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When mining meets the Dreaming · The Front

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  Speaker 1: From The Australian. Here's what's on the front. I'm Claire Harvey.
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  Speaker 1: now at the Australian dot Com dot a U. A
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  Speaker 1: billion dollar gold mine and a sacred store. Worry about
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  Speaker 1: a beautiful native bee. Those are the elements of a
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  Speaker 1: raging controversy that's drawn in Environment Minister Tanya Plibisek and
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  Speaker 1: two groups of Aboriginal elders with opposing views. Today the
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  Speaker 1: high stakes and delicate politics of the dreaming. There's a
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  Speaker 1: bee native to Australia. The blue banded bee, which is
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  Speaker 1: so pretty it looks like it can't possibly be real.
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  Speaker 1: It has turquoise and black stripes across its bottom, golden
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  Speaker 1: fur on top, and a pair of gleaming fairy wings.
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  Speaker 1: Blue banded bees are solitary creatures and they burrow into
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  Speaker 1: flowers and then buzz to shake the pollen loose. The
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  Speaker 1: blue banded bee is not imaginary. It's very real. But
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  Speaker 1: is it part of the dreaming of the Warradjuri people,
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  Speaker 1: whose lands stretch across a vast slice of central New
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  Speaker 1: South Wales. That's the question at the heart of a
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  Speaker 1: raging political drama. Environment Minister Tanya Plibisek in August rejected
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  Speaker 1: a proposal for a one billion dollar gold mine, accepting
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  Speaker 1: an application by a group of Warajuri elders who said
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  Speaker 1: there'd be irreversible damage to Aboriginal cultural heritage if the
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  Speaker 1: mine goes ahead. Critically, they're objecting to the mining company
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  Speaker 1: Regis Resources creating a tailings dam that it needs to
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  Speaker 1: store the waste products created by the mine. They say
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  Speaker 1: the dam would destroy the headwaters of the Blobular River.
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  Speaker 1: What they said was a site of traditional pre initiation
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  Speaker 1: ceremonies where the dreaming story about the blue banded bee
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  Speaker 1: was shared.
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  Speaker 2: So the sex found that that was a significant story
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  Speaker 2: and a story that made that catchment area of the
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  Speaker 2: river very important to our people.
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  Speaker 1: Page Tailor is The Australian's Indigenous Affairs editor.
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  Speaker 2: And of course this has caused a huge controversy because
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  Speaker 2: the Orange Land Council, which is the main representative body
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  Speaker 2: for that area, really disputes that story. They don't think
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  Speaker 2: it's real.
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  Speaker 1: The dreaming. That's the creation stories passed down through generations
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  Speaker 1: of Aboriginal Australians. It's part of a rich, interconnected spirituality
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  Speaker 1: that encompasses animals, plants, the soil below and the constellations above.
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  Speaker 1: This lineage of storytelling has been disrupted since seventeen eighty
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  Speaker 1: eight by the consequences of white settlement, from the devastation
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  Speaker 1: of smallpox to frontier violence and family separation, and that's
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  Speaker 1: left uncertainty about establishing exactly who holds the cultural knowledge.
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  Speaker 1: Accepted the bee dreaming claim from the elders who call
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  Speaker 1: themselves the Warajuri Traditional Owners. Central West Aboriginal Corporation REGIS
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  Speaker 1: says they found no mention of the blue banded b
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  Speaker 1: dreaming until twenty twenty two when it was invoked by
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  Speaker 1: opponents of their mind. And here's where it becomes interesting,
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  Speaker 1: also saying the dreaming story is a myth. Are Warajury
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  Speaker 1: elders associated with the Orange Local Aboriginal Land Council. That's
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  Speaker 1: a body created under land rights legislation to represent the
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  Speaker 1: interests of Aboriginal people and to manage traditional heritage sites.
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  Speaker 1: It all comes at a moment of exquisite sensitivity for
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  Speaker 1: the resources sector and the government.
