devastating effects of nuclear testing in South Australia is something prominent anti-nuclear activist Karina Lester knows all too well. Her father, Yami Lester, was an Aboriginal elder blinded by nuclear fallout when he was a child and he spent his life raising awareness for the dangers of nuclear weapons.
“My dad spoke of that day a lot. People in the community had skin infections, rashes, people were violently vomiting. The nuclear tests would happen in the morning and by the evening, people were already sick,” Karina told Now To Love.
“The older generations really felt the brunt of that fallout, and the younger generation too. Our young that were there at the camp, infants and young children, were really exposed to that radiation fallout as well, so death – people passed on.
“My grandmother would tell her own story about digging the graves for her parents, my great-grandparents, and they are just horrific stories.”
Even 60 years later, the effects of the testing are far from a distant memory for Karina’s family. Her sister, and fellow anti-nuclear campaigner, Rose Lester, suffers from an autoimmune disease she says was caused by the nuclear tests, and the pair’s father Yami saw his life change irreversibly just years later.
“In 1953, they conducted their nuclear testing in Emu Field. By 1957, Dad’s world was in total darkness,” Karina explained.
But it was more than just physical wounds
“Many of my older generations were loaded on a truck and moved far from their traditional lands to Yalata and Ceduna communities, or even as far as Gerard on the River Murray and then up to Port Augusta and Coober Pedy,” Karina told Now To Love.
“They were relocated off their traditional lands, moved from their homes, and it had a devastating impact on their mental health and wellbeing.
“Those lands they tested on, they were lands we traditionally used for hunting and gathering; lands we were spiritually connected to, and that was proven by Royal Commission.”
The physical and emotional pain caused by the testing was only magnified by the Australian government’s refusal to accept any wrongdoing.
“My dad heard an interview with Ernest Titterton [a British nuclear physicist] on ABC Radio saying indigenous people were informed about the testing in advance. He said that Aboriginal people had been cared for and moved away,” Karina remembers.
“Mr Titterton may have gone and spoken to the white pastoralists, but no one ever spoke to the Aboriginal community. They couldn’t, they didn’t speak our language.
“It was after that interview Dad decided he had to do something – to hold someone responsible. He talked to our people and they decided it was finally time our story was shared.”
22 Feb 18Brewarrina residents, including Ngemba people with local cultural responsibilities, are stepping up their campaign against the proposal for national nuclear waste dump in the region.
A silent vigil will be held during the Council meeting at 8:30am this Friday February 23, followed with a rally on Saturday morning at 9:30am.
In November 2017 the Brewarrina Council revealed that a delegation had traveled to Lucas Heights nuclear reactor in Sydney and subsequently engaged pro-nuclear consultant Robert Parker.
Trish Frail, a Ngemba woman who is coordinating the local campaign to oppose the dump, said the community was shocked by the proposal.
“This nuclear facility will not benefit our town, the community or the environment,” Ms Frail said.
“Ngemba people are custodians for the Ngunnhu Fish Traps. The site is claimed to be over sixty thousand years old and is heritage listed, being the oldest man-made structure in the world.”
“The Biami Traps were once a great gathering site for all clans to trap fish and to host corroborees, initiation ceremonies, and meetings for trade and barter.”
“A lot of our younger generation are talking about moving away if a nuclear dump is built on our land, they will lose our culture and our lore, this must not happen. The young people have been helping.”
“Brewarrina will not become a nuclear dumping ground for the Australian Government. We say No Nuclear Bundabunda (poison) on Ngemba Land – Bad Poison,” Ms Frail concluded.
‘The abuse of Aboriginal prisoners with disabilities in Australian jails is confronting, and ongoing.
‘In Part 3 of this special series for New Matilda, Michael Brull looks at the use of solitary confinement against disabled Aboriginal prisoners, exposed in a report written by Human Rights Watch‘
‘Human Rights Watch (HRW) observes that under international law, solitary confinement means
confining a prisoner for 22 hours or more per day “without meaningful human contact”.
