Australian aboriginals’ complex system of conserving land, water, and biodiversity
Bill gives meaning to ‘Wagga’, The Daily Advertiser, 04 Apr, 2012 ,A WAGGA-educated academic historian returned to town at the weekend giving residents a new insight into the ‘Wagga Wagga’ name. Professor Bill Gammage from the Australian National University was invited to speak by the Wagga and District Historical Society about his latest publication telling those in attendance ‘Wagga’ means more than just ‘place of many crows’.
His book, The Biggest Estate on Earth: How Aborigines Made Australia, explores the discovery that Aboriginal people managed the land in far more systematic and scientific ways than ever before realised using a complex system of land management in fire and life cycles of native plants to ensure plentiful wildlife and plant foods throughout the year.
“It argues that Aborigines organised plants and distributed them in a way that would allow them to organise animals,” Mr Gammage said. “So when you take the name Wagga, which means place of many crows, it would actually be describing the landscape so they would know what it looked like,” Mr Gammage said. “They knew it meant there were plenty of crows, which meant there were lizards, snakes and grasslands which led to tubas and bulbs and a lot of open grass country.”…. . http://www.dailyadvertiser.com.au/news/local/news/general/bill-gives-meaning-to-wagga/2510896.aspx
Tony Fitzgerald, former NT Anti Racial Discrimination Commissioner, condemned Norther Territory Intervention
The central recommendation made by the Anti Discrimination Commission was:
The Northern Territory Emergency Response in its present form should be scrapped and transformed from a quick fix, law and order plan into a range of long term initiatives aimed at overcoming remote Indigenous disadvantage and raising indigenous quality of life.
Tony Fitzgerald – an unlikely Territorian hero Crikey, April 1, 2012 – , by Bob Gosford – he quotes Patrick Dodson: “…….Tony was the NT Anti Racial Discrimination Commissioner from 2002 until his passing in 2009.
As Commissioner, Tony was passionate about the need to promote a fair and just society that was free from racial discrimination and inequality…. the report from that review, the Little Children are Sacred Report, became the catalyst for the Howard Government to initiate the Northern Territory National Emergency Response.
Tony was highly critical of the Commonwealth Government’s Emergency Response to Aboriginal communities. He was particularly appalled at the intervention’s suspension of the Racial Discrimination Act, which since its enactment in 1975 has been important in ensuring the protection of all Australians from racial discrimination… Continue reading
Nyoongar Tent Embassy in Western Australia – push for Aboriginal Sovereignty
Nyoongar Tent Embassy puts sovereignty on the agenda, Green Left, March 31, 2012 By Alex Bainbridge, Perth A movement for Aboriginal sovereignty has galvanised around the February 12 formation of the Nyoongar Tent Embassy in Perth.
The embassy was directly inspired by two developments: the 40th anniversary of the Aboriginal Tent Embassy in Canberra, which promoted a national push for Aboriginal sovereignty, and the February 8 report about negotiations between the state government and the South West Aboriginal Land and Sea Council (SWALSC) about Nyoongar native title.
The embassy suffered a heavy blow on March 22 when an operation of more than 60 police tried to close the embassy down. However, the embassy has so far survived the attack and the subsequent increase in police harassment.
Bail conditions on key participants who were arrested that day have prevented them from returning to Matagarup (Heirisson Island), the site of the embassy.
The discussion since that event reveals that sovereignty is an idea that will not simply go away….. On March 28, 100 people took part in an Aboriginal rights rally organised by the Dumbartung Aboriginal Corporation. The rally explicitly rejected the state government offer of a $1 billion land and cash package to extinguish Nyoongar native title.
Instead the rally called for 5% of the value of economic activity in the Nyoongar land to be paid every year to Nyoongar people…..
The SWALSC has produced a document explaining its approach to negotiations with the state government. It said the maximum potential gains of pursuing any native title process were extremely restricted by the inherent limitations on native title from the original Mabo High Court decision and the later legal restrictions imposed by the Keating and Howard governments.
SWALSC said more can be gained by pursuing negotiations with the state government than a bid to gain native title rights through the courts. These are the only two ways to achieve native title rights. But the sovereignty movement says Aboriginal people deserve a lot more than just native title rights.
Greens politican Robin Chapple told Green Left Weekly that he believes the WA government has been happy to engineer a situation in which Aboriginal people are fighting among themselves and that this may even have been Premier Colin Barnett’s goal all along.
