A History of Duress – A GAC Research Project

The negotiation of the Blue Book (the draft mining agreement)

The negotiation of the mining agreement between the NLC and Pancontinental commenced within days of the Djarr Djarr meeting. A 100 page draft agreement (the so-called Blue Book) - formally known as the Negotiators Draft Agreement - was finalised at the end of June 1981.

Detailed negotiations were undertaken with the company during the period 26-28 June 1981 and the Blue Book was finalised for presentation to Aboriginal communities in the region. These negotiations were "in the presence of" a number of Aboriginal people from the region. The NLC had also already advised the company on 8 June 1981 that it had no objection to the technical aspects of the Project.

The summary notes prepared by one of the negotiators (after the agreement was concluded) highlighted the continuing problems Aboriginal people were having with the process. The following is taken from the record of meetings on 12 June 1981.

General points from Gagudju meeting. Joseph Bumarda stressed Aboriginal people were understanding very little.

1. Nathaniel Maralngurra asked what would Pancon do if Aboriginals pulled out of the negotiations.
2. Peter Carroll both to the meeting and privately said everything was going too quickly and indeed, Mick Alderson agreed with him. Toby Gangele suggested putting negotiations off till after the land claim decision received.
3. Mick Alderson reiterated his complaint that even if Aboriginal people said no, the Government would force mining to go ahead.

The fact that Toby Gangale was reiterating his long held view that the NLC should not talk to Pancontinental until after the land claim was finalised suggests that either he did not understand the content of the resolutions passed at the Djarr Djarr meeting in January, or he did not agree with the resolutions from the meeting, or he had changed his mind since that meeting. David Parsons had stated very clearly to the Djarr Djarr meeting that people could change their mind on the resolutions. What was not explained at the meeting was how people could stop the NLC negotiating with the mining company once the process had started. The evidence suggests that the NLC had no intention of stopping the negotiations regardless of the views expressed by any of the senior traditional owners.

The same document records what seem to be continuing reservations on the part of some Aboriginal people expressed at the negotiation meeting on 26 June 1981:

Cole [negotiator from Pancontinental] further explained that Djarr-Djarr mine could not go ahead unless Aboriginal people say yes and Toby then said that the Traditional Owners would leave it for a while. Considerable discussion ensued. There was discussion regarding the three approvals that would have to be given (Clause 5) and Jacob asked whether Aboriginal people had to say yes and then the other three approvals sought.

Two days later (28 June 1981) the notes record:

Cole advised that the document was the one that Aboriginal people should think about and then advise Pancon. He said that all the changes that Aboriginal people wanted had been included in that document and that Aboriginal people should decide about the things in the document. Toby advised that Aboriginal people did not want to have to think about it. Bill Neidji said that it was best to have a big mob of people all the people must understand, we only have one English word.

The first round of consultations

On 4-5 July a meeting was held with approximately 200 Aboriginal people to explain the provisions of the Blue Book. This included explanations of the provisions relating to mining payments, protection of the environment, rehabilitation, permits, medical treatment, Aboriginal participation committee, employment, sites of significance, Aboriginal culture, traditional owners, liquor, surrender and termination. A resolution was passed that Peter Sutton was to get the views of Aboriginal people about the Blue Book and any changes they would like to see to the agreement. The consultations resulted in the development of the so-called Red Book.

In the period 16 July to 15 September 1981 the Northern Land Council undertook a wide ranging series of consultations in relation to the Blue Book. These were undertaken by Peter Sutton and Silas Maralngurra. The full reports of these meetings are extensive and only a small number of excerpts of some important points are included below.

There was some effort made during these meetings to present the no-option to people. In many meetings Peter Sutton said that Aboriginal people did not have to say yes to mining and that no decision had been made. This is in contrast to the record of the second round of meetings where the process was to consult people about each of the terms of the agreement. In effect any discussion about whether the mine should proceed was deferred until a big meeting in mid 1982.

