Tuesday, 29 May, 2007

by Lindsay Murdoch
The Age

THE Northern Land Council plans to broker a meeting between Rio Tinto and indigenous owners of Jabiluka, reviving hopes of reopening the $50 billion uranium deposit in the Kakadu National Park.

Norman Fry, chief executive of the council, which represents Aboriginal groups in northern Australia, has declined to pre-empt the outcome of the meeting even though the Mirarr traditional owners said last week their approval for a mine was "not forthcoming".

Asked about the possibility of the Mirarr reversing their opposition, Mr Fry said: "We will be sitting down with Rio Tinto and the Mirarr in the not too distant future and that particular issue will be fleshed out."

Mr Fry made the comments last Friday on the sidelines of a full council meeting of the NLC at a bush site at Gulkula near Nhulunbuy in Arnhem Land, but they have not been made public until now.

Mirarr elders last week reacted angrily to comments made in London by Rio's chief executive, Preston Chiaro, that there was good reason to believe Mirarr senior elder Yvonne Margarula would soon say yes to the development of the mine.

The Mirarrs Gundjeihmi Aboriginal Corporation later issued a statement scathing of Rio's comments, which caused the share price of its subsidiary Energy Resources of Australia to fall 5 per cent.

Gundjeihmi late last week withdrew from training and cultural development projects with ERA, which also operates the Ranger uranium mine on Mirarr land in Kakadu, 20 kilometres south of the abandoned Jabiluka site.

The pro-nuclear NLC appears certain to try to influence Ms Margarula and other Mirarr to agree to develop Jabiluka, the world's largest known untapped uranium deposit.

The Mirarr could negotiate a multimillion-dollar royalty stream from the mine.

But Ms Margarula has for years strongly opposed its development, telling a federal parliamentary inquiry two years ago that uranium mining had "completely upturned our lives, bringing greater access to alcohol and many arguments between Aboriginal people, mostly about money".

Under a long-term care and maintenance agreement between the Mirarr, ERA and the NLC, Jabiluka cannot be developed without the written approval of the traditional owners.

The NLC spent two years secretly negotiating for Aboriginal land near Tennant Creek to be developed as Australia's first national nuclear waste dump.

The meeting in Gulkula last week formally nominated the site to the Federal Government under a deal that would see the Ngapa traditional owners receive $12 million for giving up their land for up to 200 years.

Mr Fry said on Friday that "uranium mining goes hand in glove with the Land Rights Act", and made clear that the NLC would push for more uranium mines on Aboriginal land in northern Australia. He said the need to stop emission polluting would see the "whole globe going down this track".

Also speaking on the sidelines of the Gulkula meeting, NLC chairman John Daly said that Aboriginal people wanted and were ready to do business on their land, including uranium mining.

"We need an economy out here so our kids can get something out of it," Mr Daly said.

"We send our kids to boarding school and things like that. But what hope have they got? The poor little buggers come out here and you can't offer them anything.

"So now is the time to build a discrete economy for our people and the cattlemen out here who are really, really struggling."

Work at Jabiluka stopped in the late 1990s after an eight-month blockage. Ms Margarula was among protesters who were arrested near the site.