WEBVTT - When mining meets the Dreaming

0:00:04.880 --> 0:00:07.760
<v Speaker 1>From The Australian. Here's what's on the front. I'm Claire Harvey.

0:00:07.840 --> 0:00:16.599
<v Speaker 1>It's Thursday, October seventeen. Australia will donate tanks worth almost

0:00:16.640 --> 0:00:19.640
<v Speaker 1>two hundred and fifty million dollars to Ukraine. The move

0:00:19.720 --> 0:00:22.240
<v Speaker 1>is a response to the emergence of an alliance between

0:00:22.320 --> 0:00:25.840
<v Speaker 1>Russia and North Korea, and it follows a controversial decision

0:00:25.880 --> 0:00:30.440
<v Speaker 1>by the government to bury usable helicopters instead of sending

0:00:30.480 --> 0:00:37.920
<v Speaker 1>them to Ukraine. Anthony Albanese's four point three million dollar

0:00:37.960 --> 0:00:40.800
<v Speaker 1>house purchase hasn't gone down well with some of his

0:00:40.920 --> 0:00:44.280
<v Speaker 1>labor colleagues. They're pushing for a shakeup of the party's

0:00:44.280 --> 0:00:47.400
<v Speaker 1>housing policies ahead of the election to show voters they're

0:00:47.440 --> 0:00:51.440
<v Speaker 1>taking the housing crisis seriously. That exclusive is live right

0:00:51.479 --> 0:00:57.640
<v Speaker 1>now at the Australian dot Com dot a U. A

0:00:57.680 --> 0:01:00.560
<v Speaker 1>billion dollar gold mine and a sacred store. Worry about

0:01:00.560 --> 0:01:03.720
<v Speaker 1>a beautiful native bee. Those are the elements of a

0:01:03.840 --> 0:01:08.600
<v Speaker 1>raging controversy that's drawn in Environment Minister Tanya Plibisek and

0:01:08.720 --> 0:01:13.160
<v Speaker 1>two groups of Aboriginal elders with opposing views. Today the

0:01:13.280 --> 0:01:29.200
<v Speaker 1>high stakes and delicate politics of the dreaming. There's a

0:01:29.240 --> 0:01:32.960
<v Speaker 1>bee native to Australia. The blue banded bee, which is

0:01:33.040 --> 0:01:37.000
<v Speaker 1>so pretty it looks like it can't possibly be real.

0:01:37.520 --> 0:01:41.399
<v Speaker 1>It has turquoise and black stripes across its bottom, golden

0:01:41.480 --> 0:01:45.160
<v Speaker 1>fur on top, and a pair of gleaming fairy wings.

0:01:46.319 --> 0:01:50.080
<v Speaker 1>Blue banded bees are solitary creatures and they burrow into

0:01:50.120 --> 0:01:54.760
<v Speaker 1>flowers and then buzz to shake the pollen loose. The

0:01:54.800 --> 0:01:59.120
<v Speaker 1>blue banded bee is not imaginary. It's very real. But

0:01:59.840 --> 0:02:03.000
<v Speaker 1>is it part of the dreaming of the Warradjuri people,

0:02:03.400 --> 0:02:07.360
<v Speaker 1>whose lands stretch across a vast slice of central New

0:02:07.360 --> 0:02:11.040
<v Speaker 1>South Wales. That's the question at the heart of a

0:02:11.200 --> 0:02:18.360
<v Speaker 1>raging political drama. Environment Minister Tanya Plibisek in August rejected

0:02:18.360 --> 0:02:22.239
<v Speaker 1>a proposal for a one billion dollar gold mine, accepting

0:02:22.320 --> 0:02:25.919
<v Speaker 1>an application by a group of Warajuri elders who said

0:02:25.960 --> 0:02:30.400
<v Speaker 1>there'd be irreversible damage to Aboriginal cultural heritage if the

0:02:30.520 --> 0:02:35.200
<v Speaker 1>mine goes ahead. Critically, they're objecting to the mining company

0:02:35.560 --> 0:02:39.840
<v Speaker 1>Regis Resources creating a tailings dam that it needs to

0:02:39.880 --> 0:02:43.760
<v Speaker 1>store the waste products created by the mine. They say

0:02:43.800 --> 0:02:47.280
<v Speaker 1>the dam would destroy the headwaters of the Blobular River.

