Uranium Mining and Aboriginal People -by Vincent Forrester

I follow the culture of my people. We belong to the land. We are the caretakers for the land. Our lifetime on this earth is only a blink in time, so our lifetime is spent protecting and caring for this land for future generations.........

.....I want to tell you how I feel about uranium and how the whole nuclear cycle affects our land, our lives, our traditions....The people who I believe to be among the worst affected by the nuclear cycle are my people, the Aboriginal owners of Australia.It is our land which white miners rip apart to extract the poisonous yellowcake, and it is on our land where they dump the polluted tailingsI

It is on Aboriginal land that the British, with support from the Australian government of the time, exploded deadly nuclear weapons, with no regard for our people, their land or their future.
And it is on Aboriginal land that the government is examining the possibility of dumping deadly radioactive waste in untried synthetic rock.

I say to you, when you consider your attitudes to Australian involvement in the uranium industry, that you think first about what you are doing to our people..........

........what do Aboriginal people of Arnhem Land know of these dangers? Our people in Arnhem Land and throughout Australia are not sufficiently informed about the extent of damages occurring from uranium mining. Nor do we know the extent to which they are being exposed to radiation in the atmosphere. Nor do we know the extent of contamination already present in the food chain.
There is simply no proper information given to Aboriginal people living in the area about the effects of uranium mining on the land. The monitoring scientists have made no attempt to interpret their findings to the affected Aboriginal people..........."

New Queensland laws 'to steal indigenous land' - "The Age May 13, 2008 - "New laws to be debated in Queensland parliament on Tuesday to allow the compulsory acquisition of indigenous land will leave indigenous people in the "poverty shadows", a prominent Aboriginal leader says. .....................Noel Pearson said the changes would allow the Queensland government to take land off Aboriginal people without their consent, directly breaching the principles of land rights going back 30 years.
He said he feared the new laws would be used to allow indigenous areas to be mined with no economic benefit to the traditional owners.

China-Australia mine deal could ruin Indigenous talks ABC Radio 13 May 08 - "A senior Australian Aboriginal leader says he is worried the local community will be sidelined from negotiations with a Chinese mining company.

'If you allow this bill to enable the government to take the land for a port, or for other kinds of infrastructure that are needed for the project, you remove any capacity on the part of the community to negotiate a proper commercial deal with the company,' he said..".

Aboriginal land ownership - Christina Macpherson 10 May 08. We've been brought up on the idea that the British Government treated Australia as "Terra Nullius" - an empty land - owned by no-one. So - the 18th Century British could do whatever they liked with the land. And, of course, so could their Australian descendants, and all the later "new Australians".

Well. the Kokatha Mula people are now pointing to the 1836 Letters Patent in which King William 1V set out the provisions of the Act of Parliament, establishing South Australia as a British Province and stating:

"Provided always that nothing in those our Letters Patent contained shall affect or be construed to affect the rights of any Aboriginal Natives of the said Province to the actual occupation or enjoyment in their own persons or in the persons of their Descendants of any Lands therein now actually occupied or enjoyed by such Natives".

The aboriginal people have been custodians of Australia's land and precious waterways for at least 40,000 years.

This is not just about money. This is about the land, water, and its true natural wealth. The aboriginal people must not be tricked, bullied or bribed into having that true wealth destroyed by uranium mining and nuclear waste dumping.

Founding document used in land rights push ABC News 9 May 08 A 172-year-old document that is claimed to guarantee Aboriginal rights will be used in a new land rights campaign in the far west of South Australia.

The Kokatha Mula people say the Letters Patent established the rights of Aborigines in early 1836 at the time it established the province of South Australia.

Representative Bronwyn Coleman-Sleep will outline the case to the Aboriginal lands parliamentary committee of State Parliament.
She says the document's powers have never been rescinded................................".

