Indigenous sacrifice for the miners' gain
Few non-Indigenous Australians understand the depth of connection between my people, their land and our Dreamtime.
It has been interwoven by tens of thousands of years of family life, cultural practice and sacred ancestral burials. Our heritage is the country that we walk on and live with. It is deeply embedded in our cultural identity.
Every culture is motivated to preserve their history. Despite being so much younger in comparison to Aboriginal culture, Western culture has serious laws that protect its sacred places and religious sites. This protection stops many activities like abseiling down St Patrick's Cathedral or setting up camp at the Shrine. Yet Western laws do not accord anywhere near the level of respect for sacred Aboriginal land. They allow tourists to climb the most sacred of sites, Uluru, and they allow for mining to occur on sacred land.
Can you imagine the extent of trauma experienced by my people when the family/land connection is severed? The impact of this separation can be too devastating for any amount of monetary compensation. In perspective, it would be far less painful for the chief executive of Fortescue Metals, Andrew Forrest, to be forced to give up his house for a pittance, watch his church demolished and his family gravesite dug up.
2011 is a critical time in relation to issues of mining royalties, tax and Aboriginal rights. It is now clear that after many decades of open slather, miners have become used to bloated profits far in excess of what they were entitled to; firstly because of exploitative and unfair treatment of Indigenous people and secondly because governments have seriously under-taxed them in the past. Indeed governments have been paying welfare to traditional landholders to make up for the debt that miners should have been paying. It has led to a scandalously inefficient welfare system that has been weighed down by excessive bureaucracy and a regime of sit-down money that has caused irreparable damage. For too long bucketloads of money has been misdirected and wasted rather than invested in the future.
There are two salient facts about mining in Australia:
- Aboriginal people have been forced to make far bigger sacrifices than anyone else to accommodate mining.
- Mining has brought fewer benefits to Aboriginal people than to anyone else.
Many of these issues, which have been 'invisible' for so long, must now be placed onto the agenda. After several decades of lost opportunities, there are some dreadful imbalances that need to be redressed. There is no question that this conundrum should have been resolved long before the current debate about the carbon tax and the super-profits tax. But unfortunately a combination of incompetence, greed and short-term power politics has sabotaged the solution; which of course has suited the mining industry. The great concern for Aboriginal people is that they will miss the boat - that these two highly legitimate taxes will take precedence over the most important tax of all - a fair and just royalty system for traditional landholders.
It is high time to raise the status of Aboriginal people at the negotiating table. The Mabo decision acknowledged our rightful place as 'stakeholders'. We've got to stop being seen as 'recipients' and start seeing ourselves as landlords. Miners cannot be trusted in this deregulated environment. They need to be regulated by appropriate legislation to stop them from exploiting Indigenous people. Negotiators for traditional landholders, in our case the Yamatji Marlpa Aboriginal Corporation, need to be reminded that they represent the interests of all tribal people and carry a huge responsibility to negotiate for fair and competent outcomes - this has not happened in the past. Currently they are paid either by the Government or the miners - and often their loyalties are determined by those that pay them. Negotiating terms also need to be redirected - away from welfare handouts and sit-down money, and towards more proactive involvement. Whatever happened to allocation of shares in the industries that service the boom? All future mining deals must include Indigenous people as participants in the service industries to ensure that Aboriginal people receive the necessary training and experience to become self-sustainable. Miners should be permitted access to our land only when deals are equitable and benefits are widespread.
One mining company that appears to be the most progressive and balanced is Rio Tinto. Their superior awareness has led them to strike a $2 billion deal with traditional owners and prompted them to commit to employing at least 14 per cent of its workforce with local Aboriginal people. Rio Tinto's chief executive Sam Walsh said: "It's good for the Aboriginal community. It's good for our business. It also happens to be the right thing to do." Yet while the deal is impressive, there could be a sneaky devil lurking in the detail. Rio Tinto has cleverly commissioned experts to create a package deal - instead of negotiating one mine at a time they have sealed up 40 mines with the one deal. Their public presentation has been cosmetically enhanced by multiplying payments of $50 million a year for 40 years to equal an impressive looking $2 billion. This is the closest that we get to the middle ground.
In contrast to Rio Tinto's real slice of pie is an insulting offer of a lonely breadcrumb from Fortesque Metal Group to the Yindjibarndi people. Fortesque's offer of just $4 million cash and $6 million on housing from billions of dollars of profit equates to less than 4 cents in every $1,000.
