The Kokatha [Maduwonga] have issued the following STATEMENT re: BHP Billiton & South Australian Native Title
Dear Media Editors;
Kokatha Elders have denied their signatures to BHP Billiton for both an open cut and an expansion.
“Kokatha denounced Native Title who are not appointed to speak for Kokatha or their lands. The Native Title process is not recognised by the Kokatha,” Isabel Dingaman, a Senior Elder of the Kokatha.
“Native Title have been notified of the above in writing and continue to work with mining companies and “people” claiming to be related to Kokatha. A meeting was held on the 14th December 2008 with participants allegedly willing to accept payment for Kokatha Land use.
“Native Title are working with self-appointed spokespersons, young elders, a variety of “traditional owners” and “lawmakers” with vague genealogies. Already, documents on behalf of Kokatha appear to be incorrect. The Native Title process is a vexation to the Kokatha”.
“Native Title, acting on behalf of their government and mining companies are not dealing with descendents of Kokatha Lawmakers. They are dealing with sons of white fathers or sons of indians and not chiefs”.
“Kokatha’s geneology follows our great, great grand-father’s ancestoral line in Aboriginal culture. A deceased Aranda grandmother has been introduced into Kokatha lineage which cheats our culture in favour of BHP Billiton. This is not our custom and is not acceptable”, said Isabel Dingaman for the Kokatha”.
“Individuals who attempt to sign on Kokatha lands are not descendants of the historic Lawmakers. “The legitimacy of any “workarounds” is disputed by the traditional Kokatha. For many decades Kokatha have sought that the original terms of the “no open cut requirement”, be adhered to”.
“It is well documented that the Kokatha have opposed the open cut and expansion since time immemorial. These were the wishes of our grandfathers and father, who specified, no open cut was to take place. Kokatha will continue to uphold these laws”.
“Defiance of our wishes and cultural impropriety on our lands is not acceptable to the Kokatha”.
“The Native Title process, recently slated as needing an overhaul is an unneccesary organisation”, said Ms Dingaman. “They have nothing to do with us. ‘Choose your preference black fellow, go that way and take nothing with you’. Custodians do not ‘sell-out’ ancestoral lands”.
“The Kokatha are sovereigns of this land and will choose how we speak. We will speak in public”.
“No more secret meetings. We will now discuss in the open, in front of the people, Ms Dingaman stated”.
Kokatha claim that Native Title have attempted to alter tradition and have published maps with reduced boundaries and obtained signatures for mining companies which will benefit their government’s nuclear projects.
“Native Title “materialised” 15 years ago after the Mabo success”, Ms Dingaman stated.
“We the Kokatha have never “offered” our land to mining companies or other projects. Our great, great grandfather once trusted the smooth tongued men. His sons and their son’s and children then suffered at Maralinga”.
“Maralinga, was our lesson and is a prime example of reckless and long term environmental damage sustained to aboriginal lands and people, including your own white communities. Native Title have no authority to attempt alteration of our history, geneology or land areas. “The horror that followed Maralinga has not been forgotten by the Kokatha and we remain united.” The descendents of the Lawmakers will never sign”.
Ms Dingaman warns communities using underground water for drinking to insist on RADON testing now, before it is too late.
“We have suffered radiation poisoning and do not wish to see other innocent people subjected to this slow genocide and terminal illnesses”.
Ms. Dingaman says she doesn’t believe there is any more respect for white people than there is for the aborigines. “We believe this water is contaminated and everyone has a right to legitimate testing”.
“What do these people expect after Maralinga and now three uranium mines operating near them”, Ms Dingaman said, Radon tests must be made public.
“You ignore poisons being leached into the waterways because it’s invisible. You need to demand tests independently or you and your children can become sick as we did.”
“Your governments thirst for nuclear and power has stolen this country’s water. They are out of control and you must speak up and demand that this madness stops.”
