by Cheryl Adam
Miller had worked in the Bowen Basin on a cattle station when he was a young man. Coincidentally, I had read the novel when journeying to North Queensland from Tasmania. I was struck by its authenticity. It opened up the country for me in a way that would not have been possible if I had relied on the tourist tracts. Morag Fraser writes in a review in Reading Australia and Australian Book Review, “The land registers their approach: it shivers with apprehension.”208 Peters-Dodd echoes similar sentiments to the themes traversed in the novel.
“Some people say we’ve sacrificed a lot by coming back and living on country. But it’s been a major strength for our families. We’re respected on country by communities. We’ve really stood on the front line for not just our own family but for all people to be able to walk as sovereign people on their own lands … the law of the land is still there. It’s written in the land. There it is. The history is still there. The occupation sites and mountains of significance, rivers, walks, passages, it’s all still written in the land. That’s why it’s important for our people to come back to country and walk that line … open up those songlines … them old dreaming tracks … where our ancestors used to walk.”
Peters-Dodd is adamant that many traditional owners do not support the Adani mine or other mines and says there are other alternatives. His son has recently started working 35 kms away at a solar power plant, one of two projects in renewable energy nearby. He is hopeful this is where the future lies.
“The whole agreement that Adani is trying to push us people into is further assimilation through the Government process. ‘Forget about your people. Just get assimilated.’ It’s easy to sign away something you’ve never had a connection to or an understanding of. The advantage of taking a poor race of people that have never had money who are quick to sign agreements giving them a false sense of wealth or opportunity – you can see how these projects get passed quickly through traditional owners. We are not just about mining. We want to transition from mining and see all other areas where we can protect our country.”
Since the Adani mine has come closer to reality, the tussle to win the hearts and signatures of the Traditional Owners has been raging. Adani, of course, understands the need to swiftly win over locals, particularly Indigenous ones, as the Mundra and Hazira locals in India discovered when signs were allegedly posted around Mundra proclaiming their land had already been subsumed by the Adani SEZ.
The Wangan and Jagalingou Family Council represent 120 members and key stakeholders in W&J land. The Native Title rights to 2750 hectares of this land must be extinguished in order for the Adani Group to build the Carmichael mine. This group has mounted a remarkable struggle against the mine. As in India, however, they are discovering that the Government at both State and Federal level seems intent on giving their land to Adani and spurning their rights to ownership of the land.
Back in 2004, a few families had put in a Native Title claim detailing bloodlines and connections to their country. However, a few years later, their land was eyed up as a potential money earner. Writing in the 2017 Quarterly Essay 66, The Long Goodbye, Anna Krien notes that in 2009, Linc Energy announced on the Australian Stock Exchange that it had drilled four holes, 120 metres deep (p. 34): “There was, on Wangan and Jagalingou land, a shitload of coal.”209
Adani has continued to employ tactics of divide and conquer with the W&J people. In 2012 and again in 2014 they had approached the W&J people to try to negotiate an Indigenous Land Use Agreement (ILUA) under the provisions of the 1993 Native Title Act. In April 2016, the company tried a different approach, inviting a few hundred Indigenous people to a meeting to discuss the ILUA. Adani maintained it gained overwhelming support from the Traditional Owners at that meeting in central Queensland, which the company said was 294 to 1 in favour of the project going ahead thereby authorising the agreement. The ILUA was then certified by the Queensland South Native Title Services (QSNTS). However, the W&J Family Council hotly dispute the result, saying it was a sham. The Council did not attend the meeting and said a vast majority of those attending the meeting appeared not to be members of the Native Title group.210
In December 2017, the National Native Title Tribunal registered the ILUA and authorised the Queensland Government to approve the mining leases to Adani but that has been the subject of an ongoing legal battle with the W&J Traditional Owners Family Council. The Council representing 12 families from W&J has filed several court challenges to the mine.
