Opposition is mounting against a proposal to site a national radioactive dump at Muckaty Station in the Northern Territory despite the Northern Land Council (NLC) insisting it has the support of traditional owners. Meetings, protests and angry statements have been the fall-out since a recent announcement by Federal Resources Minister Martin Ferguson that the Rudd government was introducing legislation to repeal the former Howard government’s Radioactive Waste Management Act.

Mr Ferguson said that, under the new legislation, the government would press ahead with considering the Muckaty site offered by the Ngapa people.

The NLC welcomed the announcement that the Muckaty site nomination would be preserved. NLC representatives and a number of Ngapa people met with Mr Ferguson in Darwin earlier this month to again convey their support for the project.

United

Muckaty Station Ngapa traditional owner Amy Lauder said the Ngapa clan was united in its decision to volunteer the land as a potential site. However, at a meeting later in Tennant Creek that night, none of the 100 people who attended supported the dump proposal at Muckaty.

Greens Senator Scott Ludlam said Aboriginal people should not be forced to trade their country for housing and education. He was referring to a $12 million deal signed between Ngapa people and the former Howard government, although the NLC has indicated it would renegotiate that deal if the proposal proceeds.

“The government is dangling a very small amount of money in the scheme of things to trade off their country – it’s completely inappropriate,” Senator Ludlam said. “It’s extremely sad and the government is exploiting (Aborigines) as they’ve done in the Territory and around the country for years to split families apart from each other, offering small cash handouts and housing.”

Central Land Council (CLC) director David Ross also said the Muckaty site should not be imposed on the community.

Mr Ross said Muckaty, north of Tennant Creek, was outside the Central Land Council’s region, but some traditional owners of that site lived in the CLC’s area.

“We have had representations from people who are opposed to the nomination of Muckaty and I can only urge the Minister and the NLC to now deal with the process under section 19 of the Aboriginal Land Rights Act, which will ensure that a proper process is followed,” Mr Ross said.

“An outcome forced on a divided group will entrench divisions and lead to on-going disputation and social problems. This is certainly not best practice for site selection of radioactive facilities.”

In a statement from the Alyawarra walk-off camp, spokesman Richard Downs launched a direct attack on NLC Chief Executive Kim Hill and his assertion that consultation had been carried out with traditional owners of Muckaty Station.

“Yet there are other Aboriginal leaders, Elders and family’s voices who are against the proposal not being heard,” Mr Downs said. “They have been completely shut out of any consultation.

“The Land Council should be aware all lands are shared and managed in a way with other clan family groups... the land is not only connected and managed by a particular traditional owner, but through country, dreaming, spirituality. It is part of the extended network of family group lines.

“You and your organisation should be embarrassed hiding behind legislation that suspends the Aboriginal Land Rights Act (1976).”

The NLC has said that while five different clan groups lay claim over various dreaming sites on Muckaty Station, the four-square- kilometre parcel of land that has been volunteered for the dump belongs to the Ngapa people.

More criticism

Meanwhile, the government’s announcement also drew fire from anti-nuclear groups, which have staged a series of protests. Beyond Nuclear Initiative (BNI) spokeswoman Natalie Wasley said the government’s new legislation failed to restore fundamental rights suspended by the former Howard government’s legislation.

The new laws can be used to impose a nuclear waste dump in the NT against the wishes of both Aboriginal landholders and the NT Government,” Ms Wasley said.

“Under Minister Ferguson’s legislation, site nominations by land councils will remain legitimate, even if their consultation process has not complied with the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act 1976,” she said.

“Minister Ferguson has the power to ride roughshod over all State and Territory laws, along with Aboriginal heritage protection and environmental protection legislation when establishing a dump.”

“Thuggish”

Meanwhile, the Friends of the Earth national nuclear campaigner Dr Jim Green described Mr Ferguson’s legislation as “thuggish”.

“Mr Ferguson falsely claims his plan to dump at Muckaty Station in the NT has the ‘continuing support of the Ngapa clan’ although he well knows that 25 Ngapa traditional owners and 32 other Muckaty traditional owners have written to him opposing the dump,” Dr Green said.

The Intervention Rollback Action Group in Alice Springs also slammed the announcement, and protested outside Lingiari MP Warren Snowdon’s office.

Campaigner Barbara Shaw said Labor’s pre-election platform was clear in its support for land rights, yet policies associated with the NT Intervention, and now the waste dump, ignored those rights.

“No other group of people in Australia would be treated this way,” Ms Shaw said.

“The Ministers sitting in Canberra are not the ones who are going to be poisoned by this. Their kids are not the ones who are going to get cancer. They have no idea how we still live off our land.”

Ms Shaw said Article 29 of the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which the Rudd government has endorsed, clearly prohibited the imposition of toxic waste onto Indigenous land without consent.