Community and land rights

+ Consulting with Traditional Owners and regional community members

The government has a poor track record when it comes to consulting with the Traditional Owners of Australia about the proposed nuclear waste and mining sites.

Many mining projects in Australia are in close proximity to Indigenous communities.

The Juukan Gorge disaster in May 2020, which saw mining company Rio Tinto blow up a 46,000-year-old Aboriginal site, highlighted the shocking imbalance of power experienced by Traditional Owner groups in the face of mining companies.

The Native Title Act (NTA) governs agreements between Traditional Owners and mining companies, including the agreements associated with uranium mines. Mining companies argue that state law reform is not needed because the NTA already provides a negotiating mechanism for Traditional Owners to protect their heritage. However, if a company wants to mine on a group’s land, and the group does not consent, the mining company can make an application to the National Native Title Tribunal, which almost always rules in industry’s favour.

Mining companies often capitalise on this power imbalance and the deficiencies in legislation to push Traditional Owners into agreements they might not otherwise sign.

+The Kakadu Region

In the Kakadu region, Traditional Owners have had a long and fraught battle with governments and mining companies after uranium was found in the area in the 1950s.

The Mirrar, represented by the Gundjeihmi Aboriginal Corporation, are the Traditional Custodians of the land that now contains the Ranger and Jabiluka mineral leases. The Mirrar and other Bininj (Aboriginal) people have lived for tens of thousands of years on this land and the area contains artifacts and rock art of invaluable cultural and archaeological importance. Malakananja II, one archaeological site within the Jabiluka mineral lease, is of such importance that it helped put Kakadu National Park on the World Heritage list.

The Mirrar people campaigned strongly against the mines, explaining the cultural significance of these places and fighting for multiple inquiries and appeals to Territory, Commonwealth and even International Courts and Tribunals. The proposed Jabiluka mine never went ahead thanks to their successful campaigning, but the Ranger mine did, commencing operation in 1981. (Sweeney, 2020) The Mirrar people and their supporters didn’t give up and their relentless campaigning eventually forced the closure of the Ranger mine forty years later on 9 January 2021.

+ Dumping nuclear waste

The current location chosen by the Morrison Government to both dump and store waste is a place called Napandee, near Kimba in regional South Australia, but many local residents and the region's Barngarla Traditional Owners oppose this plan.

In 2020 the federal government tried to make unjust changes to radioactive waste laws that would remove the legal right of the Barngarla people and other community members to challenge the proposed Kimba waste dump. They weren’t successful, but their actions showed how little they were prepared to respect the wishes of Traditional Owners and other local people. (ACF, 2020)

The Traditional Owners launched a legal challenge to stop the facility going ahead in Napandee, saying they were not sufficiently consulted. In July 2023 the Federal Court upheld a complaint by the Barngarla people on the ground there was apprehended bias in the decision-making process by former federal minister Keith Pitt in selecting the site.

"Lawyer for the Barngarla people, Nick Llewellyn-Jones, said findings of apprehended bias against a minister were "very rare" and the judgement was significant in terms of legal precedent.

'It's set a precedent for Aboriginal groups to take a stand, it's set a precedent also in terms, I believe, of what standards are required of Commonwealth ministers,' Mr Llewellyn-Jones said." (Lim, 2023)

+ Maralinga: A historical case study

Between 1955 and 1957 the Australian government allowed Britain to perform seven series of atomic bomb tests at Maralinga, 54 km north-west of Ooldea in South Australia’s remote Great Victoria Desert. Two atomic bomb tests were conducted at nearby Emu Field in 1953, and three atomic bomb tests were conducted at Monte Bello Islands in 1952 and 1956. Many of the Traditional Owners, the Anangu people were forcibly removed from their lands in the lead-up to the tests.

One of the bombs was twice the size of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima and one location called "Kuli" is still off-limits today, because it has been impossible to clean up.

The forced relocation of the Anangu people destroyed the traditional lifestyle of the families. The damage was radiological, psycho-social and cultural with repercussions affecting the families and communities to the present day.

Survivors recall the fleeing Anangu people being picked up in trucks or forced on a long walk through the desert without water on routes to avoid exposure. In their memory the "momentous" event is embedded right next to creation stories.

About 1,200 First Nations people were exposed to radiation during the testing. The radioactive fallout, called "puyu" (black mist) by these First Nations people, caused sore eyes, skin rashes, diarrhoea, vomiting, fever and the early death of entire families. The explosion caused blindness. Long term illnesses such as cancer and lung disease were found in the 1980s after some Elders grew restless and walked back into their country.

Thirty per cent of the British and Australian servicemen exposed to the blasts also died of cancer.

The Royal Commission into British Nuclear Tests in Australia found in 1985 that attempts to ensure the safety of the First Nations people were riddled by "ignorance, incompetence and cynicism."

The boundaries of the test fields were inadequately patrolled and the British dismissed concerns for the Anangu peoples' safety with the disgraceful comment that "a dying race couldn't influence the defence of Western civilization." (National Museum of Australia, 2020)

British and Australian governments attempted to clean the site several times but significant contamination still remains. (Korff 2020)

+ References

The conversation, 2013, Ranger’s toxic spill highlights the perils of self-regulation, last accessed 8 December 2020, <https: data-preserve-html-node="true"//theconversation.com/rangers-toxic-spill-highlights-the-perils-of-self-regulation-21409>

Lim, J, 2023, ABC News online, Here's what we know about the Kimba nuclear storage facility decision, last accessed 18 Jan 2024, <https: data-preserve-html-node="true"//www.abc.net.au/news/2023-07-19/kimba-nuclear-facility-what-we-know/102615878>

Meadows, J., 2016, Regina McKenzie speaks out against nuclear waste in Flinders Ranges, Australian Conservation Foundation, last access 8 December 2020, <https: data-preserve-html-node="true"//www.acf.org.au/too_good_to_waste>

National Museum of Australia, 2020, Defining Moments; Maralinga, last accessed 15 December 2020 <https: data-preserve-html-node="true"//www.nma.gov.au/defining-moments/resources/maralinga>

Sweeney, D, 2020, ‘From resistance to renewal, Australian Conservation Foundation website (ACF), last accessed 12 January 2021, <https: data-preserve-html-node="true"//www.acf.org.au/from_resistance_to_renewal>

Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF), 2020, ‘Senate Dumps on government’s radioactive waste plan’, ACF website, last accessed 12 January 2021, <https: data-preserve-html-node="true"//www.acf.org.au/senate_dumps_on_radioactive_waste_plan>

Korff, J 2020, Maralinga: How British nuclear tests changed history forever,<https: data-preserve-html-node="true"//www.creativespirits.info/aboriginalculture/history/maralinga-how-british-nuclear-tests-changed-history-forever>,retrieved 12 January 2021