The second round of negotiations

The Executive of the NLC met during the period 22-24 September 1981 to consider the Red Book. This led to the beginning of further negotiations with the company on 29 September 1981 where the financial package in the Red Book was rejected by Pancontinental.

In the document headed Pancontinental Negotiations dated 29 September 1981 it is stated that Jacob Nayinggul had a meeting with the so-called "inside group" (the main traditional owners of land likely to be affected by the project) and these people said:

"... NLC lawyers should talk to Pancon lawyers about people’s ideas and the feedback from people was that no Agreement should take place between the two parties until a full written response was given to all negotiators and then explained to them to the Inside Group" (page 18).

The NLC and Pancontinental initialled a draft of the agreement on 27 February 1982. According to one set of notes from the meeting, the instructions to initial the agreement were given by the Inside Group. From this date onwards the negotiations in relation to the agreement were being formally conducted under section 48 of the Aboriginal Land Rights Act. One set of notes recording the meetings specifically refer to section 48 meetings for all of the subsequent meetings.

The second round of consultations

A series of consultations about the draft agreement were undertaken during the period 11 March - 5 June 1982 by a different group than those who undertook the first round of consultations. This second group were actually involved in negotiating the agreement with the company. One of the quarterly reports to the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs by the Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies on the Social Impact of Uranium Mining on the Aborigines of the Northern Territory commented:

To an external observer, the shift by the Northern Land Council midway through the Jabiluka negotiations from using a specialist consultant -who was not a member of the negotiating team - to seek the views of the Aborigines affected, to the use of members of the actual negotiating team to carry out follow-up consultations has undesirable overtones in that it represents the abandonment of the principle of "disinterested interpreter". There was merit in the initial arrangement where there was a clear line drawn between consultations and negotiations (Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies 1982, 47-8).

The content of the second round of meetings were somewhat different to the first round of meetings. The second round were almost exclusively concerned with consultations over the main clauses of the draft agreement. A number of interesting comments were raised during these meetings.

What happens if people say no to mining. Bining want to say no but are a bit greedy for Balanda things

[named individuals] then said that they wanted a decision regarding the mine to be made by the Inside Group.

DP then explained the anticipated procedure for further meetings and indicated that comments from the Outside Groups' meetings would go to the Inside Group and the Inside Group will then select the ideas that they think are good ideas and tell the negotiating team to negotiate on those ideas, or they may tell the NLC that what is in the White Book is not good enough and they want renegotiation on certain points. DP explained that after that negotiation session, then there would be a big "YES/NO" meeting and the results of that meeting would be advised to the NLC and the NLC will then have a meeting under Section 48 of the Aboriginal Land Rights Act to confirm the Agreement should be signed or not signed.

DP talked to Toby about the procedure that will follow the Section 48 meetings, that is more meetings of the Inside Group, possible renegotiation, instructions back to Traditional Owners, consent of the NLC, and then final consent by Traditional Owners. He also indicated that Big Bill had suggested the idea of a corroboree and asked Toby what he thought. Toby said he thought the idea of a corroboree was a good one.

One of the reports to the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs by the Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies on the Social Impact of Uranium Mining on the Aborigines of the Northern Territory commented on the difference between the two groups of consultations. The report noted that there were still deficiencies in the process:

Aboriginal people complain of too many meetings;

old people do not or cannot understand the issues as presented;

failure to attend meetings is interpreted as lack of interest, not an expression of deliberate abstention or disapproval; and

that express instructions that meetings should be delayed or should not occur at all during particular periods of time have been ignored (Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies 1982, 47).