Valuing biodiversity is key to its protection says Island Summiteer Magnetic Times 7 May 08 - "There were only 1000 Australians invited to the Prime Minister's April 2020 Summit and one of them happened to be a Magnetic Islander. She is Melissa George.....Melissa contributed to the, Population, sustainability, climate change, water and the future of our cities stream.

At its core the concept Melissa most wanted to convey is one of recognising that in much of northern Australia there will be resources ranging from mines to agricultural potential to high biodiversity for which Indigenous people will have a say over management……………

………….She then puts a more difficult concept, "If you are serious about protecting Australia's biodiversity you need to determine the value of that biodiversity.'Most of northern Australia (about 48% ) is Aboriginal owned and managed land and sea so you need to determine the value of that biodiversity................…………………."We need to seriously engage with Traditional Owners with what climate change means............................

............"In the next twenty years we have to put a dollar value on biodiversity in some shape. If there is a fund to offset biodiversity then you a monetary value. Otherwise the value of conservation against resources dug from the ground may not be worth anything.'..."

INDIGENOUS PEOPLES FACE GROWING CRISIS, AS CLIMATE CHANGE, UNCHECKED ECONOMIC GROWTH , UNFAVOURABLE DOMESTIC LAWS FORCE THEM FROM THEIR LANDS, FORUM TOLD.7TH Space Interactive 3 May 08 - "Indigenous peoples were facing a growing crisis.........

………ROY AH-SEE, speaking on behalf of the New South Wales Land Council, said water aquifers, springs and stores were being depleted every second. Indigenous peoples had inherent rights to their water. With those rights came a responsibility to protect and conserve water.............

..............BRIAN WYATT, speaking on behalf of the National Native Title Council of Australia, said that Australia had lagged behind on legislation, particularly the Native Title Act. The Act's preamble said that Governments should facilitate negotiations on land title cases.However, the Act itself had failed, and the Government had paid only "lip service" for titles concerning land and its use in mining activities. The United Nations Declaration permitted a redress of the Act. He welcomed the new Australian Government and encouraged positive steps forward....".

Listening to the people Coober Pedy Regional Times

Veronica Hartnett reports on Meeting held at Mintabie on 24 April - "Anango landowners, traditional gatherers and hunters, feeling threatened, took turns to air their views. Elder, Yami Lester called for Anangu to 'speak out and be heard' ……

……, The majority of the people present were Anangu who travelled long distances to have their say, and let their voice be heard in person……

ANANGU - "We will do our own speaking and business' Anangu challenges South Australian government's involvement in proposals to lease 'Aboriginal lands' withourt correct consultation. Further resolutions relating to Anangu issues were discussed and voted upon, related to proposed leasing of APY lands by the South Australian government and for greater input by local communities……………

……….Manipulating Anangu affairs through media and inappropriate consultation to cease. Politicians, burwaucrats and media personnel all too frequently pay lip service to the phrase 'consultation with the community', yet the Mintabe meeting highlighted the fact that when it comes to reporting issues, all too frequently it is only the few who have a say, those who know how to manipulate the media and provide simplistic quick-fix solutions to problems which require a great deal of insightful attention.

Forum to probe climate change effects on Indigenous people ABC News Apr 2, 2008 The head of an Aboriginal resource management group says a three-day United Nations talk starting in Darwin this morning will highlight unique problems Indigenous people face with climate change.

More than 60 international delegates from areas including the Arctic circle and South America will discuss climate change and Indigenous people ahead of a public forum on Thursday.

Joe Morrison from the North Australian Indigenous Sea Management Alliance says recommendations made during the talks will be put to the United Nations permanent Indigenous forum.

Martu back away from Rio on Kintyre The Age Barry FitzGerald March 19, 2008 - "...............................The Martu people's corporate adviser on the sale, Joe Procter, from Indigenous Energy, said: 'The Martu are the traditional owners of the land and have been for thousands of years while any mining company is merely squatting.............'.

.......Martu concerns surfaced in a letter sent by the Western Desert Lands Aboriginal Corporation (WDLAC), which acts for the Martu, to the dozen or so uranium groups it believes are in the running to pick up Kintyre. It warned them that Rio's sales process - managed by Macquarie - no longer had Martu support.

