Fortescue Metals Group’s great Native Title swindle

THE Karijini ranges soar into the Pilbara sky. Two billion years old,
the mighty red mountains are split by deep river gorges with gleaming
waterfalls and lush vegetation rich in wildlife. Here, a thousand
kilometres north of Perth, hidden caves are home to Aboriginal graves
and other sacred places adorned with mysterious, magnificent rock art.
It is a place of extraordinary beauty.

Karijini is the spiritual homeland of the Yindjibarndi people, the
heart of their culture and religion. For more than 35,000 years
Aborigines have lived and died in this country.

Karijini's beautiful red rocks are heavy with iron ore, and
Australia's richest man, Andrew "Twiggy" Forrest, and his company
Fortescue Metals, have leases to mine it as the $5 billion Solomon Hub
project, scheduled to produce an initial 60 million tonnes of ore a
year, worth almost $1 billion annually at today's prices.

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Forrest has offered the Yindjibarndi people compensation worth $10
million a year, but they have rejected it as inadequate. They want
four times that amount, in line with compensation being paid by other
big mining companies in the Pilbara. One breakaway group wants to
accept the lower offer.

Elder Michael Woodley says the higher sum is is justified because the
mining project will devastate his people as well as their beloved land
and religious sites.

"Ceremony, kinship and tribal law are the heart and soul of our life,"
he says. "They connect us to the beginning of the world."

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Michael Woodley.

He is leading a campaign against Forrest, challenging the legitimacy
of the mining leases held by Fortescue over half the Yindjibarndi
tribal country.

The leases were granted last year by the West Australian government
before the company had reached agreement on compensation with the
Yindjibarndi Aboriginal Corporation, whose members are registered as
legal traditional owners under federal native title law.

These members have asked the full bench of the Federal Court to
declare that the leases were invalidly granted by a WA government
minister in 2010. A judgment is due later this year.

At 38, the charismatic Woodley has earned the high status of elder and
senior law man. As chief executive of the Yindjibarndi Aboriginal
Corporation, he is determined to get a high price for his ancestral
land.

Under WA law, Aboriginal traditional owners have no legal right to
stop mining, but they can negotiate land access compensation. A few
confidential deals have been settled for multimillion-dollar sums -
0.5 per cent of production value - with protection for important
sacred sites agreed to by big miners keen to avoid costly legal delays
like the prolonged Yindjibarndi dispute.

But according to a Fortescue spokesman, Andrew Forrest does not
believe in big dollar "mining welfare", saying it doesn't help
Aboriginal people, and this is why Fortescue is offering an annual
compensation package of $10 million for the Solomon mine project.

The offer comprises $4 million a year in cash, with the remaining $6
million to be provided in "housing, training and employment". Details
of this last broad provision have not been made available by
Fortescue, despite requests from The Age.

Woodley says he has tried to negotiate with Fortescue over several
years but describes the company's compensation offer as "insulting".

"They say they will mine 60 million tonnes a year at first, rising to
100 million tonnes or more in future. That 60 million is worth around
$10 billion at today's prices and these are rising all the time.

"Fortescue's $4 million a year cash offer was for a fixed payment of
just 0.057 per cent of the mine income. Rio [Tinto] would give us 10
times that amount."

(The Yindjibarndis are discussing another deal with the giant mining
company.)

Woodley rejects Andrew Forrest's offer of jobs and training as "just
another attempt at white assimilation" that would not help his people.

"We don't want to be trained as labour for Fortescue's mines," he
says. "We want a fair share in the mineral wealth of our traditional
country, to create our own businesses and jobs, to deliver better
healthcare and educate our children.

"We are doing that already, through our Juluwarlu organisation,
recording our languages, history and culture in books, CDs and films."

Partly funded with money earned from earlier deals with resource
companies, Juluwarlu also runs a small, popular local TV station.

Frequent pilgrimages by Yindjibarndi people to their homelands, led by
centenarian elder Ned Cheedy, have inspired an extraordinary cultural
renaissance in recent years.