Government approval for the companies to negotiate sales contracts

Even while the second round of consultations with Aboriginal people on the draft agreement were being undertaken Deputy Prime Minister Anthony announced that the project had received conditional approval under the Government's uranium export policy (16 March 1982). This enabled the companies to enter into the marketplace to negotiate export contracts. Approval to export and the grant of the mining lease were conditional on agreement being reached with the NLC. Practically speaking, however, the Government could confidently proceed with this course of action because it could, if necessary, have invoked the national interest and arbitration provisions in the Aboriginal Land Rights Act. However, more significantly:

"In making this decision I have taken account of the views of the Northern Land Council which has indicated its support for market entry" (Anthony 1982, 280).

Presumably the Government believed that the initialling of the draft agreement by the NLC and Pancontinental in the previous month was a clear sign that the final agreement would be approved by the traditional owners in the near future.

Undoubtedly the Government's decision must have put considerable pressure on the Aboriginal land owners to give their consent to the project. It certainly was a very clear indication that whatever the views of the traditional owners the mine would proceed. It was really a question of which sections of the Aboriginal Land Rights Act needed to be invoked by the Government to ensure that the project would proceed. In fact, the Shadow Minister for Aboriginal Affairs (Susan Ryan) at the time pointed to this charade:

"Does not such action reinforce the attitude that is to be found within Aboriginal communities right throughout the Northern Territory, that is, that irrespective of any opposition that they might have to mining, their values and their views will be overridden by a government determined to have mining, a government that prefers to achieve its mining objectives by a legal charade that could project the view that Aboriginal approval to mining is an approval that is freely given "(quoted in House of Representatives, 25 March 1982, 1466).

More amendments to the Aboriginal Land Rights Act

Two days after this announcement by the Deputy Prime Minister the Government introduced a bill to further amend the Aboriginal Land Rights Act in the Senate. The legislation passed the Senate on the same day (18 March 1982) and was debated and passed by the House of Representatives on 25 March 1982. As a result of High Court action at the time by Peko-Wallsend Ltd against the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs it was not clear that the Minister could grant the land recommended for grant by the Land Commissioner, including the Jabiluka project area.

The amendments allowed the Minister to deal immediately with those parts of the claim area not affected by the legal proceedings. This meant that a grant of land including the Jabiluka project area could be made to a Land Trust.

As the Opposition pointed out at the time, the mine could not proceed unless the land was granted to a Land Trust and therefore became subject to the mining provisions of the Aboriginal Land Rights Act. The Opposition also highlighted the difficulties the Deputy Prime Minister's decision to allow the company to negotiate export contracts posed for traditional owners:

Mr Anthony's approval means that the Jabiluka project partners can begin negotiations for the sale of uranium from Jabiluka before the Aboriginal owners have agreed to allow mining to proceed. While the Northern Land Council has initialled an agreement on Jabiluka, the agreement has still to be discussed by the Aboriginal owners of the area as specified under Section 48 of the Northern Territory Land Rights Act (Senate 18 March 1982, 956).

The Opposition was reported in The Northern Territory News (26 March 1982) as saying that the amendments ensured that the Government could hand over the land covering the Jabiluka project "so traditional owners could be pressured into ratifying an agreement between the NLC and Pan Continental".

One of the Opposition speakers in the debate (Stuart West) claimed that the senior counsel for the NLC, Mr Eric Pratt, had telexed the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs 9 months previously and stated:

"The mining is justified environmentally and economically and will result in substantial benefits to Aboriginals "(quoted in the House of Representatives Hansard, 25 March 1982, 1451).

Mr West indicated that the telex had been sent without NLC approval and on "a Pancontinental telex machine". Mr Holding later in the debate referred to "legal paternalism" in the NLC:

... in which negotiations are entered into by legal advisers for and on behalf of the Northern Land Council and when, after Mr Pratt has reached what he regards as satisfactory arrangements with the mining companies - who, after all, ultimately pay his fees - considerable pressures are applied to traditional owners to give their approval and to comply with those agreements (House of Representatives Hansard, 25 March 1982, 1466-7).

Did the NLC have a conflict of interest in the uranium negotiations?

There are two aspects to this issue. One is the way that the land councils are funded under the Aboriginal Land Rights Act. The other is the financial relationship between the NLC and Pancontinental at the time the Jabiluka agreement was negotiated.