In the letter to potential buyers, a copy of which has been obtained by BusinessDay, WDLAC chairman Teddy Biljabu also warned that the Martu - at this stage - did not support the development of the Kintyre project. As it is, a development is banned under the blanket WA ban on uranium mine developments...........

..................Mr Biljabu said Rio had promised that the sale of Kintyre would be a 'fully collaborative process aimed at improving the value and likelihood of the proposed development proceeding'.
'However, the process has in fact not been collaborative, putting in jeopardy any potential Martu support,' he said.
'We now put you on notice that WDLAC and the Martu people do not, at this stage, support Rio's process for the sale of its Kintyre assets nor the development of the Kintyre project.'............."

Govt to probe Northern Land Council The Age 17 March 08 - "The federal government will investigate one of Australia's most powerful Aboriginal land councils amid claims it is plagued by in-fighting and facing a massive budget deficit.The Commonwealth Office of Evaluation and Audit (OEA) will probe the Northern Land Council's (NLC) financial dealings, as well as relationships between its senior management and the elected executive, Indigenous Affairs Minister Jenny Macklin and Finance Minister Lindsay Tanner announced....................

.............A newspaper report said the NLC, responsible for negotiating royalty deals with mining companies worth tens of millions of dollars, had a $2 million budget deficit and suffered from a culture of bullying and harassment.....................

..................The NLC came under fire last year for backing a controversial nuclear waste dump on Aboriginal land at Muckaty Station near Tennant Creek....................................".

Australia's hidden empire New Statesman John Pilger 6 March 08 "……………….George W Bush had ordained the previous Australian prime minister, John Howard, "sheriff of Asia". …………….Like the conquest of the Native Americans, the decimation of Aboriginal Australia laid the foundation of Australia's empire. The land was taken and many of its people were removed and impoverished or wiped out.

…………….Like the conquest of the Native Americans, the decimation of Aboriginal Australia laid the foundation of Australia's empire. The land was taken and many of its people were removed and impoverished or wiped out. ……………Most white Australians rarely see this third world in their own country. What they call here 'public intellectuals' prefer to argue over whether the past happened, and to blame its horrors on the present-day victims. Their mantra that Aboriginal infrastructure and welfare spending provide 'a black hole for public money' is racist, false and craven. Hundreds of millions of dollars that Australian governments claim they spend are never spent, or end up in projects for white people. It is estimated that the legal action mounted by white interests, including federal and state governments, contesting Aboriginal native title claims alone covers several billion dollars. …………

…………..The Northern Territory is where Aboriginal people have had comprehensive land rights longer than anywhere else, granted almost by accident 30 years ago.

The Howard government set about clawing them back. The territory contains extraordinary mineral wealth, including huge deposits of uranium on Aboriginal land.

The number of companies licensed to explore for uranium has doubled to 80. Kellogg Brown & Root, a subsidiary of the American giant Halli burton, built the railway from Adelaide to Darwin, which runs adjacent to Olympic Dam, the world's largest low-grade uranium mine.

Last year, the Howard government appropriated Aboriginal land near Tennant Creek, where it intended to store the radioactive waste. 'The land-grab of Aboriginal tribal land has nothing to do with child sexual abuse,' says the internationally acclaimed Australian scientist Helen Caldicott, 'but all to do with open slather uranium mining and converting the Northern Territory to a global nuclear dump.'............................"

...cat looks at king - Christina Macpherson 21 Feb 2008

Aboriginal land and the uranium/nuclear industry.No wonder that the Liberal opposition polticians want to have the permit laws for aboriginal land permanently scrapped.