Prolonged solitary confinement occurs when solitary confinement is extended past 15 consecutive days.
‘HRW documents in its report that various specialists on international law
from various United Nations human rights organisations have found that under international law,
it is unacceptable to impose solitary confinement on people with disabilities
under any circumstances. … ‘
Brewarrina, or “Bre” as it is known, is an historic and fascinating town on the Barwon-Darling River. New South Wales.With 68% of the local population identifying as indigenous it is essentially an Aboriginal town. …. It is hard to underestimate the importance of the Aboriginal stone fish traps which, at 40,000 years old, may be the oldest man-made structures on the planet.
Brewarrina was the scene of a huge massacre of Aboriginals. “They rounded them up like cattle, old and young, on the Quantambone plain, and shot them. It is said that there were about 400 and that was how Hospital Creek got its name”
It is disappointing that the local Councillors and Council would even consider such an atrocity as a nuclear waste dump at Brewarrina.
If Nuclear waste was so safe why is it taken over 35years to find a site, why are they seeking to build in isolated communities with the majority off the population being Aboriginal?
Brewarrina is known worldwide for the oldest man-made structure in the world with Baiame’s Ngunnhu Fish Traps and we want to keep it that way, not to be known as a nuclear waste facility.
The local Council approached the Federal Government for this proposal without consultation with the community and without negotiation with the Local Land Council or the Ngemba Community Working Party or other local councils.
We believe the health of the community will be at risk. We are being promised 15 jobs, what is 15 jobs compared to the health of the community and the land and water.
There are other options available to boost the economy of the town such as solar power, tourism and the abattoirs.
No Nuclear Bundabunda at Brewarrina – bad poison
(please note; 7 out of 9 Councillors have supported this proposal)
Council released their survey for the proposal to go ahead.
The Greens will table our petition in Federal Parliament.
There should be no extinguishment of Native Title without our consent
‘The W&J Council received its most recent mandate at a meeting of the W&J claim group on 2 December 2017.
The letter informed the Government that the W&J claim group opposes the Adani Mining Pty Ltd project because of the damage that it will cause to the culture, and the lands and waters,
of the Wangan and Jagalingou People.
‘W&J council also oppose the registered Indigenous Land Use Agreement (ILUA) with Adani Mining Pty Ltd
purported to be authorised by the Wangan and Jagalingou People
in controversial circumstances (“the Adani ILUA”).
Sovereign Union of First Nations and Peoples in Australia, Asserting Australia’s First Nations Sovereignty into Governance,www.sovereignunion.mobi, 12 February 2018,
Ghillar, Michael Anderson, Convenor of the Sovereign Union, last surviving member of the founding four of the Aboriginal Embassy and Leader of the Euahlayi Nation said from Goodooga today:
“I don’t believe a modern treaty process will get any further than the National Aboriginal Conference (NAC) did, unless Sovereign First Nations declare sovereign independence through UDIs and force decolonisation through a united front. Understandably, First Nations’ assertions of sovereignty have been honed in the intervening 30 plus years. I constantly remind our people that our reality is we hold the continental Common Law, but are occupied by a foreign power ruling in right of the British Crown. Until this changes through decolonisation, Close the Gap, Apology and other government policies remain as band aid measures.”
Statement in full:
“So long as a Rhodes Scholar is running this country the vested interests of the British Crown are paramount and remain in line with mining magnate Cecil Rhodes’ legacy of educating scholars to run and exploit a country for Britain’s benefit. PM Malcolm Turnbull, a Rhodes Scholar with a Bachelor of Civil Law from Brasenose College, Oxford is the latest agent of the coloniser to ensure First Nations’ inherent sovereign rights to lands, waters and natural resources are quashed.
Turnbull may talk about ‘refreshing’ Close the Gap to appear in line with the CERD recommendations of 2017, but fails to provide the requested ‘disaggregated data’ for a proper evaluation. In fact, the Turnbull government is belligerently ignoring the CERD’s 2017 findings, which were strategically released on Boxing Day, 26 December 2017. CERD was highly critical of Australia’s treatment of First Nations and Peoples and failure to address remedies.