As a result of the public debate over the Ranger, Nabarlek and Jabiluka projects a number of people questioned whether the NLC had a conflict of interest as a result of its funding arrangements. For example, Peter Carroll, who was later to be involved in the Jabiluka consultations as an employee of the Department of Aboriginal Affairs, stated:

"The establishment of the NLC through the Land Rights Act provides for funding of the Council through mining royalties. This could be interpreted to say that the NLC has a vested interest in promoting mining on Aboriginal Land" (Carroll 1978, 3).

A newspaper reporter from The Age (16 April 1982) commented:

Conflicts of interest abound. None is more poignant than that experienced by the Aboriginal land councils themselves - particularly near Yinkididi near the Jabiluka site, where traditional owners are still negotiating with Pancontinental Mining Ltd. There is no doubting that land councils are committed to promoting Aboriginal strength and ability to survive the 20th century intact. But now the councils are established, well run and well funded, it may be time to modify them in the light of experience to ensure they protect all the interests of all the traditional owners - even those who want no mining at all.

All of the Northern Territory land councils are now funded, to undertake their functions under the Aboriginal Land Rights Act, by mining royalty equivalents payable into the Aboriginals Benefit Trust Account (ABTA) by the Commonwealth from Consolidated Revenue. While the land councils do not receive royalties directly to undertake their functions, they do benefit from more mining activity on Aboriginal land because of higher royalty equivalent payments into the ABTA.

However, at the time of the Ranger negotiations the NLC was funded under different arrangements than apply today. Because the original Aboriginal Land Rights legislation needed to be amended there were delays in the establishment of the ABTA into which mineral royalty equivalents are now paid. The NLC was at the time funded, in part, from the Aborigines' Benefits Trust Fund. The Fund operated during the period 1952 until June 1978 and received all royalties from mining on Aboriginal reserves other than the royalties from the Groote Eylandt mining operations (Altman 1983, 27).

Given the resource demands on the NLC at the time, both from the uranium mining negotiations and the land claims, the NLC Chairman at the time stated that mining would need to proceed on Aboriginal land to generate royalty income for the Land Councils:

The Northern Land Council's prime function is to protect and further the interests of Aborigines within their domain. As the council's present resources are totally inadequate for this purpose the only way they can generate some wealth for the Aborigines in the foreseeable future is by permitting at least some uranium mining on the lands in their custody. Yunupingu says: "If we want to see the NLC run successfully to run Aboriginal development, to see Aboriginal people running their own businesses on their own land, there should be development of mining ... [but Jabiluka] will never go. No hope unless the local people change their minds" (The Bulletin, 11 July 1978).

One of the NLC’s lawyers at the time commented that while the land councils required adequate funding to fight on behalf of Aboriginal people "this should not be an argument for encouraging uranium mining" (McGill 1978, 5). Even after the present Land Council funding arrangements were put in place after June 1978 there were still claims of a potential conflict of interest for the NLC. In his report on the Act in 1980, Rowland pointed to a conflict of interest situation that arises where:

the Land Council is funded in part from royalty type payments received from mining on Aboriginal land (s.64(1) and s.35(1)). It may be at times be seem to have a financial interest that could temper the objectivity of its advice to the traditional owners (Rowland 1980, 54).

During the debate in the Senate on the 1982 amendments to the Aboriginal Land Rights Act (see above) one of the Opposition members (Holding) quoted from the Rowland report, and stated:

"these titles include areas of land which are currently the subject of negotiation between the Northern Land Council and Pancontinental Mining Ltd in respect of the mining project at Jabiluka. My concern is that, given the opportunity to amend the Act, the Minister or the Government has continued to ignore some of the problems inherent in the legislation, which were pointed out by Mr Rowland ... in the legislation that created the Aboriginal Land Rights Act and which gave birth to the Northern Land Council we have created an organisational framework which was not related to the structures of Aboriginal society, and in which the potential for conflict of interest was endemic" (House of Representatives Hansard, 25 March 1982, 1465).

