By Jo Brown
An aged pensioner and spokesperson for the Gungalidda people of the north-west Queensland gulf country has taken on the might of mining giant CRA. Wadjalurbinna, travelling on her pension and sending money home to her 17-year-old daughter, has been to Cairns, Townsville, Brisbane and now Melbourne to spread awareness about Aboriginal culture and in particular the threat of a proposed development by CRA on Gungalidda traditional lands.
CRA wants to develop its Century deposit at Lawn Hill in order to extract 3 to 5 million tonnes of zinc/lead ore over 25 years. To export the ore, CRA proposes to build a pipeline from Lawn Hill 150 km to the Gulf of Carpentaria, and pump the zinc/lead as slurry through the pipeline. The pipeline will run directly through traditional Gungalidda land, disrupting hunting, fishing and other activities as well as violating the spiritual and cultural life of the people.
The adverse ecological effects of the project have raised support for the Gungalidda People and their campaign among the environment movement. These effects include the risk of heavy metals from the slurry accumulating in the environment to toxic levels, and problems of oil spills and seabed dredging in fragile coastal ecosystems. The local prawn and fishing industries, worth millions of dollars, will be threatened by contamination and oil spills. Rare turtles, fish and dugongs would be threatened by the chemicals.
CRA has spent over two years trying to gain approval for the project, as part of a whole series of mining developments planned for northern Queensland. The Goss government in Queensland has promised to "cut green and black tape" (according to report by Matthew Jameison, NT Environment Centre) and has pledged huge subsidies for the development of infrastructure.
The economic benefits of the project are questioned by environmental groups, which point out that competition
between the several new mines in the area will drive prices down. They also criticise the claim that the mine and pipeline will create significant numbers of jobs, since the pipeline will threaten the prawn industry, which is responsible for hundreds of jobs, while mining generates very few jobs for a given amount of investment compared to other industries.
Ironically, CRA recently reported that the government's reduction in company tax rates increased its profit by $130 million — without any need to develop exports or create jobs.
The area around Lawn Hill was tribal land under pastoral lease until it was bought by CRA two-and-a-half years ago. Since then the mining company has obtained federal and Queensland government support, but the Gungalidda people have continually opposed them.
"As Aboriginal people we continue to be denied our basic human rights. Our spiritual and cultural connections to the land are ignored by both CRA and the state and federal governments", Wadjalurbinna told Green Left Weekly.
Wadjalurbinna believes that her lifetime of experience qualifies her to speak on behalf of her people despite the fact that she is not one of the educated "prominent" Aborigines invited onto government councils and committees.
At the annual general meeting of CRA in Melbourne on April 27, she attended as a visitor and was allowed to address the meeting, telling the owners that they were "shareholders in a form of genocide". According to the Age, CRA chair John Uhring replied, "I know how we behave and I am proud of this company in that regard".
However, reports from both Wadjalurbinna and other members of the Gungalidda people have highlighted the way CRA is trying to push the project through at any cost. In the Doomadgee community, home of many of the Gungalidda people, CDEP (work-for-the-dole scheme) payments have mysteriously been suspended for three months while a project officer of the CDEP told members of the community to sign a petition asking for
CRA to go ahead with the pipeline project, in order to bring jobs and money to the community.
This same petition has reportedly been signed by a number of non-Gungalidda people, including the project officer and several people from the Mt Isa mining town, while the few Gungalidda who have signed now claim they were told they were signing to have their CDEP restarted.
CRA has repeatedly tried to divide the community around the issue of support for the project; pressuring individuals to sign agreements who have no authority to represent the entire community. The company has also promised the Aboriginal community Council, which is $500,000 in debt, first offer to lease the land around the pipeline to graze cattle.
Wadjalurbinna is highly critical of the fast-tracking of the project by governments, and sees their talk of land rights and reconciliation with Aboriginal people as hypocritical in the light of their support for the project.
She describes the Reconciliation Councils set up by government as "a farce" because they do not reflect or represent the grassroots problems of Aboriginal communities. She believes that before reconciliation is possible, the real issues of land and cultural identity need to be addressed.
"We want justice. We cannot practice our religion or laws freely when we are continually threatened and our land is taken away from us", she told Green Left Weekly.
As part of her strategy to bring justice to her people, she wrote to the United Nations last year to charge the Australian government with violating the rights of its indigenous people.
However, she was informed that this was not possible because Australia had not ratified the Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. She points out the irony of Paul Keating's speech in Redfern last November affirming his commitment to Aboriginal rights when he had not even signed this declaration at the time. The government has since ratified the
convention, and she plans to repeat her appeal.
She and others from the Doomadgee community are also planning a Mabo-style claim on the surrounding land, which the Gungalidda people have continued to use for traditional hunting and fishing. They discovered the Mabo decision and its implications only when local graziers began locking them out of their land and threatening them with guns: Wadjalurbinna was told by a local lawyer that the Mabo decision had established a precedent of prior ownership where continued traditional practices were occurring.
Wadjalurbinna is adamant that government handouts cannot solve Aboriginal problems. She points out that many non-Aboriginal people also live in poverty in our society and may resent Aborigines who are seen to receive disproportionate amounts of money. Financial aid to Aboriginal people can cause more problems than it solves, she says. She describes the way many of the new houses built with such money are vandalised and left empty because the real problems in the community, which lead to alcoholism and violence, are not addressed.
In this International Year of Indigenous People, she calls on non-Aboriginal Australians to come forward and support the Aboriginal struggle. She sees the support from environmental and church groups in the campaign against CRA as an important part of this.
She dismisses claims by the Queensland Mining Council chief executive that "it was unconscionable that ... environment groups should try and manipulate Aboriginal groups to achieve their own anti-development objectives" as ridiculous and dishonest. "The mining companies are the ones who are manipulating people; they seem to judge everyone by their own standards!", she said.
Wadjalurbinna plans to return to the Doomadgee community for the next series of meetings with CRA in early May. The Gungalidda Solidarity Campaign can be contacted in Victoria on (03) 419 8700 or (03) 419 5937, fax (03) 416 2081. She also urges people to write to Paul Keating, Robert Tickner, Wayne Goss and Anne Warner expressing their solidarity with the Gungalidda people and condemning government support
for the CRA proposal.