… despite statements by the State Party that it rejects the principle ofterra nulliusgrounded in the “discovery discourse”, the State party continues to conduct its relations with indigenous peoples, in a manner that is not reconcilable with their rights to self-determination and to own and control their lands and natural resources.
Once again the CERD recommends Australia ‘enter into good faith treaty negotiations’ [para20]. This is, in fact, a recognition of First Nations’ pre-existing and continuing sovereignty because the only meaning of treaty in modern international law is an agreement between sovereign Nations.
The CERD also recommends ‘that the State party move urgently to effectively protect the land rights of indigenous peoples, including by amending the Native Title Act 1993, with a view to lowering the standard of proof required and simplifying the applicable procedures. It also urges the State party to ensure that the principle of free, prior and informed consent is incorporated into the Native Title Act 1993 and into other legislation, as appropriate, and fully implemented in practice.’ [ CERD/C/AUS/CO/18-20 ] (emphasis added)
Regina McKenzie Fight To Stop Nuclear Waste Dump In Flinders Ranges SA, February 3, 2017 Back home on the Range, seeing it made a lump come into my throat, how can any one even think of putting a waste dump in such a beautiful ancient land?
We the people of this land comes from a group of nations, that were hunted in the past, the Government of them days actually supported the activity of early settlers, a five pound bounty, which was a lot of money in those days, was paid per scalp of Aboriginals, blankets that was exposed to small pox given out to unsuspecting yura’s, who then shared these gifts to the wider Aboriginal people, hence spreading the disease to people who had no immunity to it and can’t forget the water hole being poisoned, what I am getting at is back then, when we were hunted, this land was our sanctuary all the decimated nations fled into the hills, thus forming the Adnyamathanha people, adnya meaning rock and mathanaha meaning groups, it was the hills of this beautiful land that saved us,
I hear many say oh thank goodness for the missionaries they helped us ….. NO they only contained us on missions, taking control of our lives, banning the people to practice culture and making public enemies of the ones who stood strong, it was the land that gave us places to hide and why we are still here, so why do Yura’s take it for granted? why do they turn their back? why do they so cowardly bend their knee?
I will stand for the land, I will fight with every ounce of my strength, I live and breath this land, it is my solace, my love, the place where I am whole, I will say NO to the waste dump, I stand proud and I will protect my Mudah, my past, present and future https://www.facebook.com/groups/344452605899556/
Killing Country (Part 5): Native Title Colonialism, Racism And Mining For Manufactured Consent, New Matilda By Morgan Briggon
In the final of a five-part series on the battle by the Wangan and Jagalingou people of Central Queensland to halt the construction of the Carmichael coal mine by Indian mining giant Adani, Dr Morgan Brigg explains the problems with a native title system that continues to dispossess and disempower Australia’s First Peoples.
Wangan and Jagalingou people are the traditional owners of a vast swathe of Central-Western Queensland that is critical for the proposed Adani Carmichael mine, including a 2,750-hectare area over which native title rights must be extinguished for Adani to convert the land to freehold tenure for the infrastructure for mine operations.
The Wangan and Jagalingou are native title applicants with a prima facie claim to their lands, but the Wangan and Jagalingou Traditional Owners Family Council (W&J) are not following the establishment script of playing along with mining interests. Instead, they are vehemently resisting the proposed Adani Carmichael mine, including through native title law.
The fact that their rejection of Adani through four claim group meetings is not an open-and-shut case which sends the miners packing goes to the heart of what native title is and how it works in Australia
……… At the heart of the matter is that the native title regime is not a strong vehicle for the pursuit of Indigenous rights, including because it does not enable a veto, the possibility of which is the only true test of whether it can be said that free, prior and informed consent has been given. As W&J say, ‘no means no’.
Instead, native title facilitates the interests of state and capital by manufacturing consent through processes stacked against Indigenous people and backed up by the option of compulsory state acquisition of land.