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  Speaker 2: This all goes back to when Rio Tinto blew up
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  Speaker 2: the ancient caves at jouk and Gorge.
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  Speaker 3: Mining giant Rio Tinto has fronted a parliamentary inquiry this
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  Speaker 3: morning over the destruction of a forty six thousand year
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  Speaker 3: old indigenous site in wa is Pilber region.
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  Speaker 2: That was an international scandal and it's really brought attention
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  Speaker 2: to the fact that there are very important sites, and
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  Speaker 2: there are very important places that may not necessarily have
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  Speaker 2: a rare or endangered animal living there. It's an awareness
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  Speaker 2: of Aboriginal spiritual and cultural tradition that I think mining
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  Speaker 2: companies especially are now trying very hard to be conscious of.
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  Speaker 2: And we saw in this case that Regius Resources. The
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  Speaker 2: company commissioned several reports and some of them were very comprehensive.
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  Speaker 2: One of their consultants was asked specifically to look for
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  Speaker 2: what's described as intangible heritage, and that's when it's not
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  Speaker 2: an artifact, it's not a stone tool, it's a belief system.
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  Speaker 1: Since Regis's application for this tailing dam was rejected, you
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  Speaker 1: and other journalists have been really trying to dig back
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  Speaker 1: through the reasoning of the Environment Minister in making this decision.
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  Speaker 1: What have you discovered about the process that took place.
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  Speaker 2: It hasn't been that easy to be candid, because the
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  Speaker 2: Minister was staying from the beginning that there were things
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  Speaker 2: that were told to her in confidence. Now that we
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  Speaker 2: have the published reasons, we can see that the bee
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  Speaker 2: dreaming is very central to her thinking. And we can
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  Speaker 2: also see that there's a massive type over that because
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  Speaker 2: it's a story that only emerged very recently and the
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  Speaker 2: main representative body doesn't think it's true.
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  Speaker 1: Tennie Flivers says, she's not actually rejecting this mind, she's
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  Speaker 1: just telling them they have to adjust their proposal a
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  Speaker 1: little bit.
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  Speaker 3: There is nothing to stop the project going ahead. What
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  Speaker 3: I expect is that the tailing dam should be built
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  Speaker 3: in another location. The project proponent has chosen the cheapest
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  Speaker 3: and easiest location. The cheapest and easiest location has unacceptable
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  Speaker 3: impacts on cultural heritage.
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  Speaker 1: The mining company says there are no viable alternatives for
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  Speaker 1: the tailings dam. Complicating things is the fact that the
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  Speaker 1: Orange Aboriginal Land Council's position on the mine has changed.
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  Speaker 2: They initially opposed the mine. They had someone working for
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  Speaker 2: them who prepared reports that made them very concerned about
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  Speaker 2: how the mine would affect cultural heritage. They say to
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  Speaker 2: us that when that person left, they wanted to do
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  Speaker 2: their own reports. They wanted to just re examine and
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  Speaker 2: revisit what they thought they knew, and they became convinced
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  Speaker 2: that the site, that catchment area where the mine is
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  Speaker 2: proposed is not sacrude. There are very important stories to
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  Speaker 2: the wragerie in the region, and some of their elders
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  Speaker 2: are the keepers of those stories, but the Blue Banded
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  Speaker 2: b is not one, and thanks say, none of those
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  Speaker 2: stories crossover the catchment area where the mine was proposed.
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  Speaker 1: Do you get the sense page that what we're seeing
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  Speaker 1: here is a government who is perhaps a little bit
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  Speaker 1: traumatized by Dug and Gorge, and is being super cautious,
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  Speaker 1: erring on the side of the possibility that this might
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  Speaker 1: be real rather than wanting to dig into it too
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  Speaker 1: much because saying no is easier than saying yes.
