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.’
The Numbers Don’t Stack Up: W&J’s Rights on the Chopping Block for Adani’s ‘Non Viable’ Project, New Matilda By John Quigginon In the fourth in a five part series on the proposed Adani Carmichael coal mine, John Quiggin looks at the numbers for the project, and like virtually all other parts of the planned project, they don’t survive closer examination. John Quiggin explains.
In what was lauded as a landmark moment for the Adani Group, in June 2017, its chairman Gautam Adani announced his board had given final investment approval for the $5.3 billion first stage of its Carmichael mine project in the Galilee Basin, as well as approval for the associated rail line project, to be constructed from the Basin to the Abbot Point coal terminal.
At the same time, however, Adani asserted its project’s future would remain contingent on finance. Given the projects’ outstanding financial issues, exposed in detail here, alongside Adani’s sustained failure to reach agreement with Traditional Owners, which undercuts the legal basis and legitimacy for this mine to proceed on W&J Country, its future remains uncertain.
Seven years since Adani Mining Pty Ltd. – Adani’s Australian arm – moved into Australia when it secured coal tenements, it has neither financial nor legal close for its proposed Carmichael mine.
These are the shaky grounds on which W&J are expected to forego their rights, assume the destruction of their country, and be grateful for a tiny sliver of the pie.
Yet the rhetoric of 10,000 jobs and great social advancement that would flow from the supposed benefits of the project to Traditional Owners along its corridor, and especially the W&J on whose country the mega mine will operate, is a far cry from that which Adani has actually put on the table.
A preliminary analysis commissioned by the W&J Traditional Owners and presented to the claim group meeting on 2 December shows what a miserable proposition Adani’s proposed deal is for Traditional Owners.
Adani is offering Traditional Owners just 0.2 percent of its total revenue; far below industry benchmarks that indigenous groups should get 0.35 – 0.75 percent.
To put this in perspective, even if Adani doubled what was on offer, it would still only be equivalent to some of the lowest Indigenous Land Use Agreement (ILUA) deals in Australia.
The deal on offer is also out of balance in terms of the kinds of economic opportunities it will afford Indigenous communities; with primary focus on highly speculative job opportunities. Seventy-five per cent of Adani’s benefits package is wrapped up in jobs; and yet if the jobs don’t come, the purported benefits will simply not be realised.
While the economics of the mine represent a very poor deal for Traditional Owners, they are at the same time expected to cop the brunt of the costs – including destruction of country – for the mines go ahead………
Even with financial breaks from government, the evidence – drawing from the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA) and other recent figures – demonstrates the Adani mine-rail project is highly unlikely to be economically viable. On this basis, any public money lent to the project, whether through the NAIF, or through a deferral of royalties, is unlikely to be recovered……
Adani has proposed a package to support Traditional Owners – a kind of quasi compensation for destruction of Country – including a $250 million Indigenous Participation Plan for the Traditional Owner groups along it’s project corridor, and the wider Aboriginal community of Central Queensland.
The details of this, however, have been described by W&J as a parlous deal. Demonstrating this, W&J draw attention to the very limited job creation. And on the basis of figures provided by Adani, Traditional Owners employed by the mine would be paid just $35,000.00 per year, a figure that barely meets Australia’s minimum wage.
This plan on offer is no exchange for the losses of land and waters, cultural and self-determination that W&J would incur; which is why they remain resolute in their opposition to the proposed mine. They alone are expected to give up their ancient legacy and birth rights so that others can benefit.
W&J has every right to object to the mine and refuse consent………..
By Tammy Solonec, Amnesty International Australia’s Indigenous Rights Manager, 21 December 2017www..amnesty.org.au
‘Over the past couple of years, Amnesty has supported #ChangetheDate by giving people a platform
to speak on why they choose not to celebrate on 26 January.
‘Now we are taking a step further, and asking you stand with us in solidarity with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples across this country.’
‘Australia Day should be for all Australians, but for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people
who mark the day as one of invasion, survival and mourning, 26 January is not a day for celebrations. ‘We need to move to a date that is inclusive of all Australians.
‘Although Australia Day has only been officially nationally celebrated since 1984,
protesting on 26 January is not new for Aboriginal people.
‘Protests about the celebration of Australia Day on 26 January date all the way back to the 1800s.