Isabelle Dingaman (Senior Elder) on behalf of Kokatha
Filed under: INDIGENOUS NEWS | Tagged: bhp billiton, Dingaman, great artesian basin, Indigenous Land Use Agreement, mining, native title, nuclear waste, olympic dam, roxby downs, roxby expansion, south australia, underground water
Thanks Isabelle for speaking with integrity and clarity on behalf of Kokatha.
This needs to be read which I am sure it will by the board and shareholders of BHP, and the state and federal governments. 2008 was a year of hollow Rudd rhetoric and for what reason he made a statement of sorrow one can only guess, when policies against people black and white are now as common as they were in the days of the White Australia Policy. What government turns a blind eye to the atrocious and planet poisoning activities of these now global corporations? The Rann and Rudd governments do, but now even BHP shareholders are aghast at how far the executive will execute in the name of more cheap profits.
Its reassuring to hear that Kokatha are exposing the real nature of the Native Title Act, an act which has been designed from the outset to fast-trek corporate profits and divide and poison communities. This act is an atrocious attack on the indigenous people of Australia and will one day be relegated to the sad and sorry pages of our ongoing colonial and conquistorial style history. A land and materials grab which has murdered, raped, and poisoned many a nation of people on this continent.
The reality is that sanctioned poisoning of the land and people is occuring today as it has been occuring for many decades. As there is ample well documented evidence of this, it has dire implications for the encumbent politicians who are representing not the people of Australia, but the shareholders of many a corporation. These politicians are acting as despot leaders in the name of a global stupidity and greed – its time for Australians to wake up to the fact that we are not living in a democracy. What sort of democracy poisons its people and the land in which they live?
Well done Isabelle, its most definitely time for Australians to demand an end to this madness.
So what you’re saying here, is that Native Title don’t like to take no for an answer? Weren’t they part of the Aboriginal Legal Rights Movement? Sounds pretty standard. There are more do-gooder organisations living off the blackfellows than there are aborigines.
I think you should stick to your guns. If the agreement was no open cut then how come they got one? What BHP wants, Bhp gets. The goverment will just give it to them even it it ain’t theres.
It’s not like we can’t see what’s happening. We pretty much know the score with Australia anyway. Just waiting for “them” to come clean. The whole countrys a mess, physically and mentally.
Shake these losers up a bit you guys. Bout time you got a break and stopped feeding these wankers.
Native Title is a YES to mining and development with political correctness built in. In the short review I did – (hire a QC, legal counsel, a quantum physicist, and a psychologist if you want a complete dissection) – any blockages or painful holdups are covered at the very end of the Act (The final Act you might say) via the fast-trek clause. Yes, its a billion dollar industry to boot which any act to protect aboriginal interests should never have been allowed/designed to become. Plenty of people you may have noticed a calling for a review – but in fact it needs to repealed and removed..and we need a constitution which says no to any legislation which compromises the environment, the land and the people within – as Isabel says whether they be whitefella or blackfella every person should be afforded these basic protections from over zealous companies that have too much unsavoury and secret access to the corridors of power. Yes, nicely stated Isabelle may your people prosper in the light of the lore and the lessons of the land and the spirit within.
Human Rights were saying Native Title needs an overhaul, though it makes you wonder if they have to put at least one of those standard media statements out once per year in order to stay in a certain wage bracket.
There doesn’t seem to be a simple answer to what Native Title really is unless you have a law degree and some. Isabelle seems to have it well covered. Anything so complicated needs burning.
Personally I’d be more concerned about the water aspect. These people know their country and know when it’s not well and we keep hearing how sick it all is. If anyone knows where to get a Radon testing kit from, would be interested to know.
Seems like there is a lot of things we haven’t seen much of. What’s in the water after Maralinga would be an interesting one to harp on. Our oldies used to get kits a few times a year after Maralinga, but they said no results came back to them. Interesting. You’d think the powers that be, would love to brag about an all clear set of tests on our drinking water in Adelaide.