With their close ties to the mining corporations, and overseas companies like Halliburton - these right-wingers want those companies to have unlimited access to aboriginal land, seeking sites for uranium mining and nuclear waste disposal

Her move will bring back the permit system, which lets Aboriginal townships prevent outsiders from visiting………………………The chief executive of Bawinanga Aboriginal Corporation in the Top End community of Maningrida,Ian Munro, says permits protect communities from undesirable visitors. …………….Tomorrow, Indigenous Affairs Minister Jenny Macklin, is expected to introduce legislation to reinstate the system with exemptions for journalists and government contractors.

JENNY MACKLIN: What the Government understands is that private property is a core principle of Australian society and it is important that this is respected in relation to Indigenous land, Aboriginal land in the Northern Territory is owned freehold by Aboriginal people. We respect that. …………………….In spite of the discussion about a bi-partisan approach to Indigenous affairs it seems the legislation could be blocked in the Senate.

The Opposition's Indigenous Affairs spokesman Tony Abbott has said says the Coalition will strongly oppose the move.

JENNY MACKLIN: Well I hope that all senators and all other members of Parliament will respect the desire of Aboriginal landowners to have the capacity to have the same rights of access to their land that other Australian land holders have.

Govt to endorse UN indigenous declaration Herald Sun By Adam Gartrell February 17, 2008 THE Federal Government is preparing to endorse a landmark United Nations declaration on indigenous rights.

Just days after Prime Minister Kevin Rudd led the Federal Parliament in apologising to members of the stolen generations, Foreign Affairs Minister Stephen Smith today revealed the Government was consulting with stakeholders about reversing Australia's opposition to the declaration.

Australia was one of just four countries which last year voted against the non-binding declaration of the UN General Assembly that sets out the rights of the world's estimated 370 million indigenous people.

The declaration - more than 20 years in the drafting - was supported by 143 nations but the Howard Government refused to support it, arguing it would put Aboriginal customary law in a "superior position'' to national law.

That claim was dismissed by Labor, indigenous leaders and law experts. "We are of course positively disposed to the declaration,'' Mr Smith told Network Ten today.......".

NUCLEAR WASTE AND INDIGENOUS RIGHTS ABC Radio National 'Perspective' Dr Jim Green 7 Feb 2008 - "
Given that it was a clear point of policy difference between the major parties, it was surprising that the Coalition government's efforts to impose a nuclear waste repository on unwilling communities received so little media interest during the election campaign.

In February 1998, the Coalition government announced its intention to build a national nuclear waste repository near Woomera in South Australia. Leading the battle against the repository were the Kupa Piti Kungka Tjuta, a council of senior Aboriginal women. Many of the Kungka Tjuta witnessed first-hand the impacts of the British nuclear bomb tests at Maralinga in the 1950s. They were sceptical about the Coalition government's claim that nuclear waste destined for the Woomera repository was 'safe'. After all, the waste would be kept at the Lucas Heights reactor site in Sydney if it was perfectly safe, or simply dumped in landfill............

............The federal government used compulsory land acquisition powers to take control of land for a repository in SA, extinguishing all Native Title rights and interests...........

........ And then in 2005, the Coalition government rail-roaded the Commonwealth Radioactive Waste Management Act through parliament. This legislation provides wide-ranging exemptions from Aboriginal heritage protection laws.

Then in 2006, the government rail-roaded amendments to the Waste Management Act through parliament. The amendments state that a nuclear dump site nomination is legally valid even without consultation with, or consent from, Traditional Owners...........................

.................Let's hope that the Rudd Labor government avoids the temptation to impose a nuclear waste repository on an unwilling Indigenous community. "

The Kokatha National Elders Council says it has not been involved in any negotiations with companies about mining on its land and, because of that, the mines are illegal.

The council says its native land covers Roxby Downs and Woomera.

The council's spokeswoman, Isabelle Dingaman-Taylor, says Governor Rear Admiral Kevin Scarce has agreed to meet the elders next month and she is glad the Governor is willing to hear her concerns."It makes me feel stronger," she said........................"After all we are the sovereigns of this land and it is about time people started realising that.".

- "……………..Where is the title of British ownership please?

