Adam Bandt (Melbourne, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Back in 2010 a group of traditional owners wrote to this parliament saying:

We are the Traditional Owners of the Manuwangku/Warlmanpa Land Trust who do not want the nuclear waste dump.We are the nguramala from the land. The people from the land.

…   …   …

You are a new parliament for Australia. We are asking that you give us a new start as Aboriginal people who are being threatened with this nuclear waste dump.

There is a bill that will soon come before this parliament, the National Radioactive Waste Management Bill. It will target our land for the waste dump.

We are the Aboriginal people who own the land and the dreamings you are talking about. We are asking that you reject this bill and scrap Muckaty as a site for the waste dump.

The last two governments didn't listen to us—you must be different. We have been fighting for the last five years to say we don't want the waste dump in the land.

We are again inviting Minister Martin Ferguson and all members of the new parliament to come down and face us in our own country. Come and sit with us and hear the stories from the land.

And they wrote more. And it was my privilege to attach that letter to a dissenting report that was tabled in the parliament when the House committee that inquired into the matter refused to hear any evidence from the traditional owners.

The former minister, Martin Ferguson, refused to even go and sit down with the people on whose land they were about to impose a nuclear waste dump. Well, my colleague Senator Scott Ludlam met with them. My other Senate colleagues met with them. I met with them. I still have, in pride of place in my office, a sticker from their campaign saying 'No Nuclear Waste Dump on Our Land'. What became very apparent from meeting these traditional owners was that they had a fire burning deep within and such an amazing connection with their land and their country that they were not going to stop until the nuclear waste dump was removed from their land. Even as Labor and Liberals tried to close the door on them and stop them coming to this parliament to present their case, they fought and they took the matter to court. They should not have had to. The parliament should have listened. But they took the matter to court.

Today they have been vindicated because the Federal Court has been told that the waste dump will now no longer go ahead. One of the traditional owners, Lorna Fejo, said she had fought hard to protect the land for her children and grandchildren:

My grandmother gave me that land in perfect condition, and other lands to my two brothers, who are now deceased. It was our duty to protect that land and water because it was a gift from my grandmother to me.

She said she was now able to pass it on in perfect condition to those who come after her.

This is a tribute to people with determination standing up for their country and a sign that, even when the majority of this parliament joins together to try and lock them out, people can win. I want to congratulate the many, many people who have been involved with this, in particular the Muckaty mob: Dianne Stokes, Kylie Sambo, Aunty Bunny Naparula, Mark Lane Jangala, Ronald Brown, Lorna Fejo, Dick Foster, Donna Jackson, Mitch, and all their families and supporters and the people of Tennant Creek and the Barkly Region. I also thank all those who assisted them: Nat Wasley, Dave Sweeney, Jim Green, Helen Caldicott, Leanne Minshull, Michael Fonda, Hillary Tyler, Justin Tutty, Cat Beaton, Lauren Mellor, Dimity Hawkins, Felicity Ruby, Jagath Dheerasekara, Ellie Gilbert, the Jumbunna Indigenous House of Learning, Rod Lucas and Peter Sutton. Again, I want to thank the people who supported them: Unions NT, the ACTU, the MUA and the ETU.

They were ably assisted by a fantastic legal team: Lizzie O'Shea and Ron Merckel, whom I am proud to know well and who have stood up for justice and won, George Newhouse, Mark Cowan, Steven Lennard and David Yarrow. It is important to acknowledge as well that there were in fact a number of Labor members who stood with the community, including local MPs Gerry McCarthy, Elliot Macadam and Nova Peris. Perhaps there were others as well.

We turned our backs on these people in this parliament, but they fought on. I am so proud to have met these people who have campaigned and won. Planning to stick a nuclear waste dump on the land of people who need our assistance and help, treating it just as a place to dump nuclear toxic refuse, will be to the eternal shame of this parliament. We failed to stand up for these people. I am so pleased they have won. I want to pay particular tribute to my colleague Senator Scott Ludlam, who has worked tirelessly to support this community. It shows what happens when Greens in parliament and people of goodwill stand together and side by side with a community.