About time someone questioned this ludicrous one way system. I’d be holding my ground too. We hear this everywhere and certainly look forward to seeing a more open approach to Native Title in the media.
Although, what media are we really talking about here? It’s all controlled. Not as much deep digging these days. Too many people on the stock exchange with the wrong focus.
Imagine trying to tell aborigines that they don’t know their own history. Its pathetic.
In anycase this affects white Australia too. If it’s any consolation Isabelle, they don’t think we need to know anything either. My guess is this is about to all change.
This is the year when we will make and implement all the major long term decisions that are going to safeguard and equip Britain properly for the future…….the government is expected to give the go-ahead for a new generation of nuclear power stations, despite opposition from environmentalists and some members of Brown’s Labour Party.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/2678193.cms
This Message is given for all those supporting The Kokatha Nation and many Indigenous Nations of Australia for all Cultures . The wisdom of those who are speaking on behalf of the true leadership of those that hold the Earth Wisdom and Knowledge. Prophecy mentions their would be many false leaders and prophets speaking on behalf greed and materialism.
Message Given From a Conglomeration Of ALL ANCIENT ONES
BlueThunder, Eastern Shoshone Nation Messenger, Wind River, Wyoming, USA
A message from America for Isabelle Dingaman.
Truly wonderful news indeed. It is said that to assert our sovereignty, we need only stand up an “be” sovereign, because we are and always have been. The duck acts like the duck and is treated as such, because he IS a duck. See? When i stand before you i am sovereign because my “BEING” IS sovereign and always has been and always will be. Hats off to Isabelle. She is in my prayers and always has been. Peace. Onenkiwahi! Tony, Mohawk Nation, Convenor of all the Sovereign Nations of Turtle Island (USA and Canada).
Would it be correct to assume that Native Title is a government funded organisation? Obviously.
If the true landowners, with land areas handed down from their fore fathers won’t sign, which seems to be their prerogative, then a competitive group with distant relatives is introduced into the equation? This is what we are hearing is being uncovered across the country at present.
It’s extremely presumptuous of these people to poach your land, sell it, live off it, charge taxes on it, then pass judgement on you. Many aboriginal people are actually buying houses built on aboriginal land!
It’s astounding and to make it worse there doesn’t seem to be a political party who would like to relinquish that role of protector or controller of aboriginal lands.
Does this mean that the unwitting miner will be greatly inconvenienced both financially and time-wise when this wicked, bullying, accelerated scheme is finally out in the open?
With aboriginal people being only a few percent of the total population, it could be assumed that they have nowhere to go except appeal to a heartless government to help them. However in reading the above Isabelle, you are sovereigns and indeed have not surrendered your land.
This means that no matter how much they twist and turn their paper work, it will never be legal. It’s simply their paperwork and nothing to do with you.
I wonder how BHP feel about that. It places them and other companies in a very precarious situation up the proberbial track. It seems if you have never given them permission for an open cut or an expansion, then what the hell is the government doing, letting this huge hole in the earth develop in the first place.
Bluff? This is how it is appearing, so it must mean that if a government with no power over land is asserting assumed power, then things like the Aboriginal Lands Trust Act etc are equally as irrelevent.
You seem right not to acknowledge Native Title as they are not of your people and you certainly did not appoint them.
How does it feel Isabelle to be possibly on the breadline yourself and watching these beaurocrats living off your backs, rather nicely one would imagine. How many paid staff does it take to organise aboriginal affairs to the dissatisfaction of the aborigines. After all we do appear to be living on your land – all of it..
White Australia is behind you and your people. The recent upheaval in Britain with servicemen suing their government was certainly enlightening.
More enlightening was the absence of reference to the real plight here being that of the effect of the landowners who were quite able to look after themselves until the British and Co. destroyed most of South Australia and I might add, continue to do so.
MARALINGA WAS AN INTERVENTION !
Well here’s an interesting surprise for us all. Maralinga was an “intervention”. Well, well, well. No wonder the aboriginal people are continually put down in the eyes of white Australia.