‘In 2018, Amnesty will be calling on our leaders to acknowledge this plight
and start a consultation process to change the date of Australia Day
so it can be celebrated by all Australians.
‘Over recent years, momentum to change the date has grown.
‘Some local councils in Western Australia, Tasmania and Victoria have amended their celebrations,
and there has been extensive debate in the media..
Will January 26th 2018 be the last Australia Day ever? http://www.welcometocountry.org/will-2018-be-the-last-australia-day-ever/ September 13, 2017 There are now almost 20 different councils across 7 different states and territories who are considering or have already made arrangements to move Australia Day to a more respectable date.
Many of the councils that have already made changes to January 26th have done so out of pressure and advice from their local Indigenous communities. Now that we sense our voices are finally being heard; 2018 is shaping up to be the year that we deliver the knockout blow to Australia Day. You can be certain that come January 26th next year, you will see the largest nation wide Invasion day protests.
Welcome to Country is an independent Indigenous news/media website. If you would like to have your voice heard with your very own published article, contact us via our Facebook page or Contact page.
‘The WandJ Traditional Owner’s Council is one of the final barriers to one of the world’s largest coal mines. And it is now scared its native title will be extinguished before its day in court.’
‘W&J spokesperson Murrawah Johnson told BuzzFeed News that there are concerns the Queensland government could move “at any time” to extinguish native title over the site, before a Federal Court hearing in March that will challenge the validity of the ILUA. That’s the reason W&J are seeking an injunction.
‘”We have a court case, challenging the legitimacy of this agreement, and they seem to be willing to go and extinguish our native title in the face of all of that, despite the agreement being illegitimate,” Johnson told BuzzFeed News. … ‘
‘With the announcement of a new majority Qld Labor government, and
with the National Native Title Tribunal set to decide today whether to register Adani’s sham Indigenous Land Use Agreement,
the Wangan and Jagalingou Traditional Owners Council have presented a clear set of demands.
‘Wangan and Jagalingou (W&J) Traditional Owners Council Spokesperson Adrian Burragubba said,
‘“Our fight to protect our country and heritage will continue until Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk acknowledges
that we are the people from that land, and Adani does not have the consent it requires from us for this destructive mine.
‘“We call on the Palaszczuk Government to stand up for our rights and not the interests of Adani.
We have written to our more than 100,000 supporters in the wider community this morning,
asking them to press the Premier and Deputy Premier to demand that the returned Palaszczuk Government –
‘acknowledge that Adani and the Queensland Government do not have the consent of W&J Traditional Owners for the Carmichael mine
remove Queensland’s ‘signature’ from Adani’s contested Indigenous Land Use Agreement
rule out extinguishing Native Title to allow Adani to proceed, even if the ILUA is registered by the NNTT
stop opposing the rightful W&J Traditional Owners in court and wait for all our cases to be heard, and
end Adani’s special treatment – which will enable the destruction of W&J country and heritage – including keeping the Premier’s election promise to veto Adani’s $1BN taxpayer-funded loan”’
‘“This follows an an authorisation meeting of our Claim Group on 2 December at which,
for the fourth time since 2012, our people voted unanimously to reject an Indigenous Land Use Agreement (ILUA) with Adani. … ‘
‘The Universal Declaration of Human Rights empowers us all.
Human rights are relevant to all of us, every day.
Our shared humanity is rooted in these universal values.
Equality, justice and freedom prevent violence and sustain peace.
Whenever and wherever humanity’s values are abandoned, we all are at greater risk.
We need to stand up for our rights and those of others. …
‘In the coming year IRAG Alice Springs will be calling on people all around the country and overseas
to support us in our stand to have people’s human rights upheld, and
their rights under the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
‘This will be a campaign to have the Stronger Futures laws repealed as this is destroying people and our culture.
‘We are working on strategies to call on all politicians to listen to what we are saying.
Governments need to work with us instead of treating people like children.
‘IRAG is grateful for all your support in the past
and we look forward to working with you in the future.
IRAG UPDATE
‘IRAG group is meeting regularly to plan a strong campaign for the next year.
We need more people to join us as there is much work to be done.
Please send us a message via our Facebook page if you are interested in joining us.’
Brisbane, 3 December 2017. ‘For the fourth time since 2012, W&J Traditional Owners have voted unanimously at an authorisation meeting to reject an Indigenous Land Use Agreement (ILUA) with Adani, underlining their sustained opposition to the mine.
