Extract from The Guardian
Wangan and Jagalingou opponents, who
say project would override native title on most of their land,
dispute Queensland mining minister’s approval of leases
Adrian
Burragubba, spokesperson for the Wangan and Jagalingou traditional
owners’ council, criticised Adani’s chairman for ignoring the
traditional owners’ request to meet during his Australian visit.
Photograph: Dan Peled/AAP
Wednesday
7 December 2016 13.19 AEDT
Traditional
owners have launched a fresh legal challenge to Adani’s proposed
Carmichael mine, declaring they would go all the way to the high
court to stand as the last “line of defence” against the
contentious project.
Wangan
and Jagalingou opponents of the mine on Tuesday went to
the Queensland court
of appeal to dispute the state mining minister’s approval of
Adani’s mining leases.
In
launching their fourth simultaneous legal challenge to a project that
would override native title on most of their country, the Wangan and
Jagalingou traditional owners’ council criticised Adani group
chairman Gautam Adani for ignoring their request to meet during his
Australian visit to promote the mine.
Spokesman
Adrian Burragubba said the council was “offended that Mr Adani
failed to even acknowledge our concerns”.
“But
the offence is minor compared to the way Adani mining and the
Queensland government have treated us and our rights,” he said.
“Not
once have they had the decency to speak to us as they plan their
takeover and destruction of our ancestral lands and waters.
“Every
step of the way they have undermined us, opposed us and attempted to
coerce us into accepting a pittance for relinquishing our native
title.”
The
group’s lawyers in the appeal court will argue the Queensland
resources minister, Anthony Lynham, denied them natural justice by
obtaining information from his department on native title issues
outside the objection process to issue the leases.
They
argue Lynham did so without giving them the chance to respond and
before a land use deal between Adani and supporters of the mine
within the Wangan and Jagalingou, which
is being separately contested.
Lynham
also did not wait for the outcome of a federal court judicial review
on whether the National Native Title Tribunal (NNTT) was right to
allow the Queensland government to issue mining leases after the
Wangan and Jagalingou claim group rejected a deal with Adani in 2014,
they argue.
The
government argues the Mineral Resources Act does not afford natural
justice, in line with an earlier finding by federal court judge John
Bond.
The
council’s solicitor, Colin Hardie, claimed there were “reasonable
grounds” to argue a denial of natural justice by Lynham in issuing
the leases.
Hardie
said the group was also “very concerned about the conduct of Adani
mining”, which this year gained for the first time the support of a
slim majority of Wangan and Jagalingou native title applicant members
for a crucial Indigenous land use agreement.
“There
appears to be a very deliberate attempt to engineer an ‘agreement’
to promote their interests at the expense of the rights and land of
the traditional owners,” Hardie said.
The
Wangan and Jagalingou council also filed an objection this week to
the NNTT’s registration of an Indigenous land use agreement
authorising the mine, flagging a federal court bid for an injunction.
Wangan
and Jagalingou opponents of the Adani mine are also trying
in the federal court to have their native title applicant group
changed, which would swing the balance of the 12-member claim
group back in opposition to the mine.
The
argue a claim group meeting in March saw four families vote to remove
their representatives because of dealings with Adani, including
discreet payments.
Wangan
and Jagalingou supporters of the Adani mine contest the legitimacy of
the March meeting, saying their own subsequent meeting in April
overrode any of its actions and authorised a land use deal with
Adani.
Wangan
and Jagalingou mine opponents, in their objection to the NNTT’s
registration of the Indigenous land use agreement, have argued “the
meeting that purported to authorise the agreement [was] ‘a sham’”.
They
have filed materials to argue the meeting was “composed of a
‘rent-a-crowd’ of persons who had never previously identified as
Wangan and Jagalingou”.
They
have flagged also taking out an injunction against the NNTT’s
approval of the Indigenous land use agreement.
Wangan
and Jagalingou youth leader Murrawah Johnson said the council had
“vowed to do everything in our power to stop the mine proceeding,
and we will take our concerns to the high court if necessary”.
“We
are not easily intimidated. We will fight this mine until Mr Adani
and his people pack their bags and head home,” Johnson said.
Human
rights lawyer Benedict Coyne is handling the fourth legal action by
the mine opponents, a separate federal court appeal against justice
John Reeve’s ruling that the state government could issue mining
leases over the W&J’s 2014 rejection of a deal with Adani.
Coyne
said that case would “test what we see as profound deficiencies in
the way the native title system can allow companies and governments
to force traditional owners to accept outcomes they do not want”.
“Too
often the native title process works to dispossess Aboriginal people
of their land and rights, rather than deliver a just settlement,”
Coyne said.
Burragubba
said the group was “constructing a legal line of defence because
the Queensland government and Adani are trying to bulldoze us aside”.
“We
are acting in the courts to stop this destructive project. Our
people, the Australian community, and the world deserve better than
this cavalier, unjust and outdated approach to our shared future.”
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