0:02:47.760 --> 0:02:51.040
<v Speaker 1>What they said was a site of traditional pre initiation

0:02:51.240 --> 0:02:54.760
<v Speaker 1>ceremonies where the dreaming story about the blue banded bee

0:02:54.960 --> 0:02:55.440
<v Speaker 1>was shared.

0:02:57.000 --> 0:03:00.160
<v Speaker 2>So the sex found that that was a significant story

0:03:00.240 --> 0:03:02.799
<v Speaker 2>and a story that made that catchment area of the

0:03:02.919 --> 0:03:05.040
<v Speaker 2>river very important to our people.

0:03:06.160 --> 0:03:09.440
<v Speaker 1>Page Tailor is The Australian's Indigenous Affairs editor.

0:03:09.800 --> 0:03:12.360
<v Speaker 2>And of course this has caused a huge controversy because

0:03:12.400 --> 0:03:15.800
<v Speaker 2>the Orange Land Council, which is the main representative body

0:03:15.840 --> 0:03:18.639
<v Speaker 2>for that area, really disputes that story. They don't think

0:03:18.639 --> 0:03:19.080
<v Speaker 2>it's real.

0:03:22.120 --> 0:03:26.440
<v Speaker 1>The dreaming. That's the creation stories passed down through generations

0:03:26.480 --> 0:03:31.519
<v Speaker 1>of Aboriginal Australians. It's part of a rich, interconnected spirituality

0:03:31.840 --> 0:03:37.200
<v Speaker 1>that encompasses animals, plants, the soil below and the constellations above.

0:03:38.120 --> 0:03:42.560
<v Speaker 1>This lineage of storytelling has been disrupted since seventeen eighty

0:03:42.560 --> 0:03:46.520
<v Speaker 1>eight by the consequences of white settlement, from the devastation

0:03:46.600 --> 0:03:51.480
<v Speaker 1>of smallpox to frontier violence and family separation, and that's

0:03:51.680 --> 0:03:58.400
<v Speaker 1>left uncertainty about establishing exactly who holds the cultural knowledge.

0:04:00.120 --> 0:04:03.640
<v Speaker 1>Accepted the bee dreaming claim from the elders who call

0:04:03.680 --> 0:04:09.880
<v Speaker 1>themselves the Warajuri Traditional Owners. Central West Aboriginal Corporation REGIS

0:04:09.880 --> 0:04:12.480
<v Speaker 1>says they found no mention of the blue banded b

0:04:12.680 --> 0:04:16.040
<v Speaker 1>dreaming until twenty twenty two when it was invoked by

0:04:16.080 --> 0:04:20.240
<v Speaker 1>opponents of their mind. And here's where it becomes interesting,

0:04:20.920 --> 0:04:24.599
<v Speaker 1>also saying the dreaming story is a myth. Are Warajury

0:04:24.680 --> 0:04:29.560
<v Speaker 1>elders associated with the Orange Local Aboriginal Land Council. That's

0:04:29.600 --> 0:04:33.080
<v Speaker 1>a body created under land rights legislation to represent the

0:04:33.120 --> 0:04:37.560
<v Speaker 1>interests of Aboriginal people and to manage traditional heritage sites.

0:04:39.480 --> 0:04:42.760
<v Speaker 1>It all comes at a moment of exquisite sensitivity for

0:04:42.800 --> 0:04:45.200
<v Speaker 1>the resources sector and the government.

0:04:46.400 --> 0:04:49.120
<v Speaker 2>This all goes back to when Rio Tinto blew up

0:04:49.160 --> 0:04:51.120
<v Speaker 2>the ancient caves at jouk and Gorge.

0:04:51.640 --> 0:04:55.200
<v Speaker 3>Mining giant Rio Tinto has fronted a parliamentary inquiry this

0:04:55.279 --> 0:04:58.240
<v Speaker 3>morning over the destruction of a forty six thousand year

0:04:58.279 --> 0:05:01.000
<v Speaker 3>old indigenous site in wa is Pilber region.