The Australian establishment is accustomed to a highly inequitable approach to race politics. But the immorality of such legal deprivation is readily recognised on the world stage. The racially discriminatory nature of native title has previously been called out by the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, and as the W&J’s recent submission to the CERD states, “a consultation process that conforms to international law is almost impossible under Australian law”.
Despite having the odds stacked against them, W&J are challenging Australia’s native title system and the notion that compliance with colonial-derived law and the imperatives of industrial projects is the way forward for Indigenous people……..
Manufacturing Consent, Denying Traditional Owners
Wangan and Jagalingou people rejected Adani’s proposals in December 2012 and October 2014. However, Adani went to the NNTT in 2013 and 2015, the Tribunal allowed the mining leases to be granted over the rejections of the claim group, and the Queensland Government duly complied. This is the most direct way in which native title facilitates the denial rather than the protection of Aboriginal rights.
There was no consent, and no requirement on Adani to continue to negotiate, or to accept a refusal.
In addition, and against Wangan and Jagalingou decisions in 2012 and 2014, QSNTS has continued to facilitate Adani’s ongoing efforts to seek agreement, through an ILUA, to the surrender of native title rights in up to 2,750 hectares of land that are necessary for infrastructure critical to the mine. QSNTS declined to in any way facilitate a ‘self-determined’ meeting of the claim group that was run in March 2016 – a meeting that once again rejected an ILUA with Adani, as well as any further dealings with them. They also refused to attend, or share the notice of the most recent claim group meetings in December 2017 – meetings to address the progress of the native title claim. These meetings also revisited, and as it turned out, de-authorised the ILUA that Adani was seeking to have registered………..
Meanwhile, the Queensland Government has remained silent in public while consistently joining court actions on the side of Adani, and actively facilitating the mine through the actions of the Coordinator-General. In this way, they prosecute an out-dated resource-intensive developmentalism at the expense of Indigenous rights, without publically saying that they oppose Indigenous rights.
As noted in a previous article in this series, “The ILUA process, in effect, enables the State Government to abrogate its responsibilities to mining companies in negotiations with Traditional Owners, despite the obvious unequal access to power and information that shapes both negotiation processes and their outcomes”.
However, depending on the outcome of the upcoming court case, the Queensland Government may be called upon to more explicitly deny the rights of Indigenous people as enabled by the native title regime.
Compulsory Acquisition and the Continuation of Colonial Violence
Should the objections of the W&J to the Adani ILUA process be upheld in the March 2018 court case, and if potential further Adani efforts to seek an ILUA are unsuccessful, the Queensland Government can compulsorily acquire the 2,750 hectares that Adani seeks. This action, which would be initiated through the Coordinator-General and require a decision of the Governor in Council, would see the state extinguish the native title rights of Wangan and Jagalingou people.
………W&J stand on the conflict-ridden frontier of these issues in real time where powerful forces – the state, miners, big money, and the established media – seek to overcome Aboriginal resistance that operates through the ‘right to say no’ that inspires older and rising generations of Aboriginal rights leaders.The W&J are pushing the limits of native title to prosecute their rights while opposing Adani’s proposed mine and making claims through Aboriginal law on their own terms. In doing so they are helping to show how native title is manifestly inadequate.
Jim Green, Anti-nuclear & Clean Energy (ACE) Campaign, Friends of the Earth, Australia, www.nuclear.foe.org.au January 2018
The British government conducted 12 nuclear bomb tests in Australia in the 1950s, most of them at Maralinga in South Australia. Permission was not sought from affected Aboriginal groups such as the Pitjantjatjara, Yankunytjatjara, Tjarutja and Kokatha. Thousands of people were adversely affected and the impact on Aboriginal people was particularly profound.
The 1985 Royal Commission found that regard for Aboriginal safety was characterised by “ignorance, incompetence and cynicism”. Many Aboriginal people were forcibly removed from their homelands and taken to places such as the Yalata mission in South Australia, which was effectively a prison camp.