The next step for the Nyoongar Tent Embassy will be a rally on April 5 at 11am, starting at the Supreme Court Gardens and marching to Matagarup (Heirisson Island)… http://www.greenleft.org.au/node/50562
One Aboriginal elder may hamper the plans of uranium giant BHP Billiton
LEGAL CHALLENGE OF FEDERAL ENVIRONMENT MINISTERS APPROVAL OF THE 
OLYMPIC DAM EXPANSION, Nectaria Calan, 31 March 12, Uncle Kevin Buzzacott, Arabunna elder and honorary president of the Australian Nuclear Free Alliance, is challenging the Federal Environment Minister’s approval of the Olympic Dam Expansion, on the grounds that various environmental impacts of the project were not properly considered. The case will be heard on the 3rd and 4th of April in the Federal Court, Adelaide.
This is an administrative challenge. If Uncle Kevin succeeds, the Minister will be forced to re-consider the approval and show that the contested environmental impacts have been properly considered. This may delay the project, and is well-timed in that the BHP Board of Directors are currently considering whether to proceed with the project.
BHP Billiton and the South Australian government have successfully applied to become parties to the proceedings. This means that they will be throwing their weight behind the Federal Environment Minister.
Australia’s nuclear industry exempted from laws on Aboriginal rights: is Warren Mundine unaware of this?
Aboriginal nuclear power promoter, Warren Mundine, was on the job today, with an article in the Financial Review. Mundine praised nuclear energy, and assured readers that the industry is going ahead. He made out that it is necessary for nuclear medicine. Most alarming of all, Mundine advocates the “full nuclear cycle”. That means Australia not only having nuclear power, but taking in nuclear waste from overseas countries.
We should not be all that surprised at Mundine’s pro nuke spruik. He has for a long time, been part of Australia’s nuclear lobby – its nuclear ‘spin machine’. – Christina Macpherson
FINANCIAL REVIEW JIM GREEN. 30 MARCH 12, As a co-convener of the Australian Uranium Association’s Indigenous Dialogue Group, it’s a shame that Warren Mundine turns a blind eye to the crude racism of Australia’s nuclear industry
He ought to have noted that last year’s amendments to the South Australian Roxby Downs Indenture Act 1982 retain 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.”
Mundine says that Australia has “a legal framework to negotiate equitably with the traditional owners on whose land many uranium deposits are found”. He ought to have noted that legislation was passed specifically to exempt the Ranger uranium mine in the Northern Territory from the Aboriginal Land Rights Act.
And Mundine ought to have noted that Resources Minister Martin Ferguson’s National Radioactive Waste Management Act overrides the Aboriginal Heritage Act, sidesteps the Aboriginal Land Rights Act and allows for the imposition of a dump on Aboriginal land even in the absence of any consultation with or consent from traditional owners. http://afr.com/p/opinion/our_radioactive_racism_UTpKFLGc40Yd3aBCYAJByM
In 1998 South Australian Aboriginals fought against plan for radioactive waste dump
Dumping on Traditional Owners: the ugly face of Australian racism The Drum, Jim Green, 29 March 12 “…..A win for the Kungkas In 1998, the federal government announced its intention to build a national radioactive 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 South Australia. Many of the Kungkas personally suffered the impacts of the British nuclear bomb tests at Maralinga in the 1950s.
The Kungkas were sceptical about the government’s claim that radioactive waste destined for the Woomera dump was ‘safe’ – after all, the waste would be kept at the Lucas Heights reactor site south of Sydney if it was perfectly safe, or simply dumped in landfill.
The proposed dump generated such controversy in South Australia that the federal government secured the services of a public relations company. Correspondence between the company and the government was released under Freedom of Information laws. In one exchange, a government official asks the PR company to remove sand-dunes from a photo selected to adorn 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.
In July 2003, the federal government used the Lands Acquisition Act 1989 to seize land for the dump. Native Title rights and interests were extinguished at 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 long years the government did just that. In the lead-up to the 2004 federal election, with the dump issue biting politically, the government decided to cut its losses and abandon its plans for a dump in SA.
The Kupa Piti Kungka Tjuta 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.”
Toxic trade-off: dumping on Northern Territorians
The ears went straight back in the pockets the following year with the announcement that the government planned to establish a radioactive waste dump in the Northern Territory.
