Martu’s Ernie Ifould calls for Royal Commission

Gerry Georgatos - courtesy of The National Indigenous Times - http://nit.com.au/ - The Martu peoples of the Western Desert languish impoverished while the millions of dollars that have allegedly never reached them are being brought to the attention of the nation through Fairfax journalists, Richard Baker and Nick McKenzie. Some of the Martu are calling for a Royal Commission into native title following highly publicised questions raised in the media around a large amount of allegedly missing money.

Former member and adviser to the Western Desert Puntukurnuparna Aboriginal Corporation, Ernie Ifould said a Royal Commission is the only way to end the endemic and pernicious theme of native title benefits never reaching communities. Mr Ifould said only a Royal Commission can weed out the carpetbaggers and “thieves who exploit our people”. He said these deal breakers and joint venture brokers are managing themselves millions of dollars while nothing is returned to the “people of the lands” as a whole.

“The people on Martu lands have never benefited, never seen anything returned to them from all the deals brokered by outsiders that have returned millions to the outsiders but our people remain so poor it is tragic,” said Mr Ifould.

“It is a national disgrace – a disgrace that the pitiful ORIC (Office of the Registrar of Indigenous Corporations) and the NNTT (National Native Title Tribunal) allow to occur.”

“Only a Royal Commission into what has happened with outsiders coming in and leaving with millions but with no evident return to our people, that is the Martu people of the lands, to all our language groups, is the only way we can find where the millions have gone.”

Mr Ifould will soon turn 70 years old. He has known the ways of his people and their needs lifelong. He has worked for Martu and Kimberley peoples all his life. They are among the nation's poorest peoples.

Among the much good that Mr Ifould has been responsible for are the Drug and Alcohol centres he co-founded in Wyndham in the 1980s and "which are still going strong". Mr Ifould spent quite some years serving as a Western Australian police officer. After leaving the police service he engaged various roles. In 1999 he was seconded to Chair the Board of the Emmagnuda Aboriginal Corporation in Derby when it was facing bankruptcy while in administration. He helped navigate it through its key concerns and the corporation continues to this day. In the Western Desert he was a CDP Manager, with 680 participants till 2007 when the political landscape changed with the Northern Territory 'Intervention'. In 2008 a public meeting of Martu appointed him as an adviser to the board of the Western Desert Puntukurnuparna Aboriginal Corporation, such was his trusted reputation among his peoples. But he said that he and the non-Aboriginal executive of the WDLAC and its then CEO, Clinton Wolf, "did not see eye to eye on a number of issues."

“Only a Royal Commission is the only way we can stop outsiders coming in benefiting at the expense of our people, which is what native title should have been about – our people.”

“It is time for a Royal Commission on native title.”

“There are too many people who have a stake in all sorts of things which are conflicts, who are involved with our people making decisions about the rights of our people that makes it wrong for them to be in the jobs representing our people and with advising us. A Commission can end this, because what other way is there to stop these exploiters?”

Mr Ifould said Martu people are living in shambolic poverty while tens of millions have gone missing to prescribed body corporates and trusts, and millions in fees to carpetbaggers, brokers and non-Martu private businesses.

Mr Ifould’s call for a Royal Commission has been backed by other Martu who said that through a Commission they would feel protected in giving testimony. In the meantime Mr Ifould has spoken with the Deputy Chair of the Western Desert Lands Aboriginal Corporation (Jamukurnu-Yapalikunu), Teddy Biljubu and called for a Martu people only public meeting – of the common land holders – to expedite positive ways forward from the explosive allegations by Fairfax’s Mr Baker and Mr McKenzie, and at long last see that the “people of Martu lands” do indeed at long last benefit. But a day after Mr Ifould and Mr Biljubu spoke about this, Mr Ifould said Mr Biljubu said that there was no need for such a meeting.

One high profile source in the National Native Title Tribunal agreed that a Royal Commission “could be beneficial.”

“What has gone on, as you and I well know, occurs everywhere, all the time.”

“Native title is a dead duck and we work with it because it is all we have, some of us try and others run with the culture that’s been allowed to take shape – with mining and native title in effect a ‘Wild West’ frontier is what's on, where everyone jumps in to make a huge buck on the spot without much of a sweat.”

“Problem is that the NNTT has people on board who have done likewise or who are too close to the elite club of ex-mining executives, ex-politicians, those on some of WA’s and the nation’s biggest boards, everyone jumps in for a stake or jackpot hit.”

Some of those who were named included some pretty high profile figures, including former premiers and political powerbrokers.

“The NNTT and ORIC could have stepped up and exposed it and by doing so stamp out the carpetbaggers as you call them Gerry, but we didn’t and therefore I suppose a Royal Commission could ask why not?”

“We need legislation, not good intentions, to backbone the NNTT and ORIC and to make sure as you said that the practices we all know go on but pretend publicly that all is well should be as you state ‘impermissible’.”

It was agreed that bona fide good governance should prohibit various multiple interests for NNTT officers, for board and executive members of prescribed body corporates and for their subsidiaries such as private trusts.

“There are some of us with a conscience and we know that native title is a frenetic feeding frenzy for native title practitioners and the exploiters.”

