All the rivers run red: McArthur River is sacred land.

All the rivers run red: the blood-soaked Gulf Country and its McArthur River is sacred land.

by Peter Jull

A river is a powerful presence to anyone who has grown up with it, its local culture and economy. It follows one around, lifelong. It runs through one’s being. The Aboriginal river land- and waterscapes of the southern and south-western Gulf of Carpentaria are powerfully evoked in the opening section of Alexis Wright’s new novel, Carpentaria. The book begins:

The ancestral serpent, a creature larger than storm clouds, came down from the stars, laden with its own creative enormity. It moved graciously … It came down those billions of years ago, to crawl on its heavy belly, all around the wet clay soils in the Gulf of Carpentaria.

There is no such lyricism or feeling in the minds of McArthur River Mining/Xstrata minions. Their December 2005 public relations ‘fact sheet’ on riverine environments begins:

As part of McArthur River Mining ’s Environmental Management Plan, regular tests are done of the riverine and marine environments. We respect that the river, ocean, and the plants and animals they harbour, are important for many reasons, including their significance to local Aboriginal people.

Including their significance for Aboriginal people? These fellows are also operating in a primeval world, at least politically, before a time of respect for indigenous culture and rights. They are certainly not fit people to be digging up the region, let alone the main river of the district, the McArthur a ‘realignment’, they call it. One must doubt the extent of their relations with the locals, a matter brushed off as more than sufficient by the CEO when the new mining plan was approved (ABC, 21 October 2006).

As McArthur region traditional owner Barbara McCarthy put it in a passionate speech as a member in the NT legislature:

The Yanyuwa, Garrwa, Mara and Kudanji peoples sit in the gallery here tonight. They sit here to support me in the struggles that I face, not only as the member for Arnhem, but also in my responsibilities as a traditional owner, recognised and accepted by my own people. The indigenous people of the Gulf have travelled here from Borroloola to protest the expansion of this mine on the steps of Parliament House this week…. I could not in all good conscience not do so for our people have lived in the region for thousands and thousands of years and struggled for the strong recognition of land rights in the Gulf, rights that were hard won after 30 years and only handed back four months ago; rights that were fought for by people who have long since passed and who no longer walk this earth, but live through the hearts of their descendants. … Their concerns expand far wider than the Gulf country–concerns about water and how water is life. The indigenous people who are here in this parliament are troubled by the water crises they see right across Australia. Australia is looking to the north to resolve a growing water crisis in our eastern and southern states, and yet my people are very worried at the potential risk to one of our greatest waterways here in the Northern Territory.

As she says, governments who have presided over the disaster of Australia’s water supplies are hardly to be trusted. But the Prime Minister bullied the NT premier, Clare Martin, into a deal full of holes and corporate issues, while the national environment minister fell into line:

Senator Campbell says Indigenous people’s concerns about the diversion of the river are a matter for the Northern Territory Government…. Senator Campbell says he looked strictly at issues of national environmental concern.’ (ABC, 20 October 2006).

That’s one for the books!

Jacqui Katona, who led the successful battle against the Jabiluka Mine west and north of the Gulf Country, and Murrandoo Yanner, brought to public note by his spokesmanship and leadership in relation to the Lawn Hill and Century issues in the Gulf Country in the 1990s–a subject for which Carpentaria is in part a roman a clef, launched the book in Brisbane. They were angry. Murrandoo laid into modern-day Jackie-Jackies, naming names, and into the Prime Minister’s hand-picked black advisory group. Murrandoo said that the Gulf Country was still the land of his and related peoples, and that they would not be managed by white governments and developers. One hopes he is right.

The federal government’s delusions about a brave new indigenous policy don’t even begin to recognise indigenous political rights or imperatives. What are we to make of federal pretensions, as in Australian Financial Review (‘Brough leads indigenous rethink’, 6 October 2006), when we read:

Indigenous affairs is rapidly becoming the crucible for a new approach to social policy and service delivery by the federal government. It is all about … the way Australian society sees its responsibilities towards its citizens.

Yes, much better some clear and appropriate anger than this foolishness.

My own river, the Ottawa, was the centre of the Algonkin people’s world; indeed, its watershed was their political and cultural region. It became a crucial economic thoroughfare of empire, first French, then British, from the early 1600s, with the fur trade and later the timber trade. Not for nothing, the song beginning ‘Was you ever in Quebec?/Bonny laddie, Highland laddie,/ Loading timber on the deck …’ was a favourite on the bagpipes as the Black Watch and others marched against the Americans and other Bad People around the world in the glory days of Empire, and since.

If ever there was a blood-soaked landscape it is the Gulf Country and its McArthur River. Days before she approved the McArthur mine, Northern Territory premier Clare Martin awarded the NT history prize to Tony Roberts’ Frontier Justice. She presumably had not yet read it. Its ‘fresh perspective’–her words–are an unrelenting documentation of genocide–blood and mud–of the peoples, and their survivors, in the Gulf Country. If Gallipoli is a sacred landscape for Australians, this is even more so.