A toxic trade-off of basic services for a radioactive waste dump has been part of this story from the start. Governments have systematically stripped back resources for remote Aboriginal communities, placing increased pressure on them to accept projects like the radioactive waste dump…. http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/3919296.html
Racism in Australia’s uranium mining industry
Dumping on Traditional Owners: the ugly face of Australian racism The Drum, Jim Green, 29 March 12 “…….Uranium mining
The patterns of nuclear racism are also evident in Australia’s uranium mining industry. Racism in the mining industry typically involves some or all of the following tactics: ignoring the concerns of Traditional Owners insofar as the legal and political circumstances permit; divide-and-rule tactics; bribery; ‘humbugging’ Traditional Owners (exerting persistent, unwanted pressure); providing Traditional Owners with false or misleading information; and threats, most commonly legal threats.
To give one example, the 1982 South Australian Roxby Downs Indenture Act, which sets the legal framework for the operation of the Olympic Dam copper-uranium mine in South Australia, 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. Legislation was passed specifically to exempt the Ranger uranium mine in the Northern Territory from the Aboriginal Land Rights Act. Native Title rights were extinguished with the stroke of a pen to seize land for a radioactive waste dump in South Australia. And Aboriginal heritage laws and Aboriginal land rights are being trashed with the current push to dump in the Northern Territory.
The situation is scarcely any better than it was in the 1950s when the British were exploding nuclear bombs on Aboriginal land. http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/3919296.html
Muckaty Traditional Owners send plea to Governor General, opposing radioactive waste dump
16 March 12, Muckaty Traditional Owners opposed to a national nuclear waste dump on the Muckaty Land Trust north of Tennant Creek in the NT have written to the Governor General asking her not to give royal assent or sign the National Radioactive Waste Management Bill into law. The NRWM Bill passed the Senate on Tuesday and the amended legislation finally passed through the House of Representatives on Wednesday.
The legislation preserves the highly contested Muckaty nomination, which is currently the subject of a federal court challenge by senior Traditional Owners opposed to the plan. The letter signed by 29 Muckaty Traditional Owners (attached in full 120315_Letter to GG re Muckaty-NRWMB .pdf ) says:
“Many of us are concerned and angry about the dump. We worry about what will be in it and what might be put in it in the future. We worry about the impact on country and animals and bush tucker and the old stories and new kids. We know the dances and designs for that country and we are very worried that the government is trying to put the nuclear waste dump there. We have been talking up for many years to say that we do not want the waste dump, but the government has never listened to us.”
The correspondence also requests the Governor General meet with Traditional Owners ‘face to face’ before making a decision or formally approving the law. For more information and comment: Muckaty Traditional Owner Penny Phillips, 0488 225 084 Natalie Wasley, Beyond Nuclear Initiative, 0429 900 774
Aboriginal Sovereignty – it’s about Respect, and Land – not about Money
Aboriginal sovereignty must be on the agenda, says Michael Anderson, Green Left, March 7, 2012, By Kamala Emanuel, Perth http://www.greenleft.org.au/node/50262 About 50 people attended a forum addressed by Michael Anderson at the Curtin University Aboriginal Studies Centre on March 5. Anderson is a Gamilaroi man from New South Wales and is one of the four original founders of the Aboriginal Tent Embassy in Canberra in 1972.
The forum was organised by the Nyoongar Tent Embassy. Two days before, Anderson had addressed the WA Tent Embassy.
Anderson said Aboriginal people had never given up their sovereignty, that there had never been a defeat in declared war, that Aboriginal land had not been ceded and that the British crown had not asserted sovereignty over Aboriginal people.
He gave illustrations from case law, including letters and legislation from colonial times, to show that Aboriginal people were not British subjects and were they considered such. He described recent legal efforts examine whether Australian courts have jurisdiction over Aboriginal people. Anderson invited Aboriginal people of WA to take part in the formation of an interim Aboriginal government of national unity. So far, the interim government includes representatives of more than 40 Aboriginal nations from eastern Australia.
He described plans to have Aboriginal people recognised as a non-self-governing people by the United Nations. He also spoke of several legal initiatives, including a “writ of Mandamus” to get the British parliament to protect Aboriginal sovereignty, genocide proceedings against Britain in the European Union, and compensation and restitution claims for Aboriginal people with respect to mineral and petroleum exploitation.
The crowd received his words with enthusiasm. Many agreed with Anderson’s view Aboriginal sovereignty was “not about the money”. Anderson also said it was important to reject the Barnett state government’s proposed land deal with Nyoongar people in southwest Western Australia — a deal that would stamp out all native title claims over the region.
