Aboriginal nations want all Murray-Darling water licenses scrapped

Weilmoringle, northwest NSW, 17 April - - A group of 21 Aboriginal nations who have coalesced in the northern Murray Darling Basin are demanding that all water licences be revoked and that the rivers’ water be dealt with from a base of Aboriginal sovereignty, dominion and ultimate title.

The Northern Murray Darling Basin Aboriginal Nations (NBAN) call on all state and federal governments involved in the rivers system to allocate 100% of all environmental flows in the northern basin as cultural flows.

The demand is made in a media release by NBAN Chairperson, Fred Hooper, a farmer in Weilmoringle, a community of 60 to 70 mainly Aboriginal people located about 660 kilometres northwest of Sydney.

He writes that the 21 nations in the group “have never ceded or acquiesced sovereignty, dominion or ultimate title over the lands, subsurface, all waters, natural resources and airspace within the northern Murray-Darling Basin” and adds that “a further 21 Aboriginal sovereign First Nations in the southern Murray Darling Basin have asserted their sovereignty, dominion and ultimate title”.

“To protect our most sacred water spirits, NBAN also calls on the governments to immediately enact legislation to prevent the extraction of water from underground streams, the Great Artesian Basin and aquifers, including water that is being extracted under coal seam gas extraction operations,” the release says.

“We demand that the Murray Darling Basin Authority, state and federal governments enter into immediate negotiations for a treaty with the Aboriginal nations of the northern Murray-Darling Basin.”

The NBAN alleges that the proposed basin plan fails to recognise the sovereign rights of Aboriginal peoples to ensure the delivery of cultural flows and title to all waters.

“NBAN’s relationship with the Murray Darling Basin Authority is very cordial and professional,” Mr Hooper writes. “The leadership and vision shown by the Chairman, Mr Craig Knowles, and his senior staff are well received by the Aboriginal people in the northern Murray Darling Basin, which gives us a great deal of confidence to deal with such people of substance into the future.”

In a submission to the Authority the NBAN wrote: “The river system should be free flowing. The system is becoming dysfunctional and sick. We are feeling the impact of this and we are becoming dysfunctional and sick – socially, economically and culturally…”

“As Ancestral Owners, we have obligations under our Lore and Custom to care for our Country. NBAN seeks greater recognition and respect for Aboriginal knowledge and cultural values, obligations and uses regarding land and water management in the northern Murray-Darling Basin,” the submission states. (The submission is available from Mr. Hooper – see contact details below.)

Northern Basin Aboriginal Nation Ltd was established in April 2010 and is now an incorporated legal entity. It is an independent, self-determining ancestral owner based organisation with a primary focus on cultural and natural resource management in the northern Murray–Darling Basin.

The NBAN is a main driver of the Aboriginal move to get nations to treaty with each other so as to present a united front on assertion of sovereignty.

Its member nations are the Barkindji (Paakantyi), Githabul, Mandandanji, Barunggam, Gunggari, Mardigan, Bidjara, Jarowair, Murrawarri, Bigambul, Gwamu (Kooma), Ngemba, Budjiti, Kunja, Ngiyampaa, Euahlayi, Kwiambul, Wailwan, Gamilaroi, Maljangapa and Wakka Wakka. There are also three founding corporate members, the NSW Aboriginal Land Council, the Southwest Queensland Natural Resource Management and the Queensland Murray-Darling Committee.

The NBAN’s statement in full:

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21 Aboriginal Sovereign First Nations of the northern Murray Darling Basin demand that federal and state governments recognise that they have never ceded or acquiesced sovereignty, dominion or ultimate title over the lands, subsurface, all waters, natural resources and airspace within the northern Murray-Darling Basin. We demand that state and federal governments revoke all water licenses within the northern Murray-Darling Basin and establish new arrangements for dealing with water from a base of Aboriginal sovereignty, dominion and ultimate title over all water. It is also understood that a further 21 Aboriginal sovereign First Nations in the southern Murray Darling Basin have asserted their sovereignty, dominion and ultimate title.
The nations are also calling on governments to allocate 100% of all environmental flows in the northern basin as cultural flows and 5% of the consumptive pool in each valley for economic purposes to be managed and controlled by the northern Murray Darling Basin Aboriginal Nations (NBAN).
To protect our most sacred water spirits, NBAN also calls on the governments to immediately enact legislation to prevent the extraction of water from underground streams, the Great Artesian Basin and aquifers, including water that is being extracted under coal seam gas extraction operations.
We demand that the Murray Darling Basin Authority (MDBA), state and federal governments enter into immediate negotiations for a treaty with the Aboriginal nations of the northern Murray-Darling Basin.
The proposed basin plan fails to recognise the sovereign rights of Aboriginal peoples to ensure the delivery of cultural flows and title to all waters. The Draft Plan also fails to incorporate what the MDBA itself says it is committed to in its 2011 publication “A Yarn on the River - Getting Aboriginal voices into the Basin Plan”. Sections of the proposed basin plan could be considered as discriminatory and could possibly be in breach of the Racial Discrimination Act 1975 (Cth).
The South Australian government is relying on an opinion of the High Court chief justice, Sir Isaac Isaacs, to possibly launch a High Court challenge. Aboriginal people now have a document that became law through an Order in Council by Queen Victoria in 1875. If the South Australian government can use Sir Isaac’s opinion, then Aboriginal people should be able to use the Order in Council in our defence in any action we might bring in the High Court. In recent correspondence from the federal Attorney General’s office, Nicola Roxon clearly demonstrates that the federal government is at a loss on how to deal with the continuing sovereignty of Aboriginal peoples.
This is evident when we read the Attorney General’s response to the question of continued Aboriginal sovereignty in which they incorrectly quote Justice Brennan’s judgement that English sovereignty arrived on the shores of Australia when Governor Phillip arrived with the first fleet.
We understand that the Australian constitution provides for the rights of the environment and irrigation to have water, but the question now arises regarding ownership of the water through the continuing sovereignty, dominion and ultimate title rights of Aboriginal people.
These assertions by NBAN are not pie in the sky ambitions or just comments. What we have is a dilemma that must be dealt with in relation to water, biodiversity and natural resource management.
NBAN’s relationship with the Murray Darling Basin Authority is very cordial and professional. The leadership and vision shown by the Chairman, Mr Craig Knowles and his senior staff are well received by the Aboriginal people in the northern Murray Darling Basin, which gives us a great deal of confidence to deal with such people of substance into the future.

Fred Hooper
Chairperson
Northern Murray Darling Basin Aboriginal Nations (NBAN)
Phone No: 0427957960
Email: weil_man@yahoo.com.au

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Comments

More Aboriginal activism reported at National Unity Government and Treaty Republic.

ABC radio report

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-04-18/aboriginal-elder-calls-on-spirits-...

As debate continues over the future of the Murray Darling Basin, an Aboriginal elder is leading a pilgrimage down the Darling, calling on spirits to heal the river. The pilgrims plan to travel more than 2,000 kilometres from Murra Murra in Queensland to the Murray mouth in South Australia.

Duration: 2min 57sec

If this gets adopted Zimbabwe here we come. Lets take the land and the water off people who are forced by the market to do something with it (i.e read grow lots of good quality food at a reasonably cost that people are prepared to buy) or they will be ruthlessly stripped of their land/water by the market. Lets instead of this tried and tested system of land tenure and water allocation that keeps us in food, try something different by giving the land and the water to people unconditionally, with no responsibility and no accountability to do anything with it, who will probably sit on their land/water and do nothing with it. You must be crazy, this is a recipe for Aboriginal Australia and the rest of the Australian community starving. Sorry if this offends, but next suggestion please.

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Click: Drop in global cotton price predicted

Click: West's billions in subsidy shut out African cotton growers

$24m for Australia's biggest birdbath (The Australian)

Thoughts that come to me more or less spontaneously about cotton. There’s probably more to be said. Feel free to add.