Their history is hidden and their current plight is highlighted. How can seemingly decent looking human beings with children of their own, put themselves above this wonderful race of people and continually humiliate and torture their souls.
Their land is their soul, their livelihood which they respected and revered; their mother earth which we are dessimating before their eyes.
Their dreaming which you laugh at are their memories and their history passed down descriptively to their children as an educational process, yet we mock.
Unlike us they didn’t have diaries. They recorded their experiences and memories in “stories”. Their lawmakers were the wise men (royalty) who knew the way to go and recognised the signs of the weather patterns, the food cycle and made the decisions in order for their race to survive so many climate changes.
Quote from ABC radio
“Maralinga: The Fall Out Continues
Australian Broadcasting Corporation – Radio National’s Background Briefing
Produced by Gregg Borschmann
April 16, 2000
Gregg Borschmann: A lot of plutonium-contaminated soil was buried at Maralinga. Almost 400,000 tonnes of it. It was buried in three massive holes. The largest at Taranaki was bigger than four football fields, and as deep as a five-storey building.
Gregg Borschmann: Jeff Harris, a senior officer of the Department of Industry, Science and Resources. Senator Minchin has also used the Code repeatedly recently to reassure Australians about the quality of the clean-up. And yet according to leaked minutes of a meeting of the Maralinga scientific advisers last year, the Minister has already been given an out.
The official minutes record a senior officer from the nuclear regulator ARPANSA saying it was not necessary to meet the letter of the Code, since what was being done at Maralinga was an ‘intervention’.
The minutes do not explain what this means”
How disgusting is this? How safe is South Australia and our water table? What clever words we listen to. Everything IS an intervention for these people, while the British descendents plague these shores. And yes, we are feeling it too.
Tell us Isabelle, were you at Maralinga when this intervention happened?
BHPs – FROZEN DIAMONDS by Jani Roberts c95
It seems that traditional owners all over the world are being taking for granted. Here is a typical scenario where monies have been applied to a project in the anticipation of permission from land owners and even government approval.
How they are allowed to get this far into it on an assumption is beyond us all in light of the integrity this company claims to operate with! Perhaps the assumption is that the government will make it happen “one way or another”, here naming the “Native Title” negotiators being sent out like bounty hunters to get the signatures that the miners need.
Tens of millions of dollars in development “without so much as an approval”! Sounds like the Olympic Dam Expansion, Isabelle.
“Since 1973 there has been serious legal doubts about the treaties upon which rests the Canadian government’s claim to control mineral rights in the Northwest Territories. When gold was discovered in the region, the Federal government persuaded the tribes to sign a document by which mineral and land rights were surrendered known as Treaty Eight. Then, when in the 1920s rich oil fields and more golf fields were discovered, the Federal Government signed Treaty Eleven to secure more rights. The Indians got a pittance. They claim they had been tricked, that no mention had been made of land surrender by the Federal negotiators, simply of peace and of a guaranteed non interference with hunting. In 1973 a Judge ruled that, despite these treaties, the Indians still retained their rights.
Now that diamonds have been found, the Canadian Government has again sent out negotiators to try to obtain what is effectively another treaty, to obtain further not yet ceded mineral rights.
……. BHP is gambling that they will secure clear title. David Livingstone of the Federal Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development told me that, although BHP had spent tens of millions of dollars in developing their prospects, they have done this without a title to the land, without a government consent to their mining plans”.
So there you have it, an epidemic of Governments out for themselves and their corporate partners. And to hell with a normal life for the countries citizens and a clean environment.
D.Cauley says:
“Does this mean that the unwitting miner will be greatly inconvenienced both financially and time-wise when this wicked, bullying, accelerated scheme is finally out in the open?
With aboriginal people being only a few percent of the total population, it could be assumed that they have nowhere to go except appeal to a heartless government to help them. However in reading the above Isabelle, you are sovereigns and indeed have not surrendered your land.”