Bob Carr and Tony Abbott in perfect harmony
Bob Carr: ‘I agree with Tony Abbott’, Green Left, March 5, 2012 By Peter Robson Prime Minister Julia Gillard anointed former NSW premier Bob Carr as the foreign minister on March 2. It awaits the approval of a joint sitting of NSW parliament but for all intents and purposes, Carr has just been catapulted to the third-highest political post in the land after being out of politics since 2005….. . We found a stand-out post from January 27. Here, Carr commented on the protest against opposition leader Tony Abbott and Gillard on January 26 by members of the Aboriginal Tent Embassy.
Carr said: “I agree with Tony Abbott and think his remarks entirely sensible. The Tent Embassy in Canberra says nothing to anyone and should have been quietly packed up years ago…….Carr also said: “The block-headed demonstration sets back reconciliation and would seal the defeat for Aboriginal recognition in the constitution if a referendum were pending.”
I think the best bit about being an Labor Party intellectual must be having the gall to tell an impoverished, oppressed minority — whose rate of imprisonment exceeds that of the imprisonment of blacks under South African Apartheid — that they are drawing too much attention to their cause. That takes some chutzpah….. In the context of discrimination of the kind his party supports by supporting the NT intervention, and the context of the vast gulf in living conditions and incarceration rates between black and white, such a policy would gut any attempt at “narrowing the gap”. It would, in short, be a policy of assimilation. Aboriginal disadvantage would become simply “disadvantage” — inexplicable, unsolvable, but most of all, no one’s fault.
Carr (bravely, Sir Humphry Appleby might say) started his post with “I agree with Tony Abbott …”. Maybe he should have just left it there. http://www.greenleft.org.au/node/50251
Aboriginal elder takes legal action against new Olympic Dam uranium mine
‘Tiny voice’ of elder takes on Olympic Dam BY: SARAH MARTIN, SA POLITICAL REPORTER The Australian February 22, 2012 BHP Billiton’s proposed $20 billion Olympic Dam mine expansion, to create the world’s largest open-cut mine, will be challenged in the Federal Court after an application was lodged by Aboriginal elder Kevin Buzzacott.
Mr Buzzacott, who is known as Uncle Kevin, is being represented by the Adelaide-based Environmental Defenders Office. The office claims the mine expansion has been approved unlawfully under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act by federal Environment Minister Tony 
Burke.
Among the claims are that much of the environmental assessment and decision-making was based on plans and studies that have not yet been prepared and that the minister did not properly consider impacts from the above-ground storage of radioactive tailings waste, the export of uranium and on groundwater resources, including the Great Artesian Basin.
Mr Buzzacott, an elder from Arabunna land in South Australia’s remote north, is known for his anti-uranium campaigning, and in 2007 was awarded an Australian Conservation Foundation award recognising his protest work. The EDO filed an application on his behalf in the Federal Court yesterday, saying his “tiny voice” was prepared to take on the giant……
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/state-politics/tiny-voice-of-elder-takes-on-olympic-dam/story-e6frgczx-1226277611443
Aboriginal Peter Watts warns on the radiation danger of uranium
From Aboriginal land to Japan’s nuclear reactors, Antinuke activists draw attention to the link between Australian uranium and Fukushima , Japan Times, By ERIKO ARITA Feb. 19, 2012 Peter Watts, co-chair of the Australian Nuclear Free Alliance, was recently in Japan as one of some 100 speakers at the Global Conference for a Nuclear Power Free World held in Yokohama on Jan. 14 and 15. During an interview with The Japan Times, Watts — who is a member of the Arabunna people, one of several Aboriginal groups living in South Australia — said that among the many things his ancient ancestors knew, such as how to hunt animals in a sustainable way, was the potential danger of radiation released from the uranium beneath their land.
“Our ancestors knew of the uranium,” he said, “They called the places (of uranium deposit) ‘Poison Country.’ It meant: ‘Don’t go there to hunt. Don’t go there to collect food. Don’t go there.’ ” Continue reading
Michael Anderson backs Nyoongar Aboriginal Embassy in Perth
from Diet Simon, Goodooga, Northwest NSW, 19 February 2012 – – The last surviving co-founder of the Aboriginal Embassy in Canberra has expressed his support for the Nyoongar Embassy encampment set up on Heirisson Island in Perth a few days ago and now under threat of eviction.