This article has been borrowed from Arena publications – a worthy addition to anyones reading list http://www.arena.org.au/index.html

Peter Jull is Adjunct Associate Professor, Australian Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies (ACPACS), University of Queensland. 
  
 
 

Barbara McCarthy

Barbara is a Yanyuwa woman, she is pictured below speaking to her people outside the Northern Territory (NT) Parliament House. Barbara is also a member of the NT Government that approved the mine. Underneath her picture is the text from her speech to Parliament on the 16th October 2006.

Ms McCARTHY (Arnhem): Mr Acting Speaker, I rise tonight to speak on our government’s decision to allow the expansion of Xstrata’s McArthur River Mine. It is a decision that I have greeted with respect towards my colleagues for the many difficult and controversial aspects of the decision, not just for the mines minister, Chris Natt, but also the environment minister, Marion Scrymgour, and local member for Borroloola and Minister Assisting the Chief Minister on Indigenous Affairs, Elliot McAdam.

Tonight, I speak for the voices of my people, Yanyuwa, Garrwa, Mara and Kudanji peoples. I share with this House the spiritual aspect of the indigenous people’s protest against our government’s decision. The Yanyuwa, Garrwa, Mara and Kudanji peoples sit in the gallery here tonight. They sit here to support me in the struggles that I face, not only as the member for Arnhem, but also in my responsibilities as a traditional owner, recognised and accepted by my own people.

The indigenous people of the Gulf have travelled here from Borroloola to protest the expansion of this mine on the steps of Parliament House this week. They have done so with great dignity. It is important to me to share with the Parliament the meaning behind the distinguished and dignified protest. I could not in all good conscience not do so for our people have lived in the region for thousands and thousands of years and struggled for the strong recognition of land rights in the Gulf, rights that were hard won after 30 years and only handed back four months ago; rights that were fought for by people who have long since passed and who no longer walk this earth, but live through the hearts of their descendants.

My people travelled the 1000 kilometres to have their voices and their songs heard outside this Parliament, the place that we all know as the House of law. My people have brought with them the laws, songs that have been sung for thousands of years. These songs have been passed down, telling the Rainbow Serpent Kudanji the song lines of the McArthur River. The people of Groote Eylandt and Numbulwar in my electorate of Arnhem share the Kurkarduku, the Brolga song, with the Borroloola region.

Our peoples are connected through those song lines and have been for centuries. So important are these songs that the families from the Gulf have travelled here to the Parliament. For the first time in the history of our people, they sat outside and sang in a different land, in the land of the Larrakia, Mr Acting Speaker – not in the land of the Garrwa, or the Kudanji or Mara or Yanyuwa; they sing here, on the land of the Larrakia outside this Parliament, the law makers.

Tonight I am conveying their feelings to the parliament. Every day this week, my grandfather, Gordon Lanson, and my brother Harry Lanson, have sung the Kujika of the Rainbow Serpent and how it rests in the McArthur River where the diversion is to take place. They are worried the Rainbow Serpent will now be cut. Every day my brother, Phillip Timothy, has spoken strongly with my sisters, (inaudible) Timothy, Marlene (inaudible), (inaudible) Roberts, Flora Roberts, Sadie Miller and my mothers, (inaudible) Friday, Maisie and Miriam Charley, Cheryl Connolly and Chloe, my grandmothers Amie Friday, (inaudible) Miller, (inaudible) Norman, Hazel Shadforth and Una Harvey and my aunty Mavis Timothy have sung these songs. Every day they have sat outside of this parliament singing, hoping and praying that the spirituality of our people and the importance of that spirit and relationship to country would be respected here in this House of law.

We in this Assembly must reciprocate such genuine respect given to us by the indigenous people of the Gulf, by not just listening to their story but in understanding their concerns, for these songs are songs about the river and country surrounding the McArthur River Mine, one of the world’s largest lead and zinc deposits. This Kudanji sung this week expresses the deep concern the indigenous people of the Gulf region have, not only for the waters of the McArthur, but also the rivers that flow into it, the Carrington and the Crooked Rivers. The rivers that flow out to the sea of the Yanyula into The Sir Edward Pellew Group of Islands in the Gulf of Carpentaria.

Their concerns expand far wider than the Gulf country – concerns about water and how water is life. The indigenous people who are here in this parliament are troubled by the water crises they see right across Australia. Australia is looking to the north to resolve a growing water crisis in our eastern and southern states, and yet my people are very worried at the potential risk to one of our greatest waterways here in the Northern Territory. They do not understand what they see as a contradiction here. The Murray/Darling has become so dried up the farmers are looking to the north for help. When the Prime Minister says to the whole of the country that we are facing a water crisis, reminding all Australians that we must look at our usage of water. A Prime Minister who, at the same time, urges our government to do something to our waterways, something to our waterways that is affecting the very heart of the people who sit in the galleries here today, and who have sat in the galleries here every day, wanting to remind us to stir our consciences and make us think that water is life.