0:05:02.000 --> 0:05:05.600
<v Speaker 2>That was an international scandal and it's really brought attention

0:05:05.880 --> 0:05:10.520
<v Speaker 2>to the fact that there are very important sites, and

0:05:10.920 --> 0:05:13.640
<v Speaker 2>there are very important places that may not necessarily have

0:05:13.880 --> 0:05:17.920
<v Speaker 2>a rare or endangered animal living there. It's an awareness

0:05:18.040 --> 0:05:23.800
<v Speaker 2>of Aboriginal spiritual and cultural tradition that I think mining

0:05:23.839 --> 0:05:27.120
<v Speaker 2>companies especially are now trying very hard to be conscious of.

0:05:27.240 --> 0:05:31.039
<v Speaker 2>And we saw in this case that Regius Resources. The

0:05:31.080 --> 0:05:36.320
<v Speaker 2>company commissioned several reports and some of them were very comprehensive.

0:05:36.839 --> 0:05:40.359
<v Speaker 2>One of their consultants was asked specifically to look for

0:05:40.400 --> 0:05:43.680
<v Speaker 2>what's described as intangible heritage, and that's when it's not

0:05:43.720 --> 0:05:47.960
<v Speaker 2>an artifact, it's not a stone tool, it's a belief system.

0:05:48.880 --> 0:05:53.599
<v Speaker 1>Since Regis's application for this tailing dam was rejected, you

0:05:53.960 --> 0:05:56.680
<v Speaker 1>and other journalists have been really trying to dig back

0:05:56.760 --> 0:06:01.560
<v Speaker 1>through the reasoning of the Environment Minister in making this decision.

0:06:01.960 --> 0:06:04.760
<v Speaker 1>What have you discovered about the process that took place.

0:06:05.640 --> 0:06:09.000
<v Speaker 2>It hasn't been that easy to be candid, because the

0:06:09.080 --> 0:06:12.200
<v Speaker 2>Minister was staying from the beginning that there were things

0:06:12.200 --> 0:06:15.039
<v Speaker 2>that were told to her in confidence. Now that we

0:06:15.120 --> 0:06:18.039
<v Speaker 2>have the published reasons, we can see that the bee

0:06:18.080 --> 0:06:22.760
<v Speaker 2>dreaming is very central to her thinking. And we can

0:06:22.800 --> 0:06:25.400
<v Speaker 2>also see that there's a massive type over that because

0:06:25.440 --> 0:06:28.440
<v Speaker 2>it's a story that only emerged very recently and the

0:06:28.440 --> 0:06:32.080
<v Speaker 2>main representative body doesn't think it's true.

0:06:32.800 --> 0:06:35.560
<v Speaker 1>Tennie Flivers says, she's not actually rejecting this mind, she's

0:06:35.600 --> 0:06:38.359
<v Speaker 1>just telling them they have to adjust their proposal a

0:06:38.400 --> 0:06:38.840
<v Speaker 1>little bit.

0:06:39.640 --> 0:06:43.120
<v Speaker 3>There is nothing to stop the project going ahead. What

0:06:43.160 --> 0:06:46.719
<v Speaker 3>I expect is that the tailing dam should be built

0:06:46.760 --> 0:06:50.719
<v Speaker 3>in another location. The project proponent has chosen the cheapest

0:06:50.720 --> 0:06:55.560
<v Speaker 3>and easiest location. The cheapest and easiest location has unacceptable

0:06:55.600 --> 0:06:57.279
<v Speaker 3>impacts on cultural heritage.

0:06:58.400 --> 0:07:01.640
<v Speaker 1>The mining company says there are no viable alternatives for

0:07:01.720 --> 0:07:05.280
<v Speaker 1>the tailings dam. Complicating things is the fact that the

0:07:05.320 --> 0:07:09.200
<v Speaker 1>Orange Aboriginal Land Council's position on the mine has changed.