It was in the 1950s when the British began testing nuclear weapons at Maralinga in the South Australian outback.
The legacy of the bombs dropped continues to haunt the 67-year-old Aboriginal grandmother. “We weren’t on ground zero at Maralinga, otherwise we would all be dead,” she told AAP. “I was born and grew up on a mission at Koonibba, but the winds came to us.”
Ceduna, the main township before the Nullarbor, is the cancer capital of Australia, Ms Coleman-Haseldine says. She’s had her thyroid removed and will be on medication for the rest of her life.
Her 15-year-old granddaughter is also battling thyroid cancer..
There are birth defects and cancers right across the community. “It’s changed our genes,” she said.”These diseases weren’t around before the bombs.”
On December 10, Ms Coleman-Haseldine will be in Oslo for the Noble Peace Prize award ceremony.
The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) is being recognised for its work to achieve a treaty-based ban on nuclear weapons.
So far 122 countries have adopted the treaty, excluding Australia and countries with nuclear weapons – the US, UK, Russia, China, France, India, Pakistan, North Korea and Israel.
Only three countries have ratified the treaty and 50 are needed for it to become international law.
ICAN is a grassroots movement that began in Carlton, Melbourne more than a decade ago.
In Norway, Ms Coleman-Haseldine will tell the story of her people and their contaminated land.”You’ve got to keep the past alive to protect the future,” she said.
Ms Coleman-Haseldine hopes Australia will reverse its opposition and sign the treaty.
The Turnbull government has ruled that out but the Labor Party will debate the issue at its national conference next year.
Adani’s compensation for traditional owners ‘well below’ industry standard, report finds, ABC News 1 Dec 17, By Josh Robertson A hotly contested deal between Adani and traditional owners of its proposed Carmichael mine site in Queensland’s Galilee Basin would deliver compensation “well below” what most big miners pay, according to a new analysis.
The Wangan and Jagalingou (W&J) people would only get 0.2 per cent of Adani’s earnings from the mine, less than half the industry average, respected mining industry outfit Economics Consulting Services has found.
Its report, obtained by the ABC, was commissioned by six W&J representatives whose looming court challenge to the deal stands as the final legal hurdle to Adani’s contentious mega-mine.
It found the W&J people would earn up to $145 million over 30 years, out of the project’s estimated $77.4 billion in gross revenue, a share which was “well below industry benchmark standards”.
The benchmarks for such deals usually ranged from 0.75 per cent to 0.35 per cent.
Only 11 per cent of the deal would come to the W&J people in cash, up to $17.4 million over 30 years, or about $2,300 a year per adult member of the clan.
Report author Murray Meaton, who was awarded an Order of Australia in 2014 for services to the mining industry, found the benefits to the W&J people would be “dramatically lower” if job promises for locals fell short as they did “in most jurisdictions and agreements”.
Traditional owners divided
To gain finance for the $21 billion project, Adani needs an Indigenous Land Use Agreement (ILUA) with the W&J people, or it must call on the Queensland Government to forcibly extinguish any native title claim over the mine site in the Galilee Basin.
After almost six years of vexed negotiations with Adani, the W&J representative group is evenly split over the deal.
The Indigenous group twice rejected Adani in 2012 and 2014 before seven of 12 W&J representatives swung their support behind the miner last year.
no amount of corporate black washing – including Indigenous participation plans that champion strong and effective relationships between Adani and W&J, alongside jobs and traineeships – can hide Adani’s direct and immediate part in walking over the rights of Traditional Owners.
Traditional Owners Expose Adani’s Relentless Pursuit of W&J Country, New Matilda By Kristen Lyonson
In the third in a five part series on the proposed Adani Carmichael coal mine, Kristen Lyons looks at a deal struck between the miners and the local traditional owners, and why it just adds to the smell that pervades the entire project.
Introduction
The Indian industrial conglomerate, Adani Enterprises – well known for environmental damage and human rights abuses at its project sites around the world, and built upon a complex business structure with tax havens in the Cayman Islands – entered Australia in 2010 with the purchase of coal tenements in the Galilee Basin, in Central Queensland.
Despite its controversial back story, some of which has only come to light since approvals were granted for its Australian project, Adani quickly rose to become a poster child for the State Government, based on promises its Carmichael mine project would deliver jobs and economic growth for regional Queensland.