Thats an interesting point – making this situation right will require some decisive and intelligent political leadership – and yet we know the benefits from decisive action will flow to the land and the people of Australia – that is to say the uranium mines are both an economic and political mistake which needs to be corrected – and the politicians that move this way will not look back in the medium and short term.
Lets talk about the short term. We are seeing daily that the economic model based on corporations and their government partnerships has failed. The Pacific ecologist (issue 16) headlined with ‘Why we must phase out economic growth’ – we can all see the pitfalls of our throw-away over consumptive societies, so realistically solutions do reside elsewhere.
The people most affected – employees, contractors, small operations that have played the native title script as it is supposedly enshrined in law – can be assisted away from these industries with grants and relocation programs. Corporations and governments have knowingly entered into these arrangements and can well afford to cover these expenses – when the facts come out (as they are) we see that governments and corporations have been remiss in progressing projects without serious attention to EIS or the most valid issues of traditional ownership raised here by Isabelle and other impacted parties. We know the issues arising from Maralinga and Emu fields were covered up – and we learn of the human health costs and the clean up short cuts much later. David Bradbury in his film ‘Hard Rain’ highlights the risks associated with an industry that operates in secrecy – the real costs and damage may not be uncovered for decades to come – and in the meanwhile we learn of the ongoing damage from previous projects such as the nuclear tests which history assesses easily as quite stupid, risk and jeopardising of human safety and health.
The CSIRO Future Dilemma’s Report 2000 – detailed the unaccounted costs of the mining and agricultural sectors in terms of natural assets taken, profited from – but not fully costed in the pricing equation – thereby a situation of accumulated run down of natural asset bank (soil, air, water, resources) which the report concludes is well outside the scope of current governments to repair.
So science and the stories of human rights and cultural abuse need to be heeded now, and we need to assess a list of priorities to manage compensations and to once and for all put a stop to this senseless degradation of people and their precious land.
How Much Blatant Evidence Does Anyone Need – And Who’s Keeping These Barstard’s Honest?
John Pilger The Guardian, Friday 24 October 2008 Article history
Under cover of racist myth, a new land grab in Australia Claims of child abuse are proving a fertile pretext to menace the Aboriginal communities lying in the way of uranium mining
The Guardian John Pilger 24 Oct 08 – says “…….An epic scandal of racism, injustice and brutality is being covered up in the manner of apartheid South Africa. Many Australians conspire in this silence, wishing never to reflect upon the truth about their society’s Untermenschen, the Aboriginal people………
A pervasive white myth, that Aborigines leech off the state, serves to conceal the disgrace that money the federal government says it spends on indigenous affairs actually goes towards opposing native land rights.
In 2006, some A$3bn was underspent “or the result of creative accounting”, reported the Sydney Morning Herald……… Having let a few crumbs fall, Rudd is picking up where Howard left off. His indigenous affairs minister, Jenny Macklin, has threatened to withdraw government support from remote communities that are “economically unviable”.
The Northern Territory is the only region where Aborigines have comprehensive land rights, granted almost by accident 30 years ago. Here lie some of the world’s biggest uranium deposits.
Canberra wants to mine and sell it……………Foreign Governments, especially the US, want the Northern Territory as a toxic dump. The Adelaide to Darwin railway that runs adjacent to Olympic Dam, the world’s largest uranium mine, was built with the help of Kellogg, Brown & Root – a subsidiary of American giant Halliburton, the alma mater of Dick Cheney, Howard’s “mate”.
“The land grab of Aboriginal tribal land has nothing to do with child sexual abuse,” says the Australian scientist Helen Caldicott, “but all to do with open slather uranium mining and converting the Northern Territory to a global nuclear dump.”
All I can say here is what an UGLY government we have that takes from the meek and gives to the unworthy! SHAME, SHAME!
CREATIVE ACCOUNTING ROBS ABORIGINES OF FUNDS
Joel Gibson and Debra Jopson
August 21, 2007
HUNDREDS of millions of dollars the Commonwealth claims to have spent on indigenous affairs has either never been spent, been used to benefit all Australians or gone towards opposing native title claims.