More cotton than can be used worldwide is produced. So it becomes a toxic glut.

Because the industrial countries subsidise it or support it in other ways at home, African communities dependent on it are dying of starvation because they're priced out of the market. They depend on cotton because they were given EU aid money to develop it as a cash crop, using the land they used to grow food on.

Here in Australia cotton is destroying our major river system, as Fred Hooper is the latest to point out here. It wastes water desparately needed downstream to grow food and pipe into houses.

We will be told that Australian governments don’t subsidise cotton growing. Bullshit, farmers, growers of anything, including cotton, get tax breaks. Cheaper diesel. Machinery. Buildings. Etc.

Tax dollars thrown away to an industry that destroys country and in the big world picture worsens starvation in Africa.

Not to mention the spiritual and material damage to Aboriginal people Fred refers to here. For a product there’s too much of.

Aboriginal people and older white farming folk remember when floods across the northwest NSW plains were beneficial, fertilising country. They were under natural control.

Now, to grow cotton, levy walls crisscross country, blocking natural flows and raising floods to damaging heights.

Australia does not need to grow cotton.

Cotton the pestilence.

Yass Tribune

It is said that civilisations are, to a very significant extent, defined by their great rivers such as the significance of the Mississippi to the US, the Ganges to India, the Nile to Egypt and the Thames to England - just to mention some.
It is sad then that Australia, as the driest of all the continents, seems to be the least caring and responsible of all in its almost total disregard for the worth and health of the Murray-Darling river system.

For many years these rivers have been abused by the selfish greed of the three states through which they flow as well as by the irresponsible exploitative demands on them by those engaged along their courses in irrigation and farming pursuits to get maximum benefit for their own requirements - and be damned to everyone else.

In recent times, these great rivers have benefited greatly from the uncharacteristic rainfall that has brought them to the most healthy condition that they have enjoyed in many years, yet there is the ever present danger of those who would run them dry again for their own perceived needs.

As far back as the Howard years there was $10 billion to be made available to manage and preserve the Murray-Darling rivers but, like most initiatives since then, the bickering has intensified among those who see that their own personal gain from the use of its resources as being paramount.

The appalling and panic-driven burning antics of some irrigators opposing the Murray Darling Basin Authority's plan to save the rivers in 2010 (suggesting cuts to water allocations to return flows) gives an indication of the 'head in the sand' attitude of those who would rape the water resources of the nation's most vital water resources to suit their own purposes. Only this week, the Labor government in SA joined the coalition states of Victoria and NSW in condemning the authority's plan and calling for urgent amendments to better suit their own purposes.

As public submissions were closing, a group of traditional Aboriginal elders was confirming its spirituality with a ceremony to be held progressively along the river system called Ringbalin, an ancient Aboriginal pilgrimage which will see participants travel 2300 kilometres from the headwaters in Queensland to the mouth of the Murray-Darling in SA.

Each night traditional elders and their supporters will stop by the river to perform their own dances, songs and stories and, as in all of the above examples where the spiritual nature of each of the rivers is so significantly part and parcel of their meaning, so it will become with the Murray-Darling against the crass selfishness of those who see only their own vested interests as being of importance.

The goals of these elders are to keep both the traditional aboriginal Ringbalin ceremony alive and, in the process, to add a mystical and spiritual element to the healing of Australia's greatest river systems.

With its spirit so revived, the mighty Murray-Darling rivers will be much confirmed.

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May 22, 2012

The Murray-Darling Association is urging the Commonwealth to use environmental water it has bought and get started with the basin plan.

Executive officer Adrian Wells says rejecting the basin plan will not be an option because new management of water is needed to create a healthier environment and regional communities.

He says people are nervous about the basin plan but it is now time to trial the new environmental flows.

Click here for the full ABC story.

ABC Riverina News 24 May

The Federal Member for Riverina, Michael McCormack, rejects the latest review of the draft Murray Darling Basin Plan and wants Federal Environment Minister, Tony Burke, to "reject this [environmental flows] nonsense out of hand".