Another member of the House of Representatives (West) raised the same issue. The model of land councils set up under the Act was showing signs:

of being used not for the benefits of the traditional Aboriginal owners but in the interests of the prevailing and snowballing bureaucracy in the land councils which are taking the decisions and not properly informing the people, on the grounds that the people are not, because of their traditional life style, capable of understanding these highly complicated agreements (quoted in Australian Financial Review, 13 April 1982).

This same article questioned whether the traditional owners had ever had a no-mining option put to them by the NLC.

A spokesman for the land council said that it had not been put and could not be put as the legislation did not permit such an option. However, another spokesman was adamant that the question had been put (Australian Financial Review 13 April 1982).

Further,

Mr Holding said on the evidence that he did not believe that the no mining option had ever been seriously available to the traditional owners. His discussions with traditional owners have confirmed this ... (Australian Financial Review 13 April 1982).

Tony Grey from Pancontinental also pointed to this financial arrangement:

"The negotiations were not easy and not cheap. The NLC insisted that all their costs be paid by us. They refused to commence unless we agreed. It was largely because we were paying their legal fees, which were charged out at big city rates, that there was little incentive to reach a speedy conclusion" (Grey 1994, 232).

Colin Tatz, who was Chairman of the Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies project examining the Social Impact of Uranium Mining on the Aborigines of the Northern Territory commented in his book:

"The details apart, one aspect of the Pancon-NLC negotiation is disturbing to many. A treasured precept of law is that justice must be not only be done but be seen to be done. In parallel, a precept of negotiated agreements of this kind is that total freedom to negotiate must not only be available but be seen to be available. In a nutshell, Pancontinental has paid more than $300,000 to the NLC for the NLC to employ a negotiating team to negotiate with Pancontinental. That this may be a recognized practice in big business is not relevant here. Neither the NLC nor Pancon emerges well from placing themselves in a situation where the NLC appears - however incorrectly in fact - to be an agent of the principal it is engaging with" (Tatz 1982, 185).

The Northern Land Council responded to the claims of conflict of interest in the Commonwealth Parliament and that it was a "pro-mining" organisation. The Australian Financial Review commented that the NLC responded in an "unnecessarily defensive manner". However, the NLC was forced to undertake further discussions with the traditional owners as a result of the criticism that the no-option was not being put to the land owners.

The Northern Land Council asked the Traditional Owners if they wanted to stop further negotiations on the Pancontinental mining agreement. The Traditional Owners said they wanted more talks, but not until May this year. They said the negotiating team should talk to other Aboriginal people who were affected by the agreement and then come back to talk more to the Traditional Owners (Land Rights News March/April 1982, 5).

At the same time Bill Neidjie wrote a letter to the Bureau of NLC which included the following statements:

Everyone is pushing us. Pushing, pushing, pushing. Now they want us to sign but they don't know what it means for us. This is our life. Everybody said 'You're asking far too much money. You Aboriginal people have got to have good reasons for asking for a lot of money. What do you want this money for?'

Now I'll ask you one question. How much is your life worth? How much do I have to pay you so I can take your life away? People will say that we are just trying to make trouble now and stop everything, but we don't want trouble. We just want you to understand what we are giving up ... our life. It will cost Pancon money. It will cost us our life ...

I am not trying to stop you. I know you have been trying but you are all the time pushing and wanting us to sign. Some ceremonies take six years or seven years, but you have only given us six months or seven months to negotiate ...

We don't know what is wrong with you. We are always straight with you. but now we must do something ourselves. We have seen what happened to others when mining came to quickly. They've lost. They're getting skinny. They don't believe in that mining any more. We don't want that to happen to us and so we have asked for our stories to be written (quoted in House of Representatives Hansard, 25 March 1982, 1467).

