Fortescue using legal system to destroy Yindjibarndi

http://www.indymedia.org.au/2012/11/05/fmgs-the-true-yindjibarndi-story-...

The twelve directors of the Yindjibarndi Aboriginal Corporation (YAC) and the15 members of the YAC Elders Council make the following statement in response to the statements made last week on behalf of the Wirlu-Murra Yindjibarndi Aboriginal Corporation ("Wirlu-Murra"); and, on behalf of the Fortescue Metals Group ("FMG"):

In their 2011 Annual General Report, the Wirlu-Murra directors told their members that the Wirlu-Murra Corporation does "Health and Community Services" and does not do "Land Management". Nothing could be further from the truth.

When YAC rejected FMG's outrageous Land Access Agreement in 2010, FMG found 32 impoverished individuals, who could not understand the complexities of the proposed agreement, and offered to pay them $500 a day if they did heritage surveys to clear the way for FMG's Solomon Project. FMG then helped them establish the Wirlu-Murra Corporation and explained that if three of them signed the proposed agreement and allowed their names to be used to sue YAC and the four Yindjibarndi men who were arguing against the agreement, then the money promised to YAC in the agreement ($500,000 upon signing and $3million in cash every year after mining starts) would be paid instead to the Wirlu-Murra Corporation; and the Wirlu-Murra directors would be able to spend that money any way they wanted. This would make them very important people in their community. The agreement was signed by those three people and FMG paid for a firm of lawyers to start two legal actions; one in the Supreme Court, against YAC; and, one in the Federal Court, against old Cheedy and the other three Yindjibarndi men.

We are most thankful that one of those lawyers, Kerry Savas, is courageous enough to come forward and tell the truth about FMG's destructive conduct. His decency and honesty, in the face of a litigious corporate giant like FMG, is a fine and rare quality. And we are equally thankful for the courage and leadership shown by Gerry Georgatos and the NIT in publishing the truth revealed by Mr Savas.

WHO WE ARE AND OUR RESPONSIBILITIES

We are a not-for-profit Aboriginal Corporation that stands up for a community distressed by decades of thoughtless 'development'; we fight for our lives and for our dignity; we fight to hold onto our culture and identity; and we fight for our country - against the fourth largest mining company on the planet.

There is nothing 'old' about the wounds inflicted weekly by FMG on Yindjibarndi Country and the Yindjibarndi People; nor are we the first group to be attacked by FMG. We acknowledge and thank members of the Banyjima, Nyiyaparli, Palyku, Eastern Gurrama and Thalanyji groups who have given their moral and sometimes financial support for our stand against FMG. All have suffered at FMG's hands.

We are proud to be the Prescribed Body Corporate (PBC) and Native Title Representative Body (NTRB) of the Yindjibarndi People. We are bound by our constitution to hold the native title of the Yindjibarndi People on trust and to manage our affairs in the best interests of the Yindjibarndi nation. When we act, we must consider not only the best interests of the present generations of Yindjibarndi people but also the interests of all future generations of our people. We take this responsibility very seriously.

When we rejected FMG's proposed Land Access Agreement in 2010, we did so because it was NOT in the best interests of the Yindjibarndi nation; and the correctness of our decision was demonstrated in March this year, at our AGM, when the barrister engaged by the Wirlu-Murra Corporation to fight against us in the Federal Court, veteran native title lawyer Greg McIntyre SC, agreed FMG's Land Access Agreement should not be signed in its present form, because:

- it provides no compensation for the impact of FMG's project on the native title rights in the Yindjibarndi Native Title Area, which are held on trust by YAC for the benefit of the Yindjibarndi People; and,

- instead of putting the compensation promised by FMG (in return for giving up procedural rights in the Yindjibarndi #1 Claim Area) into a trust for the benefit of the present and future generations of the Yindjibarndi People, it allows the Wirlu-Murra directors to spend the compensation in any way they please.

THE YINDJIBARNDI MAJORITY

Evidence of the strong support for YAC's position on FMG's Land Access Agreement, came from two important meetings held in Roebourne in March of this year: the AGM on 21 March; and, the Yindjibarndi #1 Native Title Claim Group authorisation meeting on 24 March.

Decisions and votes made at both these meetings re-confirmed the clear support of the Yindjibarndi People for YAC's management of native title matters, and especially its rejection of FMG's high-handed and inequitable approach to negotiations and agreement-making over its Solomon Project.