In the late-1990s, the Australian government carried out a clean-up of the Maralinga nuclear test site. It was done on the cheap and many tonnes of debris contaminated with kilograms of plutonium remain buried in shallow, unlined pits in totally unsuitable geology. As nuclear engineer and whistleblower Alan Parkinson said of the ‘clean-up’ on ABC radio in August 2002: “What was done at Maralinga was a cheap and nasty solution that wouldn’t be adopted on white-fellas land.”
Barely a decade after the ‘clean-up’, a survey revealed that 19 of the 85 contaminated debris pits had been subject to erosion or subsidence. The half-life of plutonium-239 is 24,100 years.
Radioactive ransom − dumping on the NT
From 2005−2014 successive federal governments attempted to impose a nuclear waste dump at Muckaty, 110 km north of Tennant Creek in the Northern Territory. A toxic trade-off of basic services for a radioactive waste dump was part of this story from the start. The nomination of the Muckaty site was made with the promise of $12 million compensation package comprising roads, houses and scholarships. Muckaty Traditional Owner Kylie Sambo objected to this radioactive ransom: “I think that is a very, very stupid idea for us to sell our land to get better education and scholarships. As an Australian we should be already entitled to that.”
The Liberal/National Coalition government led by John Howard passed legislation − the Commonwealth Radioactive Waste Management Act 2005 − overriding the Aboriginal Heritage Act, undermining the Aboriginal Land Rights Act, and allowing the imposition of a nuclear dump with no Aboriginal consultation or consent.
The Australian Labor Party voted against the Commonwealth Radioactive Waste Management Act, with Labor parliamentarians describing it as “extreme”, “arrogant”, “draconian”, “sorry”, “sordid”, and “profoundly shameful”. At its 2007 national conference, Labor voted unanimously to repeal the legislation. Yet after the 2007 election, the Labor government passed legislation − the National Radioactive Waste Management Act (NRWMA) − which was almost as draconian and still permitted the imposition of a nuclear dump with no Aboriginal consultation or consent.
In February 2008, Labor Prime Minister Kevin Rudd highlighted the life-story of Lorna Fejo − a member of the stolen generation − in the National Apology in Parliament House. At the same time, the Rudd government was stealing her land for a nuclear dump. Fejo said: “I’m very, very disappointed and downhearted about that [NRWMA legislation]. I’m really sad. The thing is − when are we going to have a fair go? Australia is supposed to be the land of the fair go. When are we going to have fair go? I’ve been stolen from my mother and now they’re stealing my land off me.”
Shamefully, the NLC supported legislation disempowering the people it is meant to represent.
The Federal Court trial finally began in June 2014. After two weeks of evidence, the NLC gave up and agreed to recommend to the federal government the withdrawal of the nomination of Muckaty for a nuclear dump. The Coalition government led by Prime Minister Tony Abbott accepted the NLC’s recommendation.
Lorna Fejo said: “I feel ecstatic. I feel free because it was a long struggle to protect my land.”
Owners have won a significant battle for country and culture, but the problems and patterns of radioactive racism persist. Racism in the uranium mining industry involves ignoring the concerns of Traditional Owners; divide-and-rule tactics; radioactive ransom; ‘humbugging’ Traditional Owners (exerting persistent, unwanted pressure); providing Traditional Owners with false information; and threats, including legal threats.
In 1998, the Howard government announced its intention to build a nuclear waste dump near Woomera in South Australia. Leading the battle against the dump were the Kupa Piti Kungka Tjuta, a council of senior Aboriginal women from northern SA. Many of the Kungkas personally suffered the impacts of the British nuclear bomb tests at Maralinga and Emu in the 1950s.
The proposed dump generated such controversy in SA that the federal government hired a public relations company. Correspondence between the company and the government was released under Freedom of Information laws. In one exchange, a government official asked the PR company to remove sand-dunes from a photo to be used in a brochure. The explanation provided by the government official was that: “Dunes are a sensitive area with respect to Aboriginal Heritage”. The sand-dunes were removed from the photo, only for the government official to ask if the horizon could be straightened up as well. Terra nullius.