The ILUA presented by Adani would allow the company to undertake all works associated with the project including an airstrip, a workers’ village, and a washing plant. In return, the Traditional Owners were promised jobs and economic security. Tim Elliott, writing in The Good Weekend in 2017, describes a similar tactic the company allegedly employed with Mundra fishermen. He interviewed Budha Ismael who had been fishing in Mundra for most of his life and who is head of the fishing settlement at Tragadi Bandar, three kilometres from Adani’s power plant. Ismael told him that people from the Adani company and a fishing notary offered him a one-off payment of 20,000 rupees (around AU$400) to leave his fishing site. Ismael said the money was worth “about two days of fishing.”
The ILUA is critical for Adani to gain finance for the mine, as it shows Indigenous consent without which most of the world’s banks, under the Equator Principles,211 will not invest in resources projects. Under an ILUA Native Title, claimants can surrender land in return for benefits, but the extinguishment of Native Title may be irreversible, even if the ILUA is found to be illegitimate.212
A February 2017 Federal Court full bench decision provided a ray of hope confirming that the Native Title Act213 required all registered Native Title claimants to sign an ILUA and the agreement could not be registered unless this happened. The W&J Family Council moved quickly to have Adani’s ILUA struck out. However, as our plane was touching down in Australia back from New Delhi in March 2017, both houses of Federal Parliament were also swiftly working on amendments214 to ensure previously signed ILUAs did not need a majority of signatures as long as the ILUA had been approved by the claim group. This explains why Malcolm Turnbull was so confident in telling Adani back in April 2017 that he had reportedly ‘fixed’ Native Title and Indigenous objections to the Carmichael mine. The parliamentary amendments, supported by the Queensland Labor Government, were a triumph for the mining industry, yet again proving its clout with both levels of Government and the Governments’ dismissal of the rights of Traditional Owners.
The Adani ILUA had been signed by seven out of 12 W&J stakeholders. However, in June 2017, one of the members, Craig Dallen, a W&J representative, who had originally backed the agreement, reversed his position leaving the W&J people locked six in favour and six against.
Traditional Landowner, Adrian Burragubba,215 from the W&J Family Council, alleged in the Federal Court that some of the attendees of the original meeting were paid $2000 to attend, and was critical of Adani for not making enough effort to identify W&J stakeholders. Burragubba has also claimed that Patrick Malone, the spokesperson for those who supported the deal with Adani, had later said he was coerced into the ILUA agreement by the Queensland Coordinator-General, who reportedly told him that Native Title would be extinguished for W&J people unless they agreed to the deal with Adani. Burragubba steadfastly claims his 120 members had met four times and each time rejected the ILUA. Malone said the claims some people were paid to attend the meeting was “nonsense.”216
In August 2017, the Full Court of the Federal Court of Australia dealt two further blows to the actions against the Carmichael mine. It dismissed appeals from the W&J people questioning the legality of the ILUA signed with Adani as well as an appeal by the Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF) to stop the mine going ahead. The ACF had sought to argue that Environment Minister, Josh Frydenberg, had not considered the effect of the mine’s emissions on the Great Barrier Reef under the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Act.
Burragubba stated after this that the Fed
eral Court of Australia’s decision effectively proved that any challenge on the basis of environmental or Indigenous rights over the land was worthless. After losing the appeal, ACF campaign director, Paul Sinclair, told the Brisbane Times217 that environmental laws did not stand up to scrutiny.
“Our national environmental laws don’t require our Environment Minister to properly evaluate the impact of 4.6 billion tonnes of pollution on the Great Barrier Reef and other world heritage areas.”
He added, “It’s like approving a mine for asbestos without having to consider the impact of that asbestos on the health of human people.”
After Adani moved to access the land for the Carmichael mine in December 2017, the W&J Family Council were granted an injunction to stop the land being surrendered. In February 2018, however, their claim to extend the injunction was dismissed. They appealed against this decision and the interim injunction remains in place.