A significant portion of the billions the Government has said it has spent since 2000, climbing annually to $3 billion last year, was either underspent or the result of creative accounting, an Age investigation has found.
Over the past six years, at least $30 million the Government promoted as being for Aborigines was used to oppose indigenous native title and compensation claims.
Spending figures have been bloated by money spent on services for all Australians, such as medical centres, but the money is described as the “black dollar”. Creative accounting has helped create the impression that Aboriginal spending is soaring. Three years ago, Centrelink indigenous spending rose from $46.6 million to $85.8 million by including base service expenses for delivering age pensions to indigenous people.
The Government spent almost $110 million less than it said it would in its indigenous budget last financial year, according to the Opposition. The shortfall included more than $25 million on health services, $9 million for the family violence partnership program, $9.8 million for Indigenous Business Australia’s equity and investments, and $37.4 million for Abstudy for tertiary students.
Almost $250,000 spent over the past six years on courts and tribunals sorting out native title issues has been counted as money for Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders. Aboriginal Affairs Minister Mal Brough said all indigenous expenditure listed in his Government’s budgets was genuine.
“It’s not the only money allocated to indigenous affairs in this country,” he said. The health, education and roads budgets benefited indigenous people but were not listed separately, he said.
There had been underspending on items in the indigenous budget, because organisations that may have been eligible had been found wanting, he said.
http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/creative-accounting-robs-aborigines-of-funds/2007/08/20/1187462178178.html
FILMMAKER DAVID BRADBURY on: “KOKATHA REFUSE BHP EXPANSION….”
(David Bradbury is a former ABC trained radio journalist and a respected internationally recognised filmmaker with two Oscar nominations and a host of other prizes to his credit plus broadcasting docos around the world for the last 30 years in case you´re of a younger generation who has never heard of him. Ed)
I´ve been following this story for several years now and this story is very important that Isabel Dingaman and people like myself are saying.
The level of contamination of 70 million tonnes per year of radioactive tailings finely pulverised into dust size particles brought to the surface and just dumped there by BHPB every year for the life of the mine – up to l00 years – will be one of the, if not THE most environmentally criminal act of any mining company in the history of Australia.
It is not a melodramatic statement when you know what I know of the science of it, the radical impact and triggering of cancers at low levels of radiation once they enter the body and what they do to the human (or for that matter, any species…) once in the cell and its impact on the DNA.
This fact is not appreciated by our pollies, or the public health authorities who are behind the eight ball of what scientists without a similar voice in their media in Europe, Japan and Canada have been trying to point out for the last decade and more. We´re living under a false and outdated regimen of what is considered by public health authorities to be ´a safe level of radiation´our human bodies can withstand.
The mainstream media have the game of misinformation all stitched up. It is incredibly important that media print and follow up in respecting true senior Traditional Owners whose land is being hijacked by the BHPs and the ever controversial Native Title agreements with the help of ´sellouts´ claiming Kokatha ancestry and right to speak on behalf of territory. Media MUST widely distribute this story and not let some red tape excuse marginalise yet again the importance of this information having legs in the wider community.
It is a monumental disaster if allowed to go ahead and will wash over the face of Australia forever.
Those tailings are radioactive for 4.5 billion years. Most of the radioactivity in the tailings stays in the fine dust once they extract the copper, gold and uranium. It is only 1000kms to Melbourne as the crow flies. l350kms to Sydney as the wind blows. And that is the direction -easterly – that the prevailing winds blow from Roxby.
Seventy million tonnes each year dug out of the huge hole in the ground and dumped there for the next l00 years once they take out the valuable minerals. Radioactive polonium, thorium, radium, bismuth, radioactive lead…and what uranium they can´t finally extract is all left behind in the tailings and will be just dumped there according to BHPB´s hitherto released plans for ´environmental protection´.