0:07:10.280 --> 0:07:14.280
<v Speaker 2>They initially opposed the mine. They had someone working for

0:07:14.360 --> 0:07:18.240
<v Speaker 2>them who prepared reports that made them very concerned about

0:07:18.360 --> 0:07:21.520
<v Speaker 2>how the mine would affect cultural heritage. They say to

0:07:21.600 --> 0:07:23.680
<v Speaker 2>us that when that person left, they wanted to do

0:07:23.720 --> 0:07:26.760
<v Speaker 2>their own reports. They wanted to just re examine and

0:07:26.800 --> 0:07:31.120
<v Speaker 2>revisit what they thought they knew, and they became convinced

0:07:31.280 --> 0:07:34.240
<v Speaker 2>that the site, that catchment area where the mine is

0:07:34.400 --> 0:07:38.080
<v Speaker 2>proposed is not sacrude. There are very important stories to

0:07:38.120 --> 0:07:40.760
<v Speaker 2>the wragerie in the region, and some of their elders

0:07:40.760 --> 0:07:43.280
<v Speaker 2>are the keepers of those stories, but the Blue Banded

0:07:43.360 --> 0:07:45.960
<v Speaker 2>b is not one, and thanks say, none of those

0:07:46.040 --> 0:07:49.720
<v Speaker 2>stories crossover the catchment area where the mine was proposed.

0:07:50.640 --> 0:07:53.800
<v Speaker 1>Do you get the sense page that what we're seeing

0:07:53.880 --> 0:07:56.600
<v Speaker 1>here is a government who is perhaps a little bit

0:07:56.640 --> 0:08:01.280
<v Speaker 1>traumatized by Dug and Gorge, and is being super cautious,

0:08:01.760 --> 0:08:04.560
<v Speaker 1>erring on the side of the possibility that this might

0:08:04.600 --> 0:08:07.480
<v Speaker 1>be real rather than wanting to dig into it too

0:08:07.560 --> 0:08:10.720
<v Speaker 1>much because saying no is easier than saying yes.

0:08:11.520 --> 0:08:15.240
<v Speaker 2>That's such an interesting question. When you read Miss Plebisc's reasons,

0:08:15.880 --> 0:08:20.400
<v Speaker 2>she sounds like she was very convinced by the evidence

0:08:20.520 --> 0:08:24.040
<v Speaker 2>of an unnamed elder about the significance of the bee

0:08:24.520 --> 0:08:28.400
<v Speaker 2>and the bee dreaming. What we don't understand is why

0:08:28.720 --> 0:08:31.960
<v Speaker 2>the evidence of six people from the orange Land Council,

0:08:32.040 --> 0:08:34.920
<v Speaker 2>including five people who identify as we Adurie, and we

0:08:34.960 --> 0:08:37.880
<v Speaker 2>now know one of them is the very senior cultural

0:08:37.920 --> 0:08:42.760
<v Speaker 2>authority kneel Ingral, was disregarded. In short, the minister's explanation

0:08:42.960 --> 0:08:45.920
<v Speaker 2>is that not all people know all stories. That is

0:08:45.960 --> 0:08:50.760
<v Speaker 2>why she's sided with the dissident group effectively in this case.

0:08:51.600 --> 0:08:55.560
<v Speaker 2>She has talked about wanting to be more sensitive to

0:08:55.920 --> 0:09:00.640
<v Speaker 2>Indigenous culture and claims of Indigenous cultural heritage since Gorge,

0:09:01.160 --> 0:09:04.439
<v Speaker 2>I think that's a really fort area. Sometimes in government,

0:09:04.800 --> 0:09:05.839
<v Speaker 2>who do you listen to?

0:09:09.240 --> 0:09:13.280
<v Speaker 1>Coming up the legacy of another bitter dispute over sacred

0:09:13.320 --> 0:09:32.960
<v Speaker 1>stories page. When I first got into journalism. In the

0:09:33.000 --> 0:09:37.040
<v Speaker 1>mid nineteen nineties, there was this raging controversy about the

0:09:37.120 --> 0:09:41.880
<v Speaker 1>Heindmarsh Island Bridge, a proposal in South Australia to build

0:09:41.920 --> 0:09:45.640
<v Speaker 1>a bridge to an island, which some local developers wanted

0:09:45.840 --> 0:09:49.760
<v Speaker 1>to do. It attracted opposition from some Indigenous people who

0:09:49.760 --> 0:09:52.679
<v Speaker 1>said that it would disturb sacred practices.