Apart from possible conflicts of interest, the Government also clearly stated that part of the reason for the 1980 amendments to the Aboriginal Land Rights Act was to deal with the difficult role that land councils are required to undertake under the Act. One of the quarterly reports of the Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies social impact project provided some general comments on how the consultations were undertaken in the region and the role of the NLC and other organisations:

The problem is that of ensuring that all people have access to relevant information. One could say that information flow does not cater for these matters in the Alligator Rivers region. People who attend meetings do not report back to their community ... Their job is seen to attend the meeting, and once the meeting is over, so is their job: there is no obligation to inform others of what went on. The lack of clarity about what transpires at meetings is often compounded because people are unclear about the purpose of the meeting. Matters to be discussed are not canvassed beforehand; the full range of information necessary to make decisions is not provided, and hence people are not only being asked to make decisions, but they are being asked to assimilate new information and assess it prior to making the decisions. Aborigines in the Alligator Rivers region frequently complain of the tiresome nature of negotiations: the amount of time they take, the way that the Aborigines' stated wishes are never heeded, and their exhausting nature. It is not uncommon for people to have spent two or three days at a meeting, and not have understood what went on ... The decisions that are made at the very beginnings of negotiations are apt to determine everything that comes after (Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies 1983, 47-8).

The final sentence has obvious relevance to what happened after the Djarr Djarr meeting in January 1981

The Project Director had earlier raised a number of other issues about the role of the NLC and the organisations in the region. He pointed out that there had been much criticism of the Land Councils because:

• their structures seemed to be totally at odds with the principles and reality of land ownership by Aboriginal people;
• they were centralised and bureaucratic;
• council members were appointed by delegation from particular regions, charged with the final decisions on all land falling with the Land Council's region; and
• the delegates are not directly accountable to the land owners (von Sturmer 1981, 26).

Von Sturmer argued that the Aboriginal Land Rights Act recognises traditional ownership yet never confronts the difficult question of translating it into appropriate administrative machinery. As an alternative to the Land Council structures as they then existed (and continue to this day) von Sturmer proposed the following:

"The alternative direction would be to make the fact of ownership paramount; to allow decisions to be made locally; to provide structures - the associations being formed in the Alligator Rivers region would be appropriate - which could record and ratify these decisions; to create a Land Council which consisted of delegates from component associations (the real locus of field activities) whose only powers would be to report decisions made locally, and to discuss matters of general moment. In short, the Land Councils should be regionalised - not, as current developments within the Northern Land Council suggest, by delegation to regions (essentially by the appointment of field staff attached to regional offices the prime responsibility of which is to report to the central Bureau) but from regions. The Land Councils would continue to serve important functions: advice on request to the land owners and associations on the political, economic and other implications of matters about which they are required to make decisions; a court of appeal and redress for particular land owners or others dissatisfied with their treatment at the hands of the regional association; a forum for the discussion of long-term goals and objectives ... "(von Sturmer 1981, 26-27).

The final agreement

What is clear from the notes of the meetings and other documents obtained during the research for this report is that once the negotiations and consultations were underway (following the January Djarr Djarr meeting) the process really had only one logical conclusion: the approval of the agreement and the go ahead for mining at Jabiluka. When the agreement was finally signed the Chairman of the NLC, Gerry Blitner, was quoted as saying:

"Although the negotiating process has been a long one, it has reduced the pressure that has usually been associated with such negotiations on the traditional owners. Because of the fairness of the negotiations and the careful and delicate ways in which they have been handled, and the long and lasting benefit to the Aboriginal people, the NLC is proud to have been a part of them" (quoted in Niklaus 1982a, 6).

The Chairman pointed out that there had been 48 meetings with traditional owners during the 18 month period from the beginning of 1981.

"The Government wanted it that way so there would be no criticism that they’ve pushed mining without consulting with Aboriginal people" (quoted in Niklaus 1982a, 6).