This represents a continuation of the darkest days when mining companies ruthlessly pursued advantage at the expense of traditional owners. Yet Mr Forrest says that he is a friend of Aboriginal people and a philanthropist. He says that the more time he spends with Aboriginal people the more he loves them. In truth all this is making us nauseous and wary. If he genuinely wanted to make a difference he could single-handedly liberate Aboriginal people from third-world conditions. Yet Fortesque is applying for the right to mine more than twice the land of BHP and Rio Tinto put together. Aboriginal people are closely watching Mr Forrest and his close friendship with WA Indigenous Affairs Minister Peter Collier. Mr Collier is soon to be adjudicating over whether or not to grant an exemption to Fortesque Metals and enable mining on sacred Aboriginal land. Where are the safeguards to protect sacred sites and to uphold the integrity of the governmental decision-making process?
Aboriginal people want the following to be implemented: We want Mr Forrest and Fortesque Metals to hand their existing leases to BHP or Rio Tinto. There should be an international body that protects the integrity of land negotiations with Aboriginal people. Government decision-making processes need to be fireproofed against the influence of big business interests. Aboriginal people should have equal access to Government decision makers. A second daily newspaper needs to be established in WA to provide diversity of opinion and balance on Indigenous issues.
01 Aug 2011 1:25:11pm
Colin I agree with the main ideas in your comment but until Aboriginal people show some kind of way of 1 managing their resources and wealth reasonably so the whole community get benefits from royalties etc or government help there will be a lack of trust all round. and 2 Different tribes work together and not against each others interests. Its all ok to talk about money and how much but if you proverbally piss it aganst a wall or just a few families in a council have the power and keep it to themselves the bulk of aboriginal people will turn off to the process and or get nothing.
I respect your ideas and have learned from your comments nevertheless here and on SBS and in the media. sincerely Your Brother
16 Nov 2011 9:25:38pm
caught this article somewhat a little late, but none the less, I would very much like to respond to Johnny and express my regard for the author. My response must address the two points disclosed within this reply, and in doing so I ask how are we investing in our own communities greater vision of building treaties, if you like amongst our own families, communities and nations. I would argue that without the practical revision of community and group relations, and the active address of such within a conscious frame work, we are limited to rhetoric and sellouts, both Indigenous and other.
24 Jul 2011 1:22:44pm
I have read the MARNGROOK webb pages for the first time following my interest in the history of Australian Rules Football. The Article titled "Indigenous Sacrifice for Miners' Gain" got my attention and my response is luke warm for the intention behind this article.
The history of indeigenous people everywhere is unresolved. The date of origin generally does not determine the standing of the people of the world, but the environment thousands of year ago does. No one but the Federal Government owns the mineral resources of the the world, but a mining company pays first for a licence to explore below the surface of the earth and then secures a licence to extract that mineral asset, needed by all peoples of the world for which it pays a royalty. You are not alone or excluded from this process as Australians. In Scotland in recent years Miners' have followed the same process in a country that in terms of the age of the Universe is more or less equall to Australia. It has found good payable quantities of gold where most people would never have thought of looking. The indigenous people of Scotland are known to have been "there" for 30,000 years and the indigenous people of Australia "here" 50,000. The human species originated more than 200,000 years ago therefore the difference between the two peoples in time is just 10%.The population of the World is forecast to reach 7 Billion this year 2011 and 9 Billion by 2045. The minerals required by the worlds population will double by 2025. I would ask that you considerthese facts because we all have to live closer to each other in everyway possible. The offer of Fortesque is different but not that much different because as he adds leases the offer has set a precedent above and beyond what the rest of Australia receives.
22 Jul 2011 8:22:52pm
Thanks, Colin, for your comprehensive summary. I am disturbed and deeply saddened every time I read reports such as yours. It beggars belief that such arrogant lack of consultation still occurs in this country in these times when the eyes of the world are on Australia and see how the indigenous people are still treated. The level of disrespect disgusts me.
Your idea of a second daily newspaper is an excellent one. I cannot fathom how the commonly decent majority of Australians can pay such little heed to the actions of these mining giants against traditional owners/communities. The current media offer no balance whatsoever. This quote sums it up: Aboriginal people have been forced to make far bigger sacrifices than anyone else to accommodate mining.
Mining has brought fewer benefits to Aboriginal people than to anyone else.
This is worthy of very close contemplation by all of us.
22 Jul 2011 2:13:11pm
While the people over east continue to jump on generation one and these other sideshows nothing is going to change.