Mining Country

Stephen Mayne Crikey 2 February 2015

The 2013-14 political donations data confirms a long trend in Australian politics, with the ALP still fundamentally reliant on the union movement and the Liberal Party in the thrall of big business, rent-seekers and a few wealthy families. [node:read-more:link]

Forrest offered a capped payment to the Yindjibarndi of $4 million for access to their sacred land. After negotiating for six months, which is all that is required under the act, Fortescue was able to get its mining lease from the National Native Title Tribunal. Last month, the dispute returned to haunt Forrest when a Federal Court judge made a series of extraordinary findings about Fortescue's conduct in the native title claim lodged by Woodley and the Yindjibarndi over a stretch of land that includes the now-built Solomon mine. Included on this page is article, audio report and copy of the court report. [node:read-more:link]

The Western Australian Department of Housing has not been properly monitoring remote communities services and have not applied their 'apparent' eligibility criteria since 2008. Now, all of a sudden, when Barnett wants to close communities down to save money and make the land available for mining and other interests, his department is saying there must be at least 50 members per Homeland community and and that 24 Homeland communities don't meet the criteria. Throwing in the report that surfaced at the same time that some communities have Uranium contamination demonstrates appalling neglect. [node:read-more:link]

The Barnett govt's power to remove Aboriginal sites from the state's heritage register has been thrown into doubt by a landmark test case handed down in the Supreme Court. The court has quashed a decision by the WA Liberal government’s powerful Aboriginal Cultural Materials Committee to de-register the land and sea surrounding the iron ore export hub of Port Hedland as an Aboriginal sacred site, in a test case that creates uncertainty about the toughening stance on sacred sites. [node:read-more:link]

In the announcement made in recent days, Aboriginal communities in South Australia have suffered a 90 per cent cut to their funding. APY Lands – including Amata, Pukatja (Ernabella), Indulkana – have received no funding at all. These include big settlements as well as smaller communities and homelands. There is no funding for the Maralinga Lands. WA has accepted a one off $90 million for their 'transfer' grant and consequently announced 150 communities would be closed down. This has received much publicity, and the South Australian situation is much less known. [node:read-more:link]