There is strong support for the legal challenge against Fortescue,
even though the company's final offer included a $500,000 cash payment
on signing that was highly tempting to the impoverished community of
about 1000 people.

Amid all the heady talk of multimillion-dollar compensation deals,
most Yindjibarndis live in Third-World conditions at the Roebourne
Aboriginal village, 36 kilometres from the booming Pilbara town of
Karratha, where white mine workers earn more than $100,000 a year.

The Aboriginal families of Roebourne exist mainly on social security,
with 20 or more people sharing each shoddy rented government house.
Many turn to drink or drugs to escape the bleakness of their lives.

Rates of imprisonment are high, while school attendance is low.
Debilitating illnesses such as diabetes are common, with many people
too frail to handle tough mining jobs with their 12-hours-a-day, seven-
days-a-week shifts.

Too many are unemployable because they are illiterate and innumerate,
their spoken English poor. And the idea of working to mine their
tribal land is horrifying many of the deeply traditional Yindjibarndis.

Michael Woodley says the mining project will devastate his people as
well as their land and religious sites. He gave evidence to a Native
Title Tribunal in 2009 to explain why the Yindjibarndis opposed
granting mining leases to Fortescue, explaining how he had tried to
lift the spirits of his people by maintaining their law and culture.

He said he had found it difficult dealing with developers who he felt
were intent on destroying the Yindjibarndi people and the sacred
sites, rivers, trees and hills that gave meaning to their lives.

The granting of mining leases, he said, would "demonstrate once again
to my countrymen that our rights, our religious beliefs and practices
are not equal to the rights, religious beliefs and practices of those
who rule us, and that we are not worthy of protection.

"We are one with our country and what affects it affects us."

The Yindjibarndis, he said, felt a deep religious obligation to
protect and care for their land, including the area Fortescue planned
to mine. They believed they were obliged to perform regular religious
rituals in sacred places, to ensure the survival of their land and all
its living things.

In his judgment, tribunal member Daniel O'Dea agreed that mining would
damage the Yindjibarndi country, but granted lease rights to Fortescue
in "the public interest", writing that it would "create considerable
positive economic benefit for the state and the nation, and that same
positive effect may be experienced by the local economy including
local Aboriginal people".

The Yindjibarndis appealed to the Federal Court, and lost again before
appealing to its full bench, seeking a declaration that the three
leases had been granted invalidly to Fortescue by the West Australian
government. Its three judges have still to hand down their decision.

The Yindjibarndis' legal team includes Melbourne barrister Bryan Keon-
Cohen, QC, a leading authority in both native title and constitutional
law, Perth barrister George Irving and the national law firm Slater &
Gordon.

They claimed the leases were invalid because of flaws in the
Commonwealth Native Title Act, which must be complied with, when
mining leases were granted by the state government over country owned
by registered traditional owners.

The Native Title Act provisions were unconstitutional, the lawyers
argued, because they prevented the Yindjibarndi from exercising their
traditional religious customs and practices, contrary to section 116
of the Australian constitution.

Because of the legal precedent it might create, a Yindjibarndi win
could be a serious problem for Fortescue and other miners holding
leases granted by the WA government; it could lead to legal challenges
to the validity of those leases.

The Yindjibarndi Aboriginal Corporation has launched a sustained
attack against Fortescue on its website. It includes a hymn to their
land, the Gambulaynha song.

Now renamed the "Song for the Country FMG wants to destroy', it is
accompanied by scenes from the documentary film Exile and the King-
dom, a story of colonial dispossession and triumphant Aboriginal
survival.

West Australian film director and academic Frank Rijavec, and his wife
Noelene Harrison, made the film with local Aborigines, including the
late Roger Solomon, a revered elder who helped write the script.

Rijavec has since spent considerable time in Roebourne, helping
educate the Yindjibarndis in filmmaking and other digital media.