On 8 March 2018, the W&J Council held a smoking ceremony outside Queensland Parliament requesting Premier Palaszczuk and her Government to rule out extinguishing Native Title for the W&J people. The appeal was heard in March 2018. The presiding judge, Justice John Reeves, has reserved his decision.
In June 2018, The Guardian published an article querying the cultural assessment process218 when it revealed that a North Queensland Indigenous organisation had kept secret $2 million in payments from Adani in 2014 to develop the land around Abbot Point and that the organisation had paid its directors up to $1000 in cash a day to conduct now invalidated cultural assessments for Adani. The Federal Court ruled that a different group, called Juru Enterprises should have been the nominated people to decide on land-use agreement with Adani. In July 2018, The Guardian reported that Adani would, nevertheless, proceed with construction work at Abbot Point with or without support from Juru Traditional Owners after Juru Enterprises lodged an application to stop the work going ahead.219
The rally outside Federal Parliament House on 5 February 2018 marks my third visit to the nation’s capital on this mission. The rally is to coincide with the first sitting of Federal Parliament for 2018.
The host for my stay in Canberra is Anna Nolan. The text message description she has sent me so I recognise her at the airport is apt. Not that I need to know she had short curly grey hair and glasses. She stands out in the arrivals hall in her black Stop Adani t-shirt with the slogan in red.
Nolan represents so many middle-aged women who have taken up the fight against Adani. Within minutes she is telling me that she was arrested during the week of blockade action in Abbot Point in September 2017. Her quiet pride as we drive from the airport is obvious.
“Some of us decided we wouldn’t follow police requests to leave when asked and we were consequently arrested for trespass and brought up for a hearing in the Bowen Magistrate’s court.” She adds, “It was a way of giving Adani a warning that this is a foretaste of what to expect if that mine gets into action … Even if it wasn’t Adani, we’d be determined to stop them as it’s coal. It’s fossil fuel.”
The next day, over a breakfast of porridge and yoghurt – the same breakfast she says she has had for 20 years – and some beautifully brewed Lady Grey and Arctic flowered tea, she provides the backstory. She is a retired psychologist. Her late husband who died of cancer was an active climate campaigner and she has vowed to continue his work.
“I’ve been concerned about the climate emergency for a decade now – just following the science. I wanted to get active. I didn’t want to be a whinger. I wanted to do something to make the difference. We need to – along with all the other strong, committed people – force the Government to change. Change policy. Get out of fossil fuels. Stop Adani is the way to go.”
She first became involved when the movement had its Canberra launch in 2017, which was coincidentally the day I arrived back into Australia from India. “I guess I felt I would have to go all the way and do whatever was necessary. There were all these young people who were willing to put their body on the line …”
The movement has, she says candidly, shaped her identity.
“It’s like a kind of conscious matter – if I and ordinary people like me don’t get into action, we will have to give an answer to our children and grandchildren one day about what were we thinking. Why didn’t we save our climate for them? I just don’t want to face having no answer so …”
She pauses, as though considering this for the first time: “It is defining. It’s the biggest issue I’ve ever faced in my life … ever,” she adds for emphasis.
There is no doubt it’s given her life new purpose.
“I’ve made great friends in this movement. It’s so diverse. I love the fact that I’m shoulder to shoulder with people from every walk of life, every age group and that’s a sign in a way that it has got strength. We’re not a homogenous group. It’s something I have to keep working at.”
For Nolan, the call to action was also when she was alerted to attempts by the Federal Government to ‘siphon’ $1 billion of taxpayers’ money to Adani.
“That was pretty crucial.”
People like Nolan have never been in trouble with the law. They’ve paid taxes all of their adult life. They own their homes. Many have superannuation squirrelled away. They tend not to be a burden on the state. The Stop Adani action has made them feel alive again after so many decades buried under the tag ‘complacent voter’. ‘There is no more need for apathy’ is their simple message. They are among a growing number of Australians whose opinions and views do not appear to count before a Federal Government that only governs because of a one-seat majority and is only elected because it governs with another party in a mismatched Coalition.