How is it that our brothers and sisters in the southern states are struggling so deeply with the waters. I think of the Wilton and the Roper in my seat of Arnhem, and I wonder about the Daly and the Katherine and the Elizabeth, about all our rivers. It is a worry that all indigenous people have for country, for land.

I cannot stress enough to this House of the spiritual and cultural significance of why the Yanyuwa, Garrwa, Mara and Gurandji peoples have travelled here asking us – pleading with us – to listen to them. As a Yanyuwa woman, I believe strongly in those same things. I say to my countrymen of all the four clans: I support you, I understand and I respect your right to be heard. I stand with you in your concerns about the development of the traditional lands of our people.

I would be failing in my duty to not only my people but also to the people of Arnhem Land whose culture is strong and whose song lines mix with the Yanyuwa, the Garrwa, the Mara and the Gurandji, and who would say to me: ‘How can you represent us if you cannot represent you own people?’ That is why I speak here tonight, so my colleagues will understand and see the struggles, not only from an economic point of view but from a social, environmental, spiritual and cultural points of view. Understand that it has been a long journey for these old people. What they ask is your respect – they have shown you every single day. The traditional owners feel as though they have been left on the sidelines. I ask all the members of this House: what have you done this week to talk to them, sit with them, to ask them what troubles them? Are they so insignificant? Can you not ask them why they have travelled so far?

They do not want the river diverted, and I stand here in this House and relay this message to my colleagues. The water crisis is such that it disturbs greatly the indigenous people of the Gulf region. While I acknowledge the difficulty as a government in making the decisions, of the Mines minister, the Environment Minister, and the local member, I respect the difficulties of your decision and I ask you to respect the difficulty of mine.

Though the traditional owners do not want the river move and they worry for the river, they have always said that they are not against mining. There is a great tradition in the Labor Party to look after the battlers. My people here today are the battlers. Let them be heard and listened to. I also ask that Xstrata Zinc’s Chief Executive Officer, Santiago Zaldumbide, meet with the traditional owners. I ask that the Commonwealth Environment minister, Senator Campbell, meet with them and listen to the traditional owners and their representatives, and to allow time for the negotiation. Listen to the traditional owners; they do not want the river moved.

My people are a strong people who have great pride and resilience. They sit here in the gallery to remind the members in this Assembly of what is really important. They bring their message that water is life, through their songs and displayed in the T-shirts that they wear. As the wheels of government chug along and issues are debated across the floor of this House, the indigenous people of the Gulf region now know that you now know how important water is. That no amount of money, can ever compensate for the lack of it.

mcarthur river   xstrata   northern territory   yanyuwa

Map of McArthur River

A blog reader suggested that a map showing where the McArthur River is would be good. I am posting the map below while I try and find clearer one, or better still an interactive map… 

About – Don’t muck up the McArthur

The Northern Territory (NT) and Australian Governments recently approved the expansion of the McArthur River mine. The expansion involves the mining of the existing river bed via a massive open-pit mine and the construction of a new 5.5km channel. 

The proposal will potentially have serious, long term and irreversible impacts on the McArthur River – a major tropical river in the NT’s Gulf region – including the effects of sedimentation and heavy metal pollution on the river and on the rich downstream marine environments of the Gulf of Carpentaria. There is evidence the new mine would also harm the survival prospects of the McArthur River’s population of the IUCN Red Book ‘critically endangered’  Freshwater sawfish.

The River is extremely important to the four Indigenous language groups that share and live along the River, the Gurdanji, Mara, Garrawa and Yanyuwa. In recent months the groups have become increasingly united and vocal in their opposition, not to the mine, but to the river being moved. They feel they have been ignored and left out of an approval process that had no respect for their culture and spiritual connection with the land and river – what they describe as their gudgiga – their songs and stories. 

Unfortunately, both governments, whilst acknowledging concerns, have chosen to approve the proposal on the grounds that any issues can be managed. The Traditional Owners reject this, as to move the River would effect their dreamtime stories (spiritual link with country). Environmentally we reject it, due to the lack of evidence supporting the proponents claims and the high and catastrophic nature of the risk involved in diverting a tropical river.

The current campaign is essentially a pro-river campaign with the main objective being to stop the 5.5km diversion of the McArthur River. The campaign has been a joint effort between environment groups and the Traditional Owners from the area. The focus to date has been on the proposal assessment process and lobbying both Northern Territory and Australian Governments to reject the application to mine on environmental and cultural grounds.  The Traditional Owners are challening both the NT and Australian Governments decisions to approve the mine.

Have a look at the blog. Comment. Act.