1836..........………………………. on 19 February 1836 Letters Patent establishing the Province of South Australia were created by William IV and included the following proviso: '……………….PROVIDED ALWAYS nothing therein contained shall affect or be construed to affect the rights of any Aboriginal Natives of the said Province to the actual occupation or enjoyment in their own persons or in the persons of their descendants of any lands therein now actually occupied or enjoyed by such Natives…………….BY Writ OF Privy SEAL'. This acknowledgement of the sovereign right of the Aboriginal Peoples of South Australia to unreservedly continue to enjoy their lands as they always had - in their sovereignty - was reiterated by William IV in the Order-in-Council Establishing Government, DATED 23 February 1836 ………………

1872: The Pacific Islander Protection Act 1872 UK (PIPA Act) is passed…….
1875 : ……..the Pacific Islander Protection Act 1872 was amended - by this amendment clarified that:
'S.7: Nothing herein or in any such Order-in-Council shall extend or be construed to extend to invest Her Majesty with any claim or title whatsoever over any such islands (i.e. the Pacific Islands) or places as aforesaid (i.e. the Australasian Colonies including Australia and NZ), or to derogate from the rights of the tribes or people inhabiting such islands or places,……..'................."

Read the full text at www.cooberpedyregionaltimes.net

National Aboriginal body formed
Herald Sun By Tara Ravens September 14, 2007 - "ABORIGINAL leaders have formed a national representative body to counter what they say is government dominance of indigenous policy in the wake of Canberra's intervention in the Northern Territory.

The National Aboriginal Alliance (NAA) was formed following a three-day gathering this week in Alice Springs of more than 100 representatives from across Australia………

…………..Bev Manton, chairwoman of the NSW Aboriginal Land Council (NSWALC) which has 23,000 members, said her organisation would offer financial support. ……………'…..By Howard's actions, he has reignited the fire in our bellies and united Aboriginal people across Australia.'..............................." .

Pacific Regional Caucus Statement on the Adoption of the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples
17 Septe 07 The Indigenous Peoples of the Pacific region were appraised of the text of the modified United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in early September 2007.

They communicated their overwhelming support for its passage from 11 different countries spanning the vast reaches of Oceania, which is the largest geographical region of the world and the home of many diverse cultures who are Polynesian, Melanesian and Micronesian.

Pacific leaders and Indigenous Peoples have been consistent and unwavering in their support for the human rights for the world's Indigenous Peoples since the inception of this effort 21 years ago in Geneva. We recognize and thank the Government of Fiji - the first State in the world to adopt the Sub-Commission draft of the Declaration - for their efforts to bring agreement among all States and for their leadership in this monumental task.

Owners warn of tremors at nuclear waste dump site - The Age Andra Jackson 20 June 07

Muckaty Station, Northern territory

- "TREMORS have twice been felt in a proposed Northern Territory site for a nuclear waste dump site, according to Aboriginal owners. 'The last one registered 2.5 on the Richter scale,' traditional owner and Warramunga-Warlmanpa woman Dianne Stokes from the Muckaty Land Trust told a meeting of non-government organisations in Melbourne on Monday night.

Two weeks ago, the other members of the trust - with the backing of the Northern Land Council - secretly negotiated a deal under which the Federal Government would pay $12 million to use the 2241-square-kilometre Muckaty Station as Australia's first national nuclear waste dump.

Ms Stokes, an elected spokeswoman for the Warramunga and Warlmanpa tribes, said the deal was made by just one of the 16 family groupings represented on the trust.The Northern Land Council failed to listen to the other families, she said.........................

.Priscilla Williams, a member of the Hart Range community, the site of another proposed dump, said the community closest to Muckaty Station had a primary school that got its water from a river which ran around the proposed site.

The dump will be 8 km from the station homestead

Truckloads of waste will travel on the nearby Stuart Highway.

Spent nuclear fuel from two research reaxctors will be brought back from overseas to be stored in above-ground containers.