The members who support YAC consistently turn up in overwhelming numbers, not for 'sitting fees', self-interest, or short-term fixes - but because they believe in our leadership, for a future built on integrity and true independence.

WMYAC 'CONSTRUCTED' BY FMG

Take FMG out of the picture and the Wirlu-Murra Corporation would collapse like a house of cards because it is not driven by the Yindjibarndi People and it does not exist for the benefit of the Yindjibarndi nation. Their statement is not dignified with the identity of any Yindjibarndi man or woman. Instead when asked for comment, a non-Aboriginal 'spokesperson', Mr Bruce Thomas, answers. The real purpose of Wirlu-Murra Corporation, apart from benefitting FMG, is to serve the egos of the Wirlu-Murra directors who want YAC defeated so they can be very important people who decide how FMG's compensation is spent.

The Wirlu-Murra Corporation does nothing to protect our country, or to teach our language and culture; its most "profitable venture" is selling Yindjibarndi heritage for daily heritage survey fees, in the country FMG wants to mine - erasing our heritage and landscapes; and all traces of our ancestors... forever.

When Wirlu-Murra men first went on a heritage survey with anthropologist, Brad Goode, they told him their "history of dispossession has limited the group's ability to Know the Country". However, when it came to the crunch, at Ganyjingarringunha Wundu (Kangeenarina Creek), they told him the Creek needed to be protected by a 50 metre exclusion zone because it was of ethnographic significance; and, although they could not themselves relate any stories or songs for the creek, they said there were other Yindjibarndi people who would know. Brad Goode put this in his report; and, his services were terminated by FMG after he refused to alter that report. To overcome the problem, FMG's Heritage Manager, Lisa Maher, commissioned a company directed by her mother and her step-father, Michael Gallagher, to re-survey the area. This he did and then dutifully reported to FMG that the Wirlu-Murra men said the area held "no ethnographic significance". However, Wirlu-Murra men subsequently complained to the specialist anthropologist who assists the Aboriginal Cultural Materials Committee (ACMC) that "Kangeenarina Creek is of central importance to the religious belief of the Yindjibarndi People and that they understood FMG had agreed to protect the Creek with a 50 metre exclusion zone". The Wirlu-Murra Corporation's continued acceptance of the kind of approach taken by Michael Gallagher to our sacred places is just what FMG needs to carry out the vital job of getting mining approvals through the Department of Indigenous Affairs (DIA), the ACMC and the Minister of Indigenous Affairs, Peter Collier; and to help FMG in its "frugality" drive to make Fortescue the "lowest cost producer" in the Pilbara, at the expense of today's and future generations of Yindjibarndi people.

THE SCALE OF FMG'S SWINDLE

It is common practice that mining companies fund legitimate Native Title Representative Bodies and PBCs in the legalistic process of reaching binding agreements—but it is NOT USUAL PRACTICE to exclusively fund illegitimate and unauthorised splinter factions to mount vexatious legal campaigns to intimidate Traditional Owners and get 'agreements' signed.

FMG's proposed Land Access Agreement overrides all our traditional rights in the whole of Yindjibarndi Country and allows FMG to do anything, anytime, anywhere on our traditional lands - for as long as FMG wants; it binds all our future generations and prohibits them from ever claiming any compensation for the destruction of their rights, beyond the meagre amount of compensation that will be paid by FMG to the Wirlu-Murra Corporation and spent on whatever the Wirlu-Murra directors decide.

Even though their own Senior Counsel publically stated that there are "fundamental problems with the Agreement", that he could "not recommend it for signing" and that it needed to be "re-negotiated with FMG", the reality is that it has already been signed by Wirlu-Murra, they have not re-negotiated it, and they continue to prosecute the FMG funded legal actions against YAC and the Yindjibarndi men, in the Supreme Court and the Federal Court.

FMG'S RETURN TO THE 'DARK AGES OF ABORIGINAL PATERNALISM'

YAC wants the Yindjibarndi to grow our own communities and structures according to our own minds and aspirations, not according to the ideology of Mr Forrest or his company. To be successful and lasting, development in our communities needs to be community-owned and adapted to our own goals and needs, rather than forced from the outside.

