It is reported in the Weekend Australian that, immediately
after returning from the scuttled Mabo talks, the West
Australian Premier, Richard Court, attended a business lunch
with 700 of that State's business leaders. In that story, by
Mark Irving, it mentions:
Mr Court also told the business lunch - in detail - of
his opposition to the federal government's plan on the
Mabo ruling by the High Court.
The Premier, who has received strong backing for his
stance from the mining industry and his party room since
his return from the Melbourne conference, told the
business leaders not to underestimate what was involved
in the Mabo judgement.
This strong backing by the mining industry against the
interests of Australia's First People requires full attention.
We must ask "Just what values are represented by Western
Australian gold?" What is it people invest in when they put
their surplus energy into the purchase of gold?
As it happens, the glossy magazine which accompanies this
weeks Weekend Australian has a story on Kalgoorlie - West
Australia's major gold producing town - which is "...100 years
old this weekend."
Discovery of gold at Kalgoorlie played a big part in playing
the foundations of the present State.
The impact of Kalgoorlie's gold on the tiny colony of
Western Australia, population in 1893 less than 50,000,
could not have been more dramatic. Within eight years it
more than tripled to 180,000...
We learn of:
...the Golden Mile, the motherlode of the Western
Goldfields, which since 1893 have yielded more than 1800
tonnes of gold from more than 143 million tonnes of ore.
That's 1,800,000,000 grams of gold presently selling $US370 an
ounce. Divide 1,800,000,000 by conversion factor of 31.103477
to give troy ounces from grams and then multiply by 370 to
give total value equals...about $US21 billion. Correct me if
I'm wrong, I'm a little out of my depth.
Of course, this exercise does not reflect the changing price
of gold over the years, nor the costs associated with moving
that 143 million tonnes of ore, and extracting the gold from
it. We don't know the net profit for the companies, nor the
total of the real costs by way of financial subsides,
occupational and environmental damage and - the suffering of
First People. But it gives us a bit of an idea of what we are
talking about when we say "Kalgoorlie".
What condition are the local First People? We do not learn
from the otherwise comprehensive article in the glossy
magazine. They are not part of the picture.
Labor Party politician Ian Taylor is reported as seeing:
...a stable, prosperous future for the city now that the
Super Pit operations of the major operator, Kalgoorlie
Consolidated Gold Mines (KCGM) are underway. The Super
Pit is Australia's largest gold mine...In 1992, KGCM
treated a record 9.3 million tonnes of ore and produced
almost 700,000 ounces of gold.
At $US370, 700,000 ounces equals US$259,000,000.
The writer, Peter Ward, tells us that a 2x1.3 metre trailer of
ore produces one pinhead of gold.
But just what is in this one pinhead which justifies the
creation of a crater in the surface of the earth? Which
justifies the denial of the rights of Australia's First
People?
A gigantic open wound in the ground will remain long after the
companies have closed their books and the last alcoholic miner
has coughed his lungs out.
We learn that there is a plan to build a $300-$500 gas
pipeline from gas reserves in the north:
...releasing the city and its gold and nickel mines,
smelters and refineries from a dependency on diesel fuel
as great as that used annually by Tasmania and Adelaide
combined.
The town has a population of 26,095.
Peter Ward's article provides us with more information. A
Department of Employment, Education and Training report:
...notes the industry employs nearly 30 per cent of the
workforce and produced more than $1.3 billion of minerals
in 1990-91 (75 per cent gold).
Ian Taylor is reported as saying:
Now Kalgoorlie is seen as a regional city and they don't
mind spending on infrastructure. We're the centre of (the
region's) government, State, federal and local, the
center for regional health and education, a major
transportation hub. We're one of the most prosperous
regions in the nation...
Well, it's all BIG, isn't it. A BIG way of life. A big Anglo-
Australian way of life with no thought of paying First People
for the right to deplete the non-renewable asset. It is clear
that the present plans do not include partnership with First
People.
And, in the language of our times, the way of life of this
pyramid of privilege is referred to in religious tones as
"The Economy."
This Economy is supported, in a large part, by the global
consumption of gold - that thing of curious value, compared to
the living things which must be sacrificed to produce it. Why
does the world continue to find gold attractive - given the
suffering which has gone into its production?
Another little article in the business pages of the Weekend
Australian is worth attention:
Asian demand for gold has fallen away sharply in the past
three months...The fall in sales has come at a time when
the world gold industry has decided to change its
marketing strategy.