In 2003, the federal government used the Lands Acquisition Act 1989 to seize land for the dump. Native Title rights and interests were extinguished with the stroke of a pen. This took place with no forewarning and no consultation with Aboriginal people.
The Kungkas continued to implore the federal government to ‘get their ears out of their pockets’, and after six years the government did just that. In the lead-up to the 2004 federal election − after a Federal Court ruling that the federal government had acted illegally in stripping Traditional Owners of their native title rights, and with the dump issue biting politically in SA − the Howard government decided to cut its losses and abandon the dump plan.
The Kungkas wrote in an open letter: “People said that you can’t win against the Government. Just a few women. We just kept talking and telling them to get their ears out of their pockets and listen. We never said we were going to give up. Government has big money to buy their way out but we never gave up.”
Nuclear War
One example concerns the 1982 South Australian Roxby Downs Indenture Act, which sets the legal framework for the operation of BHP Billiton’s Olympic Dam uranium mine in SA. The Act was amended in 2011 but it retains exemptions from the SA Aboriginal Heritage Act. Traditional Owners were not even consulted. The SA government’s spokesperson in Parliament said: “BHP were satisfied with the current arrangements and insisted on the continuation of these arrangements, and the government did not consult further than that.”
That disgraceful performance illustrates a broader pattern. Aboriginal land rights and heritage protections are feeble at the best of times. But the legal rights and protections are repeatedly stripped away whenever they get in the way of nuclear or mining interests.
Thus the Olympic Dam mine is largely exempt from the SA Aboriginal Heritage Act. Sub-section 40(6) of the Commonwealth’s Aboriginal Land Rights Act exempts the Ranger uranium mine in the NT from the Act and thus removed the right of veto that Mirarr Traditional Owners would otherwise have enjoyed. New South Wales legislation exempts uranium mines from provisions of the NSW Aboriginal Land Rights Act. The Western Australian government is in the process of gutting the WA Aboriginal Heritage Act 1972 at the behest of the mining industry. Native Title rights were extinguished with the stroke of a pen to seize land for a radioactive waste dump in SA, and Aboriginal heritage laws and land rights were repeatedly overridden with the push to dump nuclear waste in the NT.
While a small group of Traditional Owners supported the dump, a large majority were opposed and some initiated legal action in the Federal Court challenging the nomination of the Muckaty site by the federal government and the Northern Land Council (NLC).
Muckaty Traditional Owners have won a famous victory, but the nuclear war against Aboriginal people continues − and it will continue to be resisted, with the Aboriginal-led Australian Nuclear Free Alliance playing a leading role.
More information: • Australian Nuclear Free Alliance www.anfa.org.au Friends of the Earth
‘The greatest minds in the nuclear establishment have been searching for an answer to the radioactive waste problem for fifty years, and they’ve finally got one: haul it down a dirt road and dump it on an Indian reservation.” −− Winona LaDuke, Indigenous World Uranium Summit, 2006
‘Aboriginal people across this country are calling for a Treaty with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people
that recognises Aboriginal sovereignty as the First Peoples was never ceded,
address the stark disparity in economic social conditions of Aboriginal communities poverty
and the structural racism that continues to repress Aboriginal people.
‘The Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples,
now endorsed by the Australian Government, asserts in Article 3:
Indigenous peoples’ rights to self-determination.
‘Yet Australia remains the only commonwealth colonised country
without a Treaty with its Indigenous peoples.
‘Calls for a Treaty were repeatedly raised by Aboriginal communities
during the recent Constitutional Recognition consultations
as a practical means to recognize Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders
as the First Nation Peoples and to implement the structural changes
required to establish self-determination.
‘A Treaty builds on the Statement from the Heart’s call for a ‘Makarrata’,
a Yolgnu word for coming together after a conflict, to move forward together.
It also builds on several State based Treaties currently being developed.
‘A Treaty sets a process to legitimately move forward in partnership
between Aboriginal people and the Australian State.’
Antinuclear 