Jobs and training are the right of every Australian; however, to justify the wholesale destruction of our homeland, Twiggy Forrest is trying to force assimilation down our throats. Under the cover of "welfare-to-work training, jobs and business opportunities for Aboriginal People", what this salesman is really saying is, "be a good blackfella; forget your Ngurra, the foundation of your Law, your language, your songs and spiritual belonging; forget your ancestral inheritance, dating back tens of thousands of years; forget your culture; and, in return, FMG will give you a job in one of our mines; we'll get to save a heap of money on the fly-in-fly-out and you'll finally get to be like every other Australian".

It is hypocritical that Twiggy Forrest calls compensation from the exploitation of the mineral resources of our homeland "mining welfare", while payments made by FMG to other, non-Indigenous, land-holders, is called a "royalty". Mr Forrest clearly believes that Aboriginal rights in their lands should not be properly recognised; and instead he promises 'Christmas money' and a job in his company—"working together" he calls it!

FMG'S AGGRESSIVE STRATEGIES

In its statement, FMG urges YAC—an unfunded, under-staffed, small Aboriginal corporation—"to drop its adversarial and aggressive strategies". However, an email chain of correspondence between FMG's lawyer, Andrew Forrest and other Senior FMG Executives, which was sent to YAC last year, reveals a "multi-faceted aggressive strategy", which was developed by FMG in 2005 to deal with unyielding native title representative bodies and Prescribed Bodies Corporate (PBCs). That strategy involved undermining native title groups' confidence in their legal representation by hitting their legal representatives with a "barrage of litigation" prosecuted at "a gruelling pace" to "place them under immense pressure and impact their ability to organise themselves" and to "get them out of the heritage picture"; while at the same time, putting operatives like Michael Gallagher "on the ground" to engage in "the real battle for hearts and minds".

FMG brought the same strategy to bear against YAC; and over the past three years, has deployed no fewer than seven legal firms, seven barristers and a bevy of in-house lawyers to prosecute 25 court/tribunal hearings and 12 applications under s 18 of the Aboriginal Heritage Act 1972 (AHA), against YAC.

As Wirlu-Murra's barrister made clear at YAC's AGM, in March this year, it is FMG that is funding the Wirlu-Murra Corporation's legal cases against YAC and the Yindjibarndi men; and, as Wirlu-Murra's former lawyer, Kerry Savas, made clear in his statement to NIT last week, when YAC reached out for reconciliation, it was FMG's former employee, Michael Gallagher, who brought the process to an end.

The facts of the Supreme Court matter are:

− The Wirlu-Murra claim they have been excluded from all YAC meetings from late 2007; however, the Minutes and video recordings of those meetings show their people were present.

− The Wirlu-Murra claim that "important decisions" at YAC were "being left to one or two people within the Yindjibarndi Aboriginal Corporation"; however, the Minutes and video recordings also show they actively participated in the decision-making process.

− The Wirlu-Murra claim improper financial transactions have occurred; however, these same allegations were previously investigated by examiners appointed by the Office of the Registrar of Indigenous Organisations, in 2011, who found no "serious corporate governance issues related to YAC" and dismissed the improper financial transactions as "gossip".

The litigation against YAC in the Supreme Court is not seeking to "have the matters worked through" at all; indeed, we could have "worked through" everything that needed to be worked through, in January this year, with the help of Kerry Savas; but that process was quickly brought to an end. In our view, the litigation against YAC is vexatiously designed to drain our finances and exhaust our legal resources; to keep us "under immense pressure" and "out of the heritage picture", while FMG ploughs ahead, destroying our sacred sites and obliterating our cultural record.

At the same time, over the past eight months, FMG's in-house lawyers have made Freedom of Information applications to every government body that has ever funded Juluwarlu Aboriginal Corporation, the administrative arm of YAC, hoping to rake up muck to throw at YAC, with the ultimate aim of putting YAC under the administration of a receiver/manager so they can finally get the agreement between FMG the WMYAC splinter executed.

The Yindjibarndi Aboriginal Corporation has no concerns about the WA Supreme Court action, because it will give YAC an opportunity to cross examine false witnesses and expose the misuse of the Court's process to the benefit of the corporate interest financing the actions—FMG.

TRUE YINDJIBARNDI SELF-DEVELOPMENT

We want to invest in long-term self development, not just in commercial mining enterprises, but in for-community-benefit businesses and services to boost health and housing, education, training and employment, in ways that promote our independence and, most importantly, the survival of our precious Yindjibarndi culture.