He says he saw divisions appearing in the small, close-knit township
after Fortescue set up an office in Roebourne, and began making
contact with the Aboriginal population last year, after negotiations
between the company and the Yindjibarndi Corporation had broken down.

"People began to talk about meetings at the FMG office, with cash
payments for attendance. Opposition to the main Yindjibarndi group
began developing. I tried to attend one of the meetings, after being
invited by some Aboriginal friends. But before it began, I was ejected
after 10 minutes on the advice of a lawyer who was present.

"It was clear that this meeting was a special briefing to a splinter
group. Then I realised what was going on. I felt very sad about it all."

A BREAKAWAY section of the Yindjibarndis publicly friendly to Andrew
Forrest, the Wirrlu-Murras, organised a controversial meeting in
Roebourne last week. It voted to drop all legal action against the
mining company, as well as accepting the Fortescue compensation package.

The corporation plans to mount a legal challenge to the decisions,
claiming many present at the meeting had no right to vote.

In an audio recording of the meeting obtained by The Age, Andrew
Forrest makes an emotional appeal to the crowd.

"The more you know Aboriginal people, the more you love them . . . I
deeply respect Aboriginal people . . . my heart will always be with
Aboriginal people."

Forrest said his company employed 350 Aborigines earning a total of
$24 million a year in Port Hedland, and he wanted to help give jobs to
people in Roebourne, as well as providing assistance with housing and
training, and support for those who could not work.

He accused Woodley of lying when he said an offer of $4 million in
cash for half the Yindjibarndi country would mainly benefit him and
his company's shareholders, saying the accusation was "complete and
utter bulldust".

Later asked to comment on Yindjibarndi claims that Fortescue had paid
his fees to help organise the splinter group, lawyer Ronald Bower
said: "All arrangements made by clients of this firm for the payment
of fees for legal services provided by the firm are confidential."

He said there was a general acceptance in the Australian mining
industry that native title groups needed adequate resources, including
legal representation, to negotiate over mining issues.

When the claimant groups did not have financial resources to meet the
costs of the negotiations, these were customarily met by mining
companies.

A Fortescue spokesman said the company's mission at all times was to
help create a productive and sustainable future for all communities
and their children in agreement with those communities.

That future could only be achieved through funding for education,
training, jobs, safe and clean living environments and opportunity -
not straight cash payments - although they formed part of the
contribution.

The Yindjibarndis have made another documentary film about their
struggle, and it is now on the corporation's website.

Now the recent discovery of Aboriginal remains in a cluster of ancient
burial caves on the proposed mine site has sent waves of distress and
fear through the Yindjibarndi community.

Woodley describes it as a bad omen for all concerned, including Forrest.

"Our Skygod will punish us all if we do not protect our sacred land,"
he says.

Woodley worked on a mine site for three years, earning big money,
until his life was changed by a vision in the red hills one night.

"It was a group of our Old People, spirit people, standing there with
their tall spears, just looking at me. I knew what they were telling
me. It was time for me to go back and save our country."

---

Jan Mayman is a WA writer. She has reported on Aboriginal issues and
mining in Western Australia for more than 30 years.

Copyright Jan Mayman 2011
http://www.theage.com.au/national/this-land-is-whose-land-20110405-1d30g...

by ray jackson, president, indigenous social justice association

fmg of course is the fortescue metals group run by twiggy and his band of henchman.

henchman! that's a bit strong i hear you say. well, no it's not. this 'true friend of the aborigines' is most certainly not that at all.

twiggy forest is nothing more than an old style robber baron, in the ilk of lord vestey and lang hancock of wittenoom asbestos fame. profit was the only game in town regardless of workers life or limb. aboriginal workers were used, abused and then cast aside when things got unprofitable.

this is twiggy's game as well. whilst he makes much of his 'heartfelt friendship with the aborigines' his bottom line is massive super-profits for himself and his greater loved shareholders. his only love for the blackfella is his need for cheap labour, relatively speaking. why hire a white man when you can get a black man for $20 000 to $30 000 less. smart economics to make profit plus by employing aborigines at cheaper wages.