The World Gold Council decided at a meeting in Istanbul
this week to launch a campaign promoting gold's value as
an investment. In recent years it has concentrated on
gold's attractions in jewellery, tacitly acknowledging
the argument for gold speculation was weak.
This suggests the council is confident the metal is at
the start of a bull run.
So, while Prime Minister Keating was meeting with the Premiers
of the Australian States, the somewhat faceless World Gold
Council was also meeting. Was Mabo on their meeting too? Can
we see the minutes and just what are the connections between
the mining industry and West Australian Premiers of either
major party?
However, the point to be made here - to our Eastern Brothers
and Sisters in particular - is simple. It is best made by
repeating an newspaper story which has come in a roundabout
way from Central Australia via AAP and The Evening Post (11-
5-93) in Wellington, New Zealand (Thanks, Mum):
Ayers Rock flooded with bad luck returns.
Darwin. The number of rocks being returned to Uluru
(Ayers Rock) after tourists blamed the souvenirs for bad
luck has become a virtual avalanche, Uluru National Park
Bob Seaborne said friday.
For the past month or so, the park headquarters near the
world famous monolith has received up to 20 rocks a day
from as far afield as Hawaii, England and the United
States...
Letters enclosed with some of the rocks often blamed the
souvenired rocks for subsequent bad luck, including job
loss, illness and other adverse happenings, he said.
"We're getting some really sad cases. They're mentioning
all their illnesses - sons and daughters getting cancer -
that sort of thing..."
One letter received last month from a Victorian woman who
took her rock in 1968 said she had later got diabetes and
had a stillborn child.
In her letter, the woman said she hoped that whatever
"evils I may have unleashed on myself may subside a
little" by returning the rock.
The chairman of the Uluru board of management Yami
Lester, a senior Aboriginal man, last month said he
wasn't surprised at the reports of bad luck.
Aboriginal people were taught to consult with spirits
that inhabited places like Uluru before removing a rock,
or ochre for Aboriginal ceremonies, he said.
Is this the sort of jewellery you would want to wear? Or the
sort of force field you would want to introduce into your
life?
The lesson is simple. Australian minerals (or other produce of
the land such as beef, wheat, wool, timber) which are not
produced in keeping with Dreaming law and the full support of
Australia's First People will not bring well-being for those
who use them.
The only way to ensure that the products of the Australian
land are good for life requires that they are produced in
genuine (capital equity) partnership with First People.
It's a funny old world - and we may not understand why this
should be so. The Dreaming dimensions which are part of
all things in life are like the instructions for use. They say
where things fit into other things - how they are related.
'Objects' stripped of these higher messages may be put to
inappropriate use.
Is Australian gold yin or yang? We need to hear from the
senior lawmen of Australia's First People on that one. They
know the answer. And to get them to speak requires a
completely different approach by both the mining industry and
the West Australian Premier.
And bear this in mind, from Terry Mc Crann also in the Weekend
Australian:
What is really worrying is the likely over-reaction to
Mabo. Over-reaction would be extremely corrosive to
investment, and most likely precisely in those States and
areas which are most prospective for investments and jobs
growth.
It is a practical absurdity to see Mabo as providing the
basis for so-called reconciliation between Aboriginal and
non-Aboriginal Australia. An absurdity because Mabo will
directly apply only to a very small percentage of the
Aboriginal population which can meet the rigorous tests
enunciated by the High Court.
Unless the Federal Government plans to use Mabo-benefits
as some sort of benchmark for "compensation" for all
Aborigines - which would dramatically multiply the cost
to the economy. Costs which would certainly overwhelm any
benefits from "certainty".
What 'certainty' though? The analysis is based on a narrow
view of even the economic costs and assumes that Western
Australia, for example, will be able to carry on business if
it chooses to ride roughshod over First People's rights. As
though the old ways of Anglo-Australia had not run out of time
on 3 June 1992.
What is required is a proper "costing" of the planned course
of action (which excludes the interests of First People) and
of the alternatives (which recognise them). This costing needs
to be done in terms of both financial and ... we lack a word
in this commercially dominated language for things more
important than the limited values of the market place...living
values.
There is another meeting of Premiers and the Commonwealth
planned for 5 July. Mabo might be on the agenda for that. It
is unlikely that there will be a turn-around by the mining
industry by that date.
But it is worth a try to encourage Richard Court to enter into
a new partnership with the First People. Let him know that the
interests he represents do not hold all the cards, and
Dreamings are trumps.
Send him a clear signal.