Managed by its domestic arm, Adani Mining Pty Ltd, over the following years it developed a project proposal that included a coalmine, as well as rail and port infrastructure, thereby opening up the massive Galilee Basin for coal exports.
With seven years gone since acquisition of the coal tenements, and marred by substantial project downsizing, Adani is yet to start construction of its mega mine. Wangan and Jagalingou Traditional Owners Family Councils’ (W&J) defiant opposition to Adani’s proposed Carmichael mine has been central to this delay; opposition that has, in itself, exposed the dirty deeds Adani is willing to perpetrate against Traditional Owners who seek to defend their right to say no to a mine that would destroy their country.
This article exposes some of Adani’s deeds, including its nefarious actions in reaching an ‘agreement’ with Traditional Owners, Continue reading →
To Sovereign Union of First Nations and Peoples in Australia When resetting the agenda: Don’t cede your sovereignty or acquiesce, in your enthusiasm for Treaty-talks
Ghillar, Michael Anderson, ghillar29@gmail.com, Convenor of the Sovereign Union, last surviving member of the founding four of the Aboriginal Embassy and Head of State of the Euahlayi Peoples Republic provides further insight into a viable pathway going forward. 4 Nov 17
I propose a refocusing of our political agenda, after our successful and clear ending of the constitutional recognition campaign, because Sovereignty-educated grassroots First Nations people refused to accept mere symbolic inclusion in the colonial Constitution. This spelt the death knell for the bipartisan coercion to lure our Peoples into their racist colonial constitution, in order to put an end to the power of the Sovereignty Movement.
At least it is now clear that Aboriginal people have never been in the Australian Constitution and have never had citizenship, but instead are classified as ‘aliens’ by the constitution. The constitution clearly stipulates that children who are born of a foreign group who have been in hostilities with British colonisers at the time of their birth, which includes 100% of our people all over this country, are deemed to be and classified as ‘aliens’. This is confirmed by Quick and Garran’s interpretation of the constitution on the matter of aliens. This, in my view, confirms, that we, the descendents, continue to be classified as ‘aliens’ and non-citizens. This raises serious questions about the continued presence of all Aboriginal people in the Federal parliament, given they cannot produce any naturalisation nor citizenship papers. Continue reading →
‘ … The Wangan and Jagalingou people, who are also fighting a court battle to retain their right over their land, are of the view that if the Adani coal mine is built, their cultural heritage will be destroyed beyond repair.
‘“The land, the springs, the waterways, the mountain ranges, are not just physical forms for us.
They are remnants of our ancient culture.
‘If the mine is built, there will be no record of us ever having been there”,” said Adrian Burragubba, spokesperson of the Wangan and Jagalingou Traditional Owners Family Council.
‘They said that they are prepared to battle it out for as long as it takes.
‘“Every inch of that land is mine. Every blade of grass, every drop of water, each leaf on a tree, each bird, each animal, is mine. And I am going to fight for it. I want to tell Adani – I am not your slave,” an animated Burragubba said when I met him in Brisbane in late July. … ‘
‘Kabir Agarwal is an independent journalist whose writings have appeared in
The Kashmir Walla, The Times of India, Mint, Al Jazeera English and The Caravan.
He can be found on twitter @kabira_tweeting.’ thewire.in/author/kabir-agarwal
Supreme Court of Qld: Environmental Law Australia envlaw.com.au
‘This case study involves a major dispute in the Land Court of Queensland
over the Carmichael Coal Mine proposed in the Galilee Basin of central Queensland
and a subsequent judicial review challenge to the mine’s approval
in the Supreme Court of Queensland.’
‘ … Two separate disputes (also not the subject of this case study) about the mine involve native title issues
raised by the Traditional Owners of the land on which the mine was proposed,
the Wangan and Jagalingou People.
‘The first of these disputes involved hearings in the National Native Title Tribunal (NNTT) and
the Federal Court under the Native Title Act 1993 (Cth) (NTA) after the
Wangan and Jagalingou People rejected an Indigenous Land Use Agreement (ILUA) proposed by Adani
for the grant of the mining lease for the mine. …
‘The second dispute concerning native title issues involved an application by
elders of the Wangan and Jagalingou People in the Supreme Court of Queensland for judicial review
of the grant of the mining lease under the MRA based on native title grounds.
That application was also dismissed.
An appeal in the Queensland Court of Appeal was also dismissed in August 2017.
Antinuclear 