0:09:53.600 --> 0:09:56.680
<v Speaker 4>The Narrjerry women tried to block construction of the bridge,

0:09:56.960 --> 0:10:00.800
<v Speaker 4>arguing it would interfere with secret women's business. A Royal

0:10:00.800 --> 0:10:04.320
<v Speaker 4>commission found that claims to be fabricated. For years, the

0:10:04.360 --> 0:10:07.840
<v Speaker 4>state government supported the ruling, but has now acknowledged a

0:10:07.880 --> 0:10:11.120
<v Speaker 4>two thousand and one Federal Court finding that the claims

0:10:11.120 --> 0:10:13.640
<v Speaker 4>of secret women's business weren't made up.

0:10:14.880 --> 0:10:18.679
<v Speaker 2>Home mosh Iron was such a difficult debate. It was

0:10:18.960 --> 0:10:22.000
<v Speaker 2>about whether or not there was secret women's business at

0:10:22.000 --> 0:10:24.320
<v Speaker 2>that site. That debate went on for years and the

0:10:24.360 --> 0:10:29.720
<v Speaker 2>Australians Chris Kenny reported on that in quite a revelatory way.

0:10:30.440 --> 0:10:32.559
<v Speaker 2>So in that case, in the simplest terms, there was

0:10:32.600 --> 0:10:35.679
<v Speaker 2>an established indigenous group that was talking about the women's

0:10:35.679 --> 0:10:38.040
<v Speaker 2>business and how important that was, and there was a

0:10:38.040 --> 0:10:41.680
<v Speaker 2>dissident group that was casting doubt on those claims. It's

0:10:41.720 --> 0:10:45.560
<v Speaker 2>the opposite. At Blaney, it's the established group, the one

0:10:45.559 --> 0:10:49.200
<v Speaker 2>with statutory authority. They're the elected body. They're saying this

0:10:49.280 --> 0:10:52.800
<v Speaker 2>bee dreaming story isn't real, and it's the dissident group

0:10:52.840 --> 0:10:54.880
<v Speaker 2>that has had the ear of the minister. They're saying

0:10:54.920 --> 0:10:58.120
<v Speaker 2>it is real and it's reason enough to stop the mind.

0:10:58.640 --> 0:11:01.520
<v Speaker 1>A central figure from that controversy has popped up in

0:11:01.600 --> 0:11:04.679
<v Speaker 1>this story, writing in The Australian Today.

0:11:05.520 --> 0:11:09.320
<v Speaker 2>Philip Clark's and anthropologists with so many years experience. He

0:11:09.480 --> 0:11:12.600
<v Speaker 2>was commissioned by Regis to do a very thorough audit

0:11:12.760 --> 0:11:16.120
<v Speaker 2>of what's in the records, and he did find some

0:11:16.600 --> 0:11:21.080
<v Speaker 2>ttemic animals and some dreaming stories, some stories about creation ancestors,

0:11:21.080 --> 0:11:25.280
<v Speaker 2>nothing that would impact that site. But doctor Clark didn't

0:11:25.320 --> 0:11:28.760
<v Speaker 2>find a story about blue bee dreaming in his inquiries,

0:11:28.800 --> 0:11:31.240
<v Speaker 2>and when he was asked about it, he says, in

0:11:31.280 --> 0:11:35.520
<v Speaker 2>my opinion, this is highly unlikely, since there's no record

0:11:35.559 --> 0:11:39.839
<v Speaker 2>of any Worraderi group having such tutemic ancestor. Doctor Clark

0:11:39.880 --> 0:11:43.040
<v Speaker 2>talks about totemic animals in some of his writings, and

0:11:43.360 --> 0:11:45.920
<v Speaker 2>they tend to be animals that are useful. For example,

0:11:46.600 --> 0:11:49.959
<v Speaker 2>he's actually quite doubtful about species of bee that does

0:11:50.040 --> 0:11:54.640
<v Speaker 2>not produce collectible honey becoming part of the tradition and

0:11:54.880 --> 0:11:56.080
<v Speaker 2>part of Rajeri dreaming.

0:12:04.120 --> 0:12:08.600
<v Speaker 1>Page Taylor is The Australian's Indigenous Affairs editor. You can

0:12:08.679 --> 0:12:12.439
<v Speaker 1>read all her forensic reporting on this controversy right now

0:12:12.520 --> 0:12:14.800
<v Speaker 1>at the Australian dot com dot au