Michael Anderson, leader of the Euahlayi tribe, endorses the call by Robert Eggington, spokesman of the Nyoongar Embassy, that it’s the Perth City Council that should “move on”.
State, Territory and federal governments should now be seeking legal advice on the true nature of the Aboriginal sovereignty claim as it will not be going away, Anderson writes in a media release.
“Our assertion of sovereignty over this continent is real and legally just. It is in English Law, and the English and the Australians have no choice but to deal with it in a mature and just manner,” he argues.
He says Aborigines now foresee Australian governments depending very heavily on police to terrorize the sovereignty movement, “rather than speak to us, as one would expect diplomacy would dictate”.
“We are in the process of alerting the Secretary-General of the United Nations to our sovereignty movement. If necessary, we will be calling upon the United Nations to send in peace keepers to prevent our people from being harassed and terrorized.”
“The Nyoongar Embassy spokesperson, Mr. Eggington, is correct when he says that the offer of $1billion for the city area of Perth and their Native Title claim area is a joke of monumental proportions. Some of the house blocks in the more affluent areas of Perth are collectively worth more. Then to say to the people that they cannot access any of the money for 10 years is an insult.”
Anderson warns of the danger of Aboriginal society in the Perth area imploding from fighting over whether to accept or reject the offer.
Aboriginal drive for a national unity government
Aboriginal meetings across Australia to build national unity government, Goodooga, northwest NSW, 17 February 2012 – A prominent Aboriginal activist has announced a plan to visit Aboriginal people all over the country with the aim of forming a national unity government to be known as the ‘Sovereign Union’.
Michael Anderson, the last survivor of the four young men who set up the Aboriginal Embassy in Canberra in 1972, says it’s one of the outcomes of its 40th anniversary corroboree from 26 to 28 January. “We will commence formal talks when I meet with delegates of 45 Aboriginal nations from across the Murray Darling Basin at the end of this month in Canberra,” he writes in a media release.
“I will then travel to Western Australia to meet with representatives of the Nyoongar Nation and others who are in the process of organizing their delegates in Perth.”
Anderson says as other meetings are being organized all over the country the National Unity Government is raising funds for the operation. “I will be able to have governance meetings with Aboriginal people wherever and whenever they seek to join and become part of this National Unity Government,” he writes.
Anderson, a trained lawyer, says he will also seek talks with non-Aboriginal people “to explain what this new National Unity Government is all about”…. Contact: Michael Anderson 0427 292 492 02 68296355 ghillar29@gmail.com
Muckaty is not needed for radioactive waste, and the traditional owners will fight on
Medical professionals have called for federal politicians to stop using nuclear medicine as justification for the Muckaty proposal.
Both the NT and Commonwealth governments have systematically stripped back resources for small remote Indigenous communities, placing increased pressure on them to accept long-term and high impact projects like the waste dump.
there is a simple solution: leave the waste where it is produced at the Lucas Heights nuclear research centre .. As Dr Ron Cameron from ANSTO said: “ANSTO is capable of handling and storing wastes for long periods of time. There is no difficulty with that.” Similar views have been expressed by the Commonwealth nuclear regulator, ARPANSA, by the Australian Nuclear Association and even by Martin Ferguson’s own department.
Ferguson’s Dumping Ground Fights Back New Matilda , 13 Feb 12, The Gillard Government is pushing ahead with plans to host a nuclear waste dump at Muckaty in the NT, despite local opposition. Traditional Owners have vowed to fight on, writes Natalie Wasley…. The legislation names Muckaty, 120 kilometres north of Tennant Creek in the Northern Territory, as the only site to remain under active consideration for a national nuclear waste dump.
The proposal is highly contested by the NT Government and is also being challenged in the Federal Court by Traditional Owners. Despite this, the Bill is currently being debated in the Senate — and will likely pass.
Ferguson’s law is a crude cut and paste of the Howard government’s Commonwealth Radioactive Waste Management Act that it purports to replace. It limits the application of federal environmental protection legislation and it curtails appeal rights. The draft legislation overrides the Aboriginal Heritage Protection Act and it sidesteps the Aboriginal Land Rights Act. It allows for the imposition of a dump on Aboriginal land with no consultation with or consent from Traditional Owners. In fact, the Minister can now override any state or territory law that gets in the way of the dump plan. Continue reading
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