“Indeed, often it is sickening.”

“But the problem is that when the highest offices and when Governments are too close to some of the exploiters, the lobbyists, the magnates then indeed it is fair to comment that it becomes political.”

“If a Royal Commission can achieve an honest and coherent exposing of what goes on then sound legislation may make a difference. In that case as you say the onus to reach agreements will not be on miners, brokers and Aboriginal corporations but will be matter-of-fact. This would assist in ridding some of the middle people. It will put quite a few noses out of joint but these noses will not be Aboriginal noses, more likely the noses from St Georges Terrace (Perth’s high end commercial strip).”

Last week, Baker and McKenzie reported on controversial deals between the Western Desert Lands Aboriginal Corporation and a mining company and that the corporation’s in-house lawyers said was both unethical and illegal.

Baker and McKenzie reported that in March 2009, WDLAC’s then in-house lawyer, Christina Araujo, emailed acting CEO Tony Wright, who in general is WDLAC’s chief financial officer, that she was not prepared to certify that WDLAC had secured “the informed consent of the common law holders”.

“Tony, further to our conversation on the 6th of March, I am confirming in writing concerns I have in relation to the Reward negotiations,” wrote Ms Araujo.

“Apart from my personal observations, I have also had discussions with a number of others who were also of the view that proper informed consent is or may be lacking.”

“Going through the files, it appears Katherine Hill (another legal adviser), on numerous occasions provided advice on proper informed consent and it is noted in a file dated 16.10.2007, that she spoke to Joe Procter and Clinton Wolf about her concern that people did not seem to understand there was a mining proposal over Lake Disappointment.”

Ms Araujo’s March, 2009 email came at the same time the NNTT heard Martu Elders testify about the cultural significance of the Lake Disappointment site. In a historic decision, the NNTT rejected the mining application on the basis of Lake Disappointment’s cultural importance. As Baker and McKenzie noted it was the first time the Tribunal had refused a mining company’s application. But as Baker and McKenzie reported the process was revisited with effectively some alleged shopping for legal opinions.

The article by Baker and McKenzie is published in full below this story.

“Some of us in the NNTT try to do the right thing, some of us in native title got into it for all the right reasons, but the odds are stacked against us. Without the backbone in legislation we cannot guarantee the prevention of questionable discretion and waywardness,” said our NNTT source.

Many across this continent are in support of Mr Ifould’s call for a Royal Commission and for changes to its overseer, the NNTT. For far too many, a Royal Commission into native title is long overdue, now more so than ever before, because for the majority of First Peoples, native title is a long failed debacle. It has been two decades of failure with all the data and trends reporting that remote communities are doing worse than at any time during the last two decades. Alongside some of the nation’s wealthiest mining tenements there is grinding poverty. As a researcher into custodial systems, unnatural and premature deaths and suicides, in disaggregating the data demographically, presently more people are languishing in more acute and irreparable impoverishment despite native title determinations and tens of millions of dollars into federally prescribed Aboriginal corporations – with little or no evident return to the communities themselves which usually only number between 1,000 to several thousand people. It is clear that native title benefits denied to the “peoples of the land” as Mr Ifould describes are causal in their continued impoverishment, in their entrenched sense of hopelessness and in the culmination of all the negatives that break and do in people.

Nearly 300 federal determinations have taken place, more than 900 Indigenous Land Use Agreements and yet native title claimant communities languish in this worsening poverty and the myriad social ills. It is my well-travelled experience over decades to many communities and townships that Aboriginal corporations are taken over by non-Aboriginal executives who are highly paid but the communities are left out in the cold. Carpetbaggers line up a country mile to exploit opportunities with little return to the communities.

Standards have to be written into native title to ensure a whole-of-community return so that urgent needs and services are met, and that there are opportunities for everyone and not just for the very few. Aboriginal corporations should advance opportunities for employment within their ranks of their own peoples. Furthermore, Aboriginal corporations should have to acquit to a qualified standard declarations of material and impartiality conflicts and various multiple interests and stakes should be made impermissible.

LINKS:
http://nit.com.au/news/3657-martus-ernie-ifould-calls-for-royal-commissi...
A former member and adviser to the Western Desert Puntukurnuparna Aboriginal Corporation which is at the centre of revelations involving a mining agreement with the Martu People of Western Australia has joined the call for a Royal Commission into Native Title.

http://indymedia.org.au/2014/07/14/mine-deal-allegations-expose-the-watc...
A Royal Commission into the operations of the National Native Tribunal and in the way Native Title is managed in general is the only way according to NNTT insiders and by two former Western Desert Lands Aboriginal Corporation members to properly address explosive allegations of dealings in a Native Title determination for the Martu Peoples of Western Australia. It is now an all too common story.

http://www.smh.com.au/national/mine-deal-allegations-against-warren-mund...

http://www.afr.com/p/national/questions_over_warren_mundine_involvement_...

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/policy/warren-mundine-p...

http://www.smh.com.au/national/questions-and-answers-full-transcript-201...

http://www.smh.com.au/national/legal-advice-questioned-controversial-min...

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/opinion/fairfaxs-mundin...