On the lawns in front of Parliament House the following day, the mood is buoyant. Bill Shorten, the Opposition Leader, who plays his own apathetic role in this story, at that time is facing the threat of losing an established Labor seat at a by-election in Batman, Melbourne, Victoria. Sensing a potential victory by the Greens, he has belatedly begun to cast doubt on Adani. The Stop Adani protest is well-timed.
A group of supporters in red is rehearsing a dance that will follow on from the speakers. Three people have donned uncannily accurate giant caricature masks of Adani, Palaszczuk and Turnbull. They dance around like macabre clowns: a parody on the seriousness of the mission. Palaszczuk waves a banner emblazoned with ‘60 Years Unlimited Free Water’. Adani with his characteristic wide grin holds hands with the Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull, who is gripping a giant bag of cash labelled ‘Your Taxes $1b’. Behind them, others are holding up a massive red banner Stop Adani next to a large black flag with hashtag #StopAdani. There are several hundred people gathered. Aboriginal flags flash black, red and yellow.
The speakers include a Pacific Islander Warrior, 350.org Pacific representative Zane Sikulu; Climate Change Council of Australia scientist Will Steffen; John Hepburn from The Sunrise Project whose mission is to grow social impetus to drive the change from fossil fuels to renewable energy, me and community organiser of the Mackay Conservation Group, Maggie McKeown.
When I am invited to the podium I ask Bill Shorten to ‘wake up’ and have the guts to stand up for the Great Barrier Reef. To stop prevaricating. I talk about the Great Barrier Reef and its continuing struggle for survival. How we must unite to protect it and stop the Adani mine. I speak briefly of what I saw in India and how the same tactics are being played out in Australia by a company who cannot be trusted.
Geoff Cousins is one step ahead. Presumably prompted by the pressure on the Labor party due to the growing dissent to the Adani mine which could play out at the Batman by-election, Shorten had requested a meeting with Cousins just before Christmas telling him that he wanted to know more about the reef and the effects of climate change. He was planning, according to Cousins, to firm up a policy position on Adani – unsurprisingly given the by-election in Victoria was looming.
After Shorten’s request, Cousins agreed to take him on a trip to the reef in l
ate January. Other guests included Imogen Zethoven and Professor Terry Hughes.
Shorten also flew from Cairns to the Carmichael River and the nationally important wetland area of Doongmabulla Springs to look at the threat posed by the Carmichael mine as well as the proposed site of the mine. In late February 2018, Cousins appeared on the ABC’s 7.30 Report telling host Leigh Sales that Shorten had told him during the trip that if Labor won Government in the next election, it would revoke the Adani mine licence. Cousins also said that after spending two days with him, Shorten had reportedly assured Cousins that he was going to take a lead over his party and take it to Shadow Cabinet.
According to a report in The Guardian newspaper, Cousins had also provided Shorten with legal advice obtained by the ACF which argued that the Federal Environment Minister had discretion to revoke the approval for the mine under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (EPBC) Act on “at least two grounds.” The first ground involved “new information of the consecutive bleaching of the Great Barrier Reef indicating increased sensitivity to greenhouse gas emissions,” and the second related to the survival of the endangered Black-throated finch. The advice from the Environmental Defenders Office Queensland was that revocation would not trigger a ‘sovereign risk’ issue nor leave the Government open to a compensation claim from Adani.
It was at the end of the trip that Cousins told The Guardian that he advised Shorten to have a clear policy about Adani and take ‘appropriate action’ which involved revoking the licence. He said he told Shorten: “What you need to say is the following: ‘When we are in Government, if the evidence is as compelling, as we presently believe it to be regarding the approval of the Adani mine, we will revoke the licence as allowed in the act.’” Shorten had replied that: “I get it. I understand” and had told Cousins that he would say this in Queensland the following week.220