Rachel Siewert (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I also rise to take note of the statement on developing northern Australia. I want to make a few remarks.

Last week, the Joint Standing Committee on Northern Australia was up in the Pilbara with regard to the Juukan Gorge destruction. I'm not going to comment on that, because that's the subject of a report that will be coming out in the next two weeks of sitting. However, it is related to why I want to comment on this statement. What's very significant about the statement is that, under 'Partnership with Indigenous Australians', it says:

Working in partnership with Indigenous Australians lies at the very heart of northern development.

What we heard about last week when we were talking to First Nations peoples, and, in fact, it's what we've heard when we've had other hearings in the Juukan Gorge inquiry, is the impact that mining is having on First Nations peoples in the Pilbara, on the traditional owners—their inability to get onto country. You've got First Nations peoples and traditional owners having to ask permission from mining companies just to go on a camping trip on country. They have to give the companies 48 hours notice, and then someone turns up with a key and lets them onto to their own country.

Last week, we heard that one of the Aboriginal corporations was spending 80 per cent of its revenue on governance. We delved further into that issue, and it's actually about mining and clearance, about heritage clearances for mining. So 80 per cent of the royalties that they get is spent facilitating mining on country that they have to ask permission to get onto now. So you have these mining companies and the government saying, 'Aboriginal organisations and First Nations peoples make money out of mining because they get royalties.' But here's this corporation having to spend its royalties to facilitate yet more mining, which will exclude them from more country. You've got First Nations people being denied access to important sites because there's rail access nearby, and therefore they can't enter that country—because of the rail easement going through. How is this 'working in partnership with Indigenous people'? It isn't.

Of course we all know about what happened to Juukan Gorge. We all know that there are 100 other sites that are currently covered by section 18 development applications. Many of them are in northern Australia. The government, both state and federal, is not doing anything to stop those section 18s going ahead. Yes, we have draft changes to the heritage act in Western Australia, but those sites are still under threat. So you have those sites under threat and, once you get a section 18, mining companies take them off their plans so they can't see them as a site anymore. You have people being denied access to their country more and more. That is not a partnership. That is continued occupation of land by mining companies and pastoralists. First Nations peoples come down the bottom when it comes to being able to get access to their land.

Things need to improve. We need to completely relook at how mining is allowed to occur on First Nations peoples' country so that they are not kept off that country. You can't even go for a camping trip. It is having an impact on people in the Pilbara. Go and talk to them. We need to acknowledge that this is not the way that we should be doing business in Western Australia or anywhere in the north of Australia. I seek leave to continue my remarks later.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.