We believe true self-development can only happen when the will and spirit of a people are at the centre of it; where respect, equal treatment, and a real chance to develop exist. Not when a mining magnate bearing promises holds out his hand and tells you to eat out of it.

We have offered WMYAC several opportunities to come back and be a part of Yindjibarndi, to follow the wisdom and wishes of our late great elder and leader, Ned Mayaringbungu Cheedy, and to grow the YAC—but they chose to disrespect Mayaringbungu, and listen instead to their promised saviour, Mr Forrest, and his cronies, hoping they will personally benefit. Still, we are always ready to find common ground, and we are prepared to work with FMG, just as we are successfully working with other resources companies, but only when they stop meddling in our community, and stop imposing their political influence and their paternalistic, discriminatory ideology. We will work in an open and fair way, not in the secret and divisive style FMG used with the Wirlu-Murra.

We the Directors and Elders of Yindjibarndi Aboriginal Corporation, all stand by this statement. We honour and remain true to our people—our elders, our ancestors and Maarga creation spirits that came up out of our beloved Yindjibarndi Ngurra. We will keep Yindjibarndi spirit strong, and fight for Yindjibarndi control of our Ngurra, and bring some good benefit to all our people. We promise to work towards healing and a lasting unity.

Stanley Warrie (Chairman), Michael Woodley (CEO), Middleton Cheedy, Thomas Jacobs, Pansy Cheedy/Sambo, Tootsie Daniels, Jean Norman, Angus Mack, Gabrielle Cheedy, Curtis Lockyer, Russell Sandy, Joylene Warrie, Rosemary Woodley, Joyce Hubert, Shirley Woodley, Billy King, Bigali Hanlon, Rosie Cheedy, Mavis Pat, Cathy Warrie, Judith Coppin, Patricia Pat, Esther Pat, Jane Cheedy, Marion Cheedy, Harry Mills, Maisie Ingie, Doreen Warrie, David Woodley, Margaret Read, Susan Edwins, Linda Ryder, Kevin Guiness, Fabian Cheedy and Max Hubert.

Yindjibarndi Aboriginal Corporation—BULLETIN

http://yindjibarndi.org.au/

Friday 9 November 2012

Both FMG and their client splinter group, the Wirlu-murra, have issued statements to the National Indigenous Times (NIT) dodging evidence of grave misconduct and skulduggery. 

In this week’s NIT , the Yindjibarndi Aboriginal Corporation (YAC) sets the record straight in a close examination of FMG's multiple evasions, and rebuttal of Wirlu-murra's mudslinging.

Read the full Yindjibarndi reply as published in NIT HERE

SUMMARY YAC’s response to FMG’s Statement:

Jobs and training are the right of every Australian; however, under the cover of "welfare-to-work training & jobs”, Twiggy Forrest and FMG are trying to prevent Yindjibarndi from ever obtaining fair and equitable compensation for obliterating irreplaceable aspects of our cultural inheritance, while highly profitable, unrenewable mineral resources are ripped from our lands. What FMG are really saying is, “be a good blackfella; forget your Ngurra, the foundation of your Law, your language, your songs and spiritual belonging; forget your culture; and, in return, FMG will give you a job in one of our mines and you’ll finally get to be like every other Australian”. ✦ The cost of FMG’s bankrolling of legal teams to act against YAC and the Yindjibarndi People, and deployment of multiple heritage consultants to re-survey areas of our precious country, until they get the ‘clearance’ they want, far exceeds the cost of their trumpeted community benefits. ✦ While FMG “rejects" the testimony of solicitor, Kerry Savas, about the construction and control of its Wirlu-murra splinter faction by former FMG Aboriginal Affairs Manager,  Mr Michael Gallagher, it fails to explain the undisputed, week-in-week-out ‘management' of Wirlu-murra business by Mr Gallagher and other FMG-paid operatives. 

SUMMARY YAC’s response to the Wirlu-Murra Statement:

The Wirlu-murra statement serves up a cold dish of weasel words—partnerships, opportunities, families, kids, vision, better futures—whose insincerity is evident in the lifeless shell of the Wirlu-murra office in Roebourne. ✦ While Wirlu-murra falsely carp on about being denied a voice, the ‘voice’ in their statement remains anonymous; unattributed to any Yindjibarndi men or women; while ‘comments’ come from a non-Aboriginal spokesman. ✦ The same anonymous spin-doctors sling mud about “serious corporate governance issues” at YAC—already dismissed by regulator ORIC—while dodging evidence of the horrendous consequences of the Wirlu-Murra pact with FMG, which has riven and disenfranchised the wider Yindjibarndi community, and cleared the way for the destruction of Yindjibarndi heritage—for personal gain, and the profit of their benefactor, FMG.

