Comment by John Maitland
Australia's mining corporations have been leading the crusade against the High Court's Mabo decision, which recognises native title and puts an end to the doctrine of terra nullius — the lawyers' pretence that Australian land belonged to nobody before white settlement.
There's Western Mining Corporation boss Hugh Morgan setting himself up as the gallant defender of white civilisation; CRA's John Ralph threatening to pull the plug on the Gladstone smelter deal unless he gets ironclad guarantees from Canberra that Weipa is safe; BHP's John Prescott worrying loudly that future mining investment could be at risk but not able to point to any particular projects; and there's the Australian Mining Industry Council and the Australian Coal Industry Association insisting that claims for native title should be decided in the existing legal jungle and not by special tribunal, as in New Zealand. (Eddie Mabo's claim took 10 years before final judgment.)
The mining bosses are in pretty rotten company on Mabo. For Liberal premiers like Richard Court and Jeff Kennett Mabo is a heaven-sent opportunity for another fear-and-loathing campaign — almost as handy as the old days of reds under the beds! Then there's the people who sent Adelaide homeowners letters on forged SA Lands Department letterhead saying "should an Aboriginal person choose to enter upon your property, then you will be restricted by law from removing them"!
Since the Mabo decision was brought down a year ago the Australian Mining Industry Council has been sending the United Mine Workers its material on Mabo with an invitation to the union to endorse the AMIC line.
Thanks AMIC, but we won't. It's time for a cool unprejudiced look at the facts of the Mabo issue, time to reject the lies. Let's look at some of them.
LIE 1: The Mabo decision means my backyard isn't safe from an Aboriginal land claim.
Wrong. The High Court said that native title had been eliminated on all freehold and certainly the vast majority of leasehold land. The High Court decided that native title survived only in limited circumstances. Aborigines can claim native title today only if:
- they can demonstrate traditional rights to the land and occupation according to traditional law;
- they have not moved (or been forced of) the land
- the crown has not extinguished native title.
LIE 2: The mabo decision allows Aboriginal people to gain ownership of Australia's farming an grazing land.
Wrong. Almost all farming and grazing land in Australia is held under sehold or long-term leasehold titles. The grant of these titles extinguishes any native title and the federal government has stated than when such titles lapse native title will not apply. There are some pastoral leases (in Western Australia, the Northern territory and South Australia) where Aboriginal people are entitles to hunt and gather traditional food and have access to their sacred sites. This means, in effect, that native title may co-exist with the pastoral lease, not that a successful claim of ownership can be made over the leased area.
LIE 3: Mabo will mean huge compensation payouts to Aboriginal people for the historical dispossession of all Aboriginal people from their land.
Wrong. The High Court has said that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have no legal right to compensation for native title that was extinguished between 1788 and 1975 when the racial Discrimination Act was enacted.
LIE 4: the Mabo decision means that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people will "lock up" Australia's mineral wealth causing disaster for the economy. This is confirmed by government moves to confirm mining leases at McArthur River and elsewhere.
Wrong. Aboriginal people have continually stressed that they are not anti-mining. However, they do wish to protect sacred or significant sites which are an integral and central part of their spiritual beliefs.
In the case of McArthur River there is strong evidence that McArthur River Mining, a joint venture between Mount Isa Mines and Japanese partners Mitsui, Mitsubishi, Nippon and Marubeni, went out of their way to avoid a negotiated settlement with the Aboriginal communities of the Borroloola area.
In particular McArthur River Mining refused to allow even a tiny slice from the 4329-square kilometre property for a living area for the Kurdanji people. McArthur River Mining's general manager Peter Freund said that he didn't believe McArthur River was ancestral Kurdanji land, even though the Aboriginal Land Fund Commission put in a bid for the lease on behalf of the Kurdanji back in 1978 (the Commission was outbid by MIM). Instead of negotiating MIM put the wind up the federal and Northern Territory governments to pass special legislation entrenching MIM's lease at McArthur.
What is driving CRA, BHP, MIM and the rest in their campaign of vague and dreadful threats about withdrawing investment is exactly the same pressure that drives them to lecture the UMW about "unreasonable wage claims" and restrictive Australian work practices" — the lust for profit. The blackmail is the same, only the targets differ.
Australia's mining companies are enormously wealthy. In 1990-91, the last year for which statistics are available, each of Australia's 71,750 mining workers (and that figure includes supervisors, managers and owners) generated an average $234,300 of product and $87,900 of pre-tax profit. In 1992 CRA paid out $266.4 million to shareholders and was left with a paltry $1.538.9 billion in retained profits!
When these companies cry poor it nearly always means one thing only ldn't make a profit if they dealt fairly with Aboriginal communities, but that the profit they would make wouldn't be quite as large as otherwise. The poor down-at-hell shareholders in Western Mining would have to make do with a couple of cents a share less.
Then again, not all mining interests are taking the same line. the more far-sighted mining chiefs have learned from CRA's disastrous performance in Bougainville and papua New-Guinea. They realise that a little investment in good will with Aboriginal communities can pay off handsomely.
That's why Zapopan NL came to an agreement with the Jawoyn people at Mt Todd (agreeing to grant the Jawoyn freehold title to the rest of the lease in exchange for their waiving native title of the mine site). It's why Normandy Poseidon's Robert Champion de Crespigny (a member of the federal government's Council for Aboriginal Conciliation) took his distance from Hugh Morgan's ravings against Mabo. It's why Northern Territory engineering and contract mining company Henry Walker Group Ltd has struck a deal with the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commercial Development Corporation for an 8 per cent stake in the company and a seat on the board.
The truth about Mabo is that it's a pretty shabby result for Aboriginal and Islander people. It recognises that Aboriginal people did actually own the land before white settlement (thanks a lot!), but says that the only land to which native title can now apply in land not yet alienated by non-Aboriginal people or companies. And it reaches this position in law 150 years after the same position was recognised in New Zealand! Indeed until mabo Australia was one of the last colonised countries to hide behind the lie of terra nullius.
So Mabo doesn't even try to deal with past injustices: it's just a small step towards a fairer deal in the future. As such all Australians have an interest in reconciling themselves to it. As novelist Xavier Herbert said in his book Poor Fellow My Country:
"Until we give back to the black man just a bit of the land which was his, and give it back without provisos ... we shall remain what we have always been so far: a people without integrity, not a nation but a community of thieves."
[John Maitland is the general president of the United Mine Workers Division of the Construction, Mining, Forestry and Energy Union (CMFEU). This is reprinted with permission from the August 1993 edition of Common Cause, the official monthly publication of the United Mine Workers.]