Regional focus
An open cut gold mining operation underway in the wilds of Australia.
Aboriginals mourned their loss. The truth, though, is that the Juukan Gorge disaster was just the latest example in a vast tome of devastation, one stretching back hundreds of years. And though operators have made the right noises in the aftermath of the vandalism, questions remain as to whether Australia’s miners can truly mend their ways.
Down and under
Mining has been important to Australia for as long as Australians have existed. Aboriginal clans dug stones for tools, and ochre to make paint. In more recent times, however, the industry has taken on a darker tinge. The country’s first gold rush in the 1850s saw white settlers swarm the riches of New South Wales and Victoria. And when they arrived, Aboriginal groups often suffered. On the eve of the gold rush, for instance, the area around modern Ballarat was home to over 3,000 Wathaurung people. A decade later, that number had slumped to just a few hundred. Similar incidents have continued into modern times. As late as the 1960s, says James Fitzgerald, a lawyer at the Australasian Centre for Corporate Responsibility, indigenous Australians were expelled from their lands to make way for mines, with politicians sometimes giving operators carte blanche over vast tracts of territory. In part, this history can be understood legally. Since European settlement began in the 18th century, tradition held that Australia was ‘terra nullius’ – uninhabited and unclaimed wilderness. And though that particular norm was struck down in 1992 – doubtless to the relief of ancient peoples like the PKKP – the situation remains grim. Typical is the Aboriginal Heritage Act (AHA), passed by WA legislators in 1972. In force during the destruction
World Mining Frontiers /
www.nsenergybusiness.com
at Juukan Gorge, it is nominally there to protect indigenous rights. In practice, however, the law has frequently been exploited by mining concerns, often in collaboration with politicians. In 2009, for example, it emerged that a state minister approved a mine’s construction even as officials fed information to industry lobbyists. Nor is this an isolated incident. WA ministers have permitted ‘legal damage’ to Aboriginal sites over 900 times – but never used the power of the AHA to boost the rights of traditional custodians. All this begs an obvious question. Given the increased emphasis on indigenous and minority rights the world over, from Minneapolis to Delhi, why is Australia still witnessing outrages like Juukan Gorge? The answer can plausibly be contained in a single word: economics. Though Tim Buckley – director at Climate Energy Finance – warns that mining’s importance to the Australian exchequer can be overstated, it’s indisputable that the country has the planet’s biggest reserves of gold and extracts double the iron ore of its nearest competitor. All told, mining represents around 10% of the Australian economy, and employs 2.1% of the national workforce. With numbers like that floating about, it is perhaps unsurprising that Australia’s politicians ultimately feel more loyalty to big business than they do their Aboriginal constituents. That’s especially true given the apparent importance of mining to war chests in Canberra. For example, one 2016 report studied six cases where mining companies made donations to major political parties – and then enjoyed favourable legislation in the northern state of Queensland.
Can there be a fairer system? Soon after the debacle at Juukan Gorge, Western Australian politicians leapt into action. Promising
46,000
The numbers of years old the earliest traces of human life at Juukan Gorge had been dated back to.
BBC 13
Symbiosis Australia/
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