Link.Garma: Gove Peninsula traditional owners to launch compensation case over bauxite mining wrote: One of Australia's most respected Aboriginal leaders, Galarrwuy Yunupingu, has announced his intention to lodge a native title compensation claim against the Commonwealth over the minerals that were mined on the Gove Peninsula.
Key points:
The claim comes after a legal precedent was set in the $2.5m Timber Creek settlement
Dr Yunupingu said proper permission was never sought from the traditional owners in the 1960s
He said important dreaming sites had been destroyed by Nabalco and Rio Tinto
In the early 1960s, the Commonwealth government granted a mining lease to Swiss company Nabalco — a lease that was then taken over by Rio Tinto in 2007.
Speaking at the Garma Festival in north-east Arnhem Land, Dr Yunupingu blasted mining companies for "destroying" dreaming sites.
"They have damaged our country, without seeking advice from us, and they have damaged a whole lot of dreamings, and dreamings that were important to Aboriginal people in land claims and land rights," he said.
The case could be launched within a few months after the Gumatj group watched and monitored the developments in the $2.5 million Timber Creek native title case that set a legal precedent.
The Timber Creek claim was the first time the High Court had examined the Native Title Act's compensation provisions, including how to put a price on intangible harm caused by disconnection with country.
The compensation was divided into three components: economic loss, interest and non-economic loss related to the "spiritual" harm caused by disconnection.
Dr Yunupingu will be the applicant in the case, but the claim would be on behalf of the Gumatj clan, and other interested clan groups, for the areas covering the Garma festival site and Rio Tinto bauxite operations.
The Nabalco bauxite operations, later renamed Alcan Gove, was purchased by Rio Tinto in 2007 and an agreement with the traditional owners was signed in 2011.
Dr Yunupingu said proper permission for mining was never sought from the traditional owners when the lease was awarded in the 1960s.He said the company failed to ask where to go and where not to go.
"I will be fighting for the land rights case in which the mining company has come to Gove Peninsula, without asking properly of the landowners of the place," he said.
"They have all come, getting okay from the prime ministers, and the government … and started digging and insulting the country.
"That these mining companies, Nabalco, number one and number two is Rio Tinto.
"Those two companies have ripped some land unmercifully."
Dr Yunupingu said dreamings on his traditional country were damaged and destroyed by Nabalco and this was continued by Rio Tinto.
"The old site where Nabalco has established … then they changed, and Rio Tinto has come about and took over and carried on doing the same thing as they did," he said.
Using bark paintings, Dr Yunupingu explained the impact on two particular dreaming sites where the mining operations are still based.
As a young man, Dr Yunupingu helped his father draw up the first bark petitions presented to the Australian Parliament in 1963, in protest at the Government's excision of Yolngu land for bauxite mining.
Dr Yunupingu was later the court interpreter for the Gove Land Rights Case and has spent decades fighting for land rights and social justice.
Despite being in attendance and a sponsor at Garma Festival, Rio Tinto declined to be interviewed about the case.
In a statement, the company said it continues to work closely with the traditional owners at the Gove operations.
"Recently we partnered with Gumatj to purchase bauxite from the first Indigenous owned and operated mine."
Case follows precedent set over building of roads, infrastructure
The Timber Creek decision set a precedent for similar claims across the country.
The claim by Ngaliwurru and Nungali native title holders was about rights that were extinguished through the building of roads and infrastructure by the Northern Territory Government in the 1980s and 1990s.
Queensland, Western Australia and South Australia were "interveners" or interested parties in the case, supporting the NT and Federal Governments' position.
Northern Land Council lawyer Tamara Cole said earlier this year the NT Government would be responsible for paying the compensation in Timber Creek case.
"Native title holders around Australia have been waiting for the High Court to deliver its decision in Timber Creek, so they can get on with their negotiations with state and territory governments to arrive at fair amounts of compensation," Ms Cole said.
And now something hopefully more positive than the day's mass shootings, from yesterday.It's tremendously exciting to see the Timber Creek case is already bearing fruit in lawsuits for spiritual loss, and hopefully this matter will be successful and - if challenged - provide an avenue for the High Court to reaffirm that from now on, compensation for damaged dreamings and cultural loss must be paid as well as for damaged lands. Timber Creek's somewhat troubling halving of the just value estimate will also hopefully be resolved and prevented from solidifying into general precedent (not that it should with how it's been presented, but that doesn't stop people arguing it...) in future, and hopefully more lawsuits like this will prompt enough discussion of Timber Creek and the Native Title Act's limitations to prompt law reform (after the current government leaves, since good luck getting it out of the Morrison regime. I don't look forward to trying to work with law reform if they get in again.) of the Native Title Act's provisions that enabled the devaluation in the Timber Creek case.