the video must be watched to see quite clearly the brutal divide and rule tactics that are used by paying a break-away group to confound the traditional owners who want a fairer outcome for their people. the gross bullying tactics of the elders is quite evident and will shock you. time after time the meeting is divided and used to get what twiggy lusts for - cheap and pitiful compensation, amounting to something like 0.05% of the profits as long as fmg is given open slather to their lands and resources.

fmg will have full control of the traditional lands to do with whatever they wish. block rivers, destroy sacred sites, move people from place to place. in fact fmg can do whatever they like and whenever they like. for those who follow the thefts of aboriginal land by governments and mining companies this video will still surprise.

like the cops who assault, maim and kill, even whilst being videoed, so too twiggy and his bullymen henchmen cared not one whit for the video camera. they were white so had the right. bloody disgusting!

the wa and federal governments must also share the horror of this video. traditional owners absolutely always finish up the poorer, culturally and financially. the puerile pittance that is paid does nothing to benefit the land owners. the land is ours and the resources are ours. we must demand real equity. we must have equity not compensation. compensation is normally paid for something that is lost. we have never lost our land nor our resources lying therein. the days of victimhood and theft are long gone.

a real deal would be 5% of equity for every year until we reach 50% after 10 years of mining but we would own 50% of the mine(s) and the profits whilst still owning our lands in full. billions of dollars in our own right. then let them talk of welfare.

twiggy, i hope you no longer 'befriend' the aborigines but rather make us partners, working together for the good of all. and by the way, we would claim an exemption of the mining tax you would still have to pay!

and thank you gerry for sending this to me for me to share further.

fkj

ray jackson
president
indigenous social justice association

The real tragedy is that women's business is sidelined. The 'FMG's Great
Native Title Swindle' video is about men arguing amongst themselves
accompanied by their women supporters, in abject contempt of the same right
to autonomous decision-making for women they're required to exercise
themselves by rule of Australian law. And what happens, word spreads and the
usual chorus of self-opinionated do-gooders unfamiliar with indigenous
tradition get suckered straight into the process and take sides. The left
recite their predictable disparagements and the right offer their customary
praise, with both sides fuelling the fraud with merry abandon while
contaminating what reasonable prospect of justice the traditional owners
might ever have had. All these deals with indigenous peoples will have to be
renegotiated when the constitution makes provision for a women's
legislature, in all likelihood in the form of a treaty. How long that takes
depends on how long it takes for the do-gooders to climb down from their
pedestals of paternalism and do good for women.

philip
facebook.com/philip.arts

ABC INDIGENOUS NEWS

FMG native title meeting a 'shambles'

Posted Mon Apr 11, 2011 12:56pm AEST

The Western Australian Opposition has labelled a native title meeting, overseen by
Fortescue Metals Group (FMG) boss Andrew Forrest, a "shambles" after video of
the event was posted on the internet.

The Yinjibarndji claimant group met in Roebourne in March to discuss whether to
give FMG permission to expand its Solomon iron ore mine, north of Tom Price.

FMG says the claimants voted to approve the project.

Video footage on the internet shows Mr Forrest looking on as people push for a
chance to speak and others walk out in disgust.

Opposition Leader Eric Ripper says it is an appalling scene.

"The video reveals a shocking shambles of a meeting," he said.

"This is not the way to conduct native title negotiations.

"We say the Government should be keeping an eye on this and we'll be raising the
issue in Parliament."

An independent chairperson who had been hired to oversee the meeting walked out
after only a few minutes.

It was then chaired by a lawyer for the breakaway group which is pushing to sign a
multi-million deal with FMG.

The lawyer, Ron Bower, has defended the meeting and says the votes will stand.

"I'd say that if the criticism is coming from people who were present then they're in
error ... the only perception I'm really interested in is the one the court will form
should or when we need to present the evidence," he said.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/04/11/3187946.htm?site=indigenou...
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