The meetings were certainly very comprehensive and were very well documented. It seems that the main participants were conscious of the requirements imposed by amendments to the Aboriginal Land Rights Act in 1980. These amendments, which were previously discussed, meant that the Minister needed to be satisfied that the Land Council had sought and received proper instructions from the traditional owners and had acted in accordance with these instructions when it negotiated agreements on their behalf (see Senate Hansard 18 March 1982, 958). This ensured that any agreement entered into by the Land Council could not be invalidated by legal action against the Land Council because it had not properly undertaken its statutory functions under section 23. It appears that the extensive documentation of the meetings and other material was made available to the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, Ian Wilson, specifically to ensure that the mining agreement could not be challenged. The Minister stated:

"I have examined the extensive documentation submitted to me by the NLC recording the meetings held with Aboriginals who are the traditional owners of the Jabiluka project and with those groups who may be affected by the mining proposal. I have also examined detailed reports provided by officers of my department who were invited to observe certain key meetings held with the traditional owners and other Aboriginals with strong associations with the project area. My conclusion is that the NLC has fully met its obligations under the Aboriginal Land Rights Act" (quoted in Niklaus 1982a, 7).

There remains, however, a very serious matter whether the NLC actually received proper instructions at the meeting held at Djarr Djarr in January 1981 to negotiate a mining agreement for the Jabiluka project. The NLC certainly recorded that it received proper instructions and would have informed the Minister accordingly.

While the NLC and the Minister obviously believed that the process of consultations was handled well by the NLC (and they were certainly handled better than the Ranger consultations), there is still a view being expressed by Aboriginal people in the region today that the process resulted in a mining agreement for a mine that most of them did not, and still do not, want on their land. This view was expressed at the time by a number of people, including the Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies. The article by Niklaus also quotes from a NLC staff member who believed that the "seemingly endless stream of meetings" had a "totally divisive, fragmentary" effect on the Aboriginal communities (quoted in Niklaus 1982a, 6). The records of the meetings suggest, as one other person commented, that:

"A lot of meetings amount to pressure, out and out. It’s a long process - it’s a blitzkrieg towards the end. The old blokes have just been worn down" (quoted in Niklaus 1982a, 7).

The Opposition spokesperson at the time also raised this issue:

"Traditional owners I have met with do not perceive that they have any real choice about mining. They believe they will be harassed continually until they agree to mining. If as seems probable, the Jabiluka agreement is signed this week, it will not be because the aboriginal traditional owners really choose it, but rather because they see agreement as the only way out of a situation of intense and sustained pressure "(quoted in Niklaus 1982a, 7).

One set of the negotiators’ notes of the final session confirm this view: At the meeting on 29 June 1982 when the agreement was finalised Toby Gangale was quoted as having said:

"Eric, David, Phil, I myself am tired, everybody is tired, and everybody agrees we can go ahead" (page 46).

A final comment

The present owner of the Jabiluka mineral lease, ERA, has argued that it has a valid mining agreement with the NLC that was entered into in June 1982. The company has stated that even though it is aware that many Aboriginal people in the region today still object to mining at Jabiluka, including the senior traditional owner for the area, the agreement must stand. It is understandable that the company would seek to protect its commercial interests in this way.

The present Chairman of the Northern Land Council has stated publicly that the NLC will abide by the 1982 agreement. The NLC has refused to provide any substantive support to the traditional owners in their attempts to challenge the validity of the agreements and the project. As it did nearly twenty years ago, the NLC is arguing that it cannot challenge the agreement (morally or legally) because it will undermine the cause of Aboriginal land rights and the land councils in the wider Australian community.

Given the circumstances that led to the signing of that agreement, and the continuing pressure that has been applied on Aboriginal people to approve mining in this region, there is a very real issue about whether imposing this mine without the permission of the traditional owners will do anything other than contribute to the already obvious social and cultural distress being experienced by many Aboriginal people in the region.

References

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