Those radioactive heavy metals (above) are always found in association with uranium, are not commercially viable or of any monetary use to BHPB. That is why they just want to dump them at the mine´s surface. Too huge a volume and people´s awareness on scarcity of water such that they will not be able to dump them under water in holding dams as they do now, to leach into the surrounding water table.
Then there is the release of radon gas into the surface of the air when they mine uranium, particularly open cut mine. Radon gas released from the dug up uranium is seven times heavier than air so it does not evaporate into ´space´ but hugs the earth and attaches itself to water molecules (which we or livestock or native animals drink), can be breathed into our lungs like the radioactive dust particles from the tailings thus triggering cancers and birth defects or attaches itself to growing crops and vegetation which we also eat.
Radon gas has a radioactive half life of 3.8 days so in that half life it can easily blow on a light wind of 20kph to Sydney, Melb, Bris etc. People don´t even know they are breathing it in because it is odourless. So the triggering of cancers begins… which doesn´t come out for 20 years or more. And how can you shaft home responsibility to the board of BHPB and its CEO then who will be long gone or moved onto greener pastures in that time?
In kids radon or radioactive inhaled or eaten dust has a more rapid impact, maybe five years to trigger childhood or teen cancers because their cells are dividing more rapidly than adults who have stopped growing. So the mutations in the cell from either the radioactive dust inhaled, eaten or from the radon gas alpha particle inhalation, ingestion etc precipates the cancers faster in a child in the womb, young kids or teenagers because the cells are dividing faster and the mutated cells are created and multiply faster in the young.
That´s what cancer is – mutated cells which multiply and form tumours as a result which then take over the body and finally destroy it.
regards,
David Bradbury.
Thank you Isabelle for speaking up for the land, the people, for all! Uranium – leave it in the ground !
Those workers who have worked at Roxby, who have known cancers and miscarriages and deformities, now need to speak up ! For years they have been legally obligated to stay silent but for the good of all, break your silence.
Take a class action against these giants who don’t wear the consequences. At protests outside the mine, people have come to talk informally – now is the time to turn things around and speak out publicly.
Am wondering how to get in touch with someone involved in this problem.
Isabel is dead right here. Someone has played a swifty. Despite it suits some, it will come unstuck. Just hope these so called Giants can afford the fall and the other mob can live down the embarrassment and what might/will follow.
There’s more here than meets the naked eye. I’d suggest the real estate moguls take heed. It looks like you’ve been put on legitimate notice.
AUSTRALIA WAS BUILT ON NATIVE ABORIGINAL CORPSES!
Aborgines were slain for Western Mining Company and BHP Billiton and every other mining company on aboriginal soils with the help of a cowardly government.
Australia’s dirty little colonial wars
As Anzac Day approaches, campaigners want Australia’s war memorial to recognise the forgotten Aborigines killed by white settlers
By Kathy Marks
Sunday, 19 April 2009
“The great Australian silence”
“If the British occupation of Australia was fought over, it means the wealth of white Australians comes from taking the land from indigenous Australians, and their social problems, including low life expectancy, are because of the dislocation of losing their land and lifestyle.”
A series of lectures by Stanner in 1968, entitled “After the Dreaming”, pierced the bubble of silence. But not until 1981, when Professor Reynolds published The Other Side of the Frontier, did the colonial-era wars begin to be widely discussed and accepted as historical orthodoxy. His writings were cited by the High Court judges who, in 1992, finally overthrew the legal fiction of terra nullius – the idea that Australia was uninhabited when the British arrived.
There are war memorials in almost every Australian town, but only a handful of reminders of the brutal events close to home.
A monument to 28 Aborigines, mainly women and children, who were massacred in 1838 at Myall Creek, in New South Wales, was put up only in 2003.
Professor Reynolds believes racism lies behind the governing council’s stance. [Native Title?]….
http:// www. independent.co.uk/news/world/australasia/australias-dirty-little-colonial-wars-1671071.html