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  Speaker 2: That's such an interesting question. When you read Miss Plebisc's reasons,
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  Speaker 2: she sounds like she was very convinced by the evidence
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  Speaker 2: of an unnamed elder about the significance of the bee
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  Speaker 2: and the bee dreaming. What we don't understand is why
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  Speaker 2: the evidence of six people from the orange Land Council,
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  Speaker 2: including five people who identify as we Adurie, and we
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  Speaker 2: now know one of them is the very senior cultural
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  Speaker 2: authority kneel Ingral, was disregarded. In short, the minister's explanation
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  Speaker 2: is that not all people know all stories. That is
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  Speaker 2: why she's sided with the dissident group effectively in this case.
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  Speaker 2: She has talked about wanting to be more sensitive to
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  Speaker 2: Indigenous culture and claims of Indigenous cultural heritage since Gorge,
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  Speaker 2: I think that's a really fort area. Sometimes in government,
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  Speaker 2: who do you listen to?
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  Speaker 1: Coming up the legacy of another bitter dispute over sacred
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  Speaker 1: stories page. When I first got into journalism. In the
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  Speaker 1: mid nineteen nineties, there was this raging controversy about the
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  Speaker 1: Heindmarsh Island Bridge, a proposal in South Australia to build
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  Speaker 1: a bridge to an island, which some local developers wanted
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  Speaker 1: to do. It attracted opposition from some Indigenous people who
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  Speaker 1: said that it would disturb sacred practices.
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  Speaker 4: The Narrjerry women tried to block construction of the bridge,
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  Speaker 4: arguing it would interfere with secret women's business. A Royal
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  Speaker 4: commission found that claims to be fabricated. For years, the
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  Speaker 4: state government supported the ruling, but has now acknowledged a
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  Speaker 4: two thousand and one Federal Court finding that the claims
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  Speaker 4: of secret women's business weren't made up.
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  Speaker 2: Home mosh Iron was such a difficult debate. It was
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  Speaker 2: about whether or not there was secret women's business at
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  Speaker 2: that site. That debate went on for years and the
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  Speaker 2: Australians Chris Kenny reported on that in quite a revelatory way.
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  Speaker 2: So in that case, in the simplest terms, there was
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  Speaker 2: an established indigenous group that was talking about the women's
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  Speaker 2: business and how important that was, and there was a
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  Speaker 2: dissident group that was casting doubt on those claims. It's
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  Speaker 2: the opposite. At Blaney, it's the established group, the one
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  Speaker 2: with statutory authority. They're the elected body. They're saying this
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  Speaker 2: bee dreaming story isn't real, and it's the dissident group
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  Speaker 2: that has had the ear of the minister. They're saying
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  Speaker 2: it is real and it's reason enough to stop the mind.
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  Speaker 1: A central figure from that controversy has popped up in
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  Speaker 1: this story, writing in The Australian Today.
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  Speaker 2: Philip Clark's and anthropologists with so many years experience. He
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  Speaker 2: was commissioned by Regis to do a very thorough audit
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  Speaker 2: of what's in the records, and he did find some
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  Speaker 2: ttemic animals and some dreaming stories, some stories about creation ancestors,
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  Speaker 2: nothing that would impact that site. But doctor Clark didn't
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  Speaker 2: find a story about blue bee dreaming in his inquiries,
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  Speaker 2: and when he was asked about it, he says, in
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  Speaker 2: my opinion, this is highly unlikely, since there's no record
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  Speaker 2: of any Worraderi group having such tutemic ancestor. Doctor Clark
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  Speaker 2: talks about totemic animals in some of his writings, and
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  Speaker 2: they tend to be animals that are useful. For example,
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  Speaker 2: he's actually quite doubtful about species of bee that does
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  Speaker 2: not produce collectible honey becoming part of the tradition and
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  Speaker 2: part of Rajeri dreaming.
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  Speaker 1: Page Taylor is The Australian's Indigenous Affairs editor. You can
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  Speaker 1: read all her forensic reporting on this controversy right now
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  Speaker 1: at the Australian dot com dot au