A look at Mabo mining myths
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 freehold, perpetual leasehold 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 - not that they wouldn'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.]