The Yindjibarndi Aboriginal Corporation has no concerns about the WA Supreme Court action, because it will give YAC an opportunity to cross examine false witnesses and expose the misuse of the Court’s process for the benefit of the corporate interest financing the actions—FMG.

CONTACT

Michael Woodley YAC CEO–0419 097 130 mwoodley@juluwarlu.com.au 

George Irving YAC In-House Legal Counsel–0417903785 gmirving@tpg.com.au 

For media materials please contact media@juluwarlu.com.au

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NEWS & INFORMATION ARCHIVE

For background research materials please visit: www.yindjibarndi.org.au

JULUWARLU ARCHIVE

A collection acclaimed as the most significant of its kind in Western Australia–

preserves the cultural knowledge and history of the Yindjibarndi People. 

http://yindjibarndi.org.au/juluwarlu/

FACEBOOK

http://yindjibarndi.org.au/facebook.html

SUBSCRIBE

Yindjibarndi Aboriginal Corporation—BULLETIN

http://yindjibarndi.org.au/

Friday 9 November 2012

YINDJIBARNDI ANSWER FMG/WIRLU-MURRA WEASEL WORDS

Both FMG and their client splinter group, the Wirlu-murra, have issued statements to the National Indigenous Times (NIT) dodging evidence of grave misconduct and skulduggery.

In this week’s NIT , the Yindjibarndi Aboriginal Corporation (YAC) sets the record straight in a close examination of FMG's multiple evasions, and rebuttal of Wirlu-murra's mudslinging.

Read the full Yindjibarndi reply as published in NIT HERE

SUMMARY YAC’s response to FMG’s Statement:

Jobs and training are the right of every Australian; however, under the cover of "welfare-to-work training & jobs”, Twiggy Forrest and FMG are trying to prevent Yindjibarndi from ever obtaining fair and equitable compensation for obliterating irreplaceable aspects of our cultural inheritance, while highly profitable, unrenewable mineral resources are ripped from our lands. What FMG are really saying is, “be a good blackfella; forget your Ngurra, the foundation of your Law, your language, your songs and spiritual belonging; forget your culture; and, in return, FMG will give you a job in one of our mines and you’ll finally get to be like every other Australian”. ✦ The cost of FMG’s bankrolling of legal teams to act against YAC and the Yindjibarndi People, and deployment of multiple heritage consultants to re-survey areas of our precious country, until they get the ‘clearance’ they want, far exceeds the cost of their trumpeted community benefits. ✦ While FMG “rejects" the testimony of solicitor, Kerry Savas, about the construction and control of its Wirlu-murra splinter faction by former FMG Aboriginal Affairs Manager, Mr Michael Gallagher, it fails to explain the undisputed, week-in-week-out ‘management' of Wirlu-murra business by Mr Gallagher and other FMG-paid operatives.

SUMMARY YAC’s response to the Wirlu-Murra Statement:

The Wirlu-murra statement serves up a cold dish of weasel words—partnerships, opportunities, families, kids, vision, better futures—whose insincerity is evident in the lifeless shell of the Wirlu-murra office in Roebourne. ✦ While Wirlu-murra falsely carp on about being denied a voice, the ‘voice’ in their statement remains anonymous; unattributed to any Yindjibarndi men or women; while ‘comments’ come from a non-Aboriginal spokesman. ✦ The same anonymous spin-doctors sling mud about “serious corporate governance issues” at YAC—already dismissed by regulator ORIC—while dodging evidence of the horrendous consequences of the Wirlu-Murra pact with FMG, which has riven and disenfranchised the wider Yindjibarndi community, and cleared the way for the destruction of Yindjibarndi heritage—for personal gain, and the profit of their benefactor, FMG.

The Yindjibarndi Aboriginal Corporation has no concerns about the WA Supreme Court action, because it will give YAC an opportunity to cross examine false witnesses and expose the misuse of the Court’s process for the benefit of the corporate interest financing the actions—FMG.

CONTACT

Michael Woodley YAC CEO–0419 097 130 mwoodley@juluwarlu.com.au

George Irving YAC In-House Legal Counsel–0417903785 gmirving@tpg.com.au

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