EHBARGO: 7.00 p. m.
FOR PRESS 15 OCTOBER 1978
ELECTORATE TALK
A sad and deplorable situation was exposed during this past
week in the Parliament by the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs,
Ian Viner. For some months now, the Cononwealth Government
has been engaged in patient negotiations with the Northern
Land Council, an elected body representing a large section of the
Aboriginal community in the Northern Territory.
The negotiations have been related to the social and environmental
impact of uranium development in the Northern Territory.
They have also related to the size of the royalties which the
Aboriginals will receive from the minin of these deposits
comprising about one-fifth of the world s known reserves of
high-grade uranium ore.
The Government' s decision to go ahead with the development of
these deposits was reached after long and painstaking
consideration intitally by Mr Justice Fox, who spent two years
inquiring into every aspect of the matter, arnd then by the Government.
Our responsibilities in this matter were both national and
in an energy-short world, international. The decision-, as to go
ahead. The negotiations with the Northern Land Council have not been
about whether or not there should be uranium mrining. They
have been about the terms and conditions under which the
uranium deposits in the Northern Territory will be developed, and
about the direct financial benefit to the Aboriginals of
Arnhem Land and the Northern Territory
The Northern Territory Aboriginals have been fortunate to have as
their spokesman and Council Chairman during this period a young
and capable leader who can speak for his people, and who is
nobody's pawn. Galarrwuy Yunupingu has shown himself to me as
a man as much at ease negotiating over the table as he is in
the bush, and as a man thoroughly able to grasp the implications
of the Territory's uranium riches, both as an Australian and as
an Aboriginal. / 2
As a result, and as Ian Viner told the House during the past
week, he has become the target of a small group of zealots.
They pretend to have Aboriginal interests at heart, but in"
fact seek to use the Aboriginal community to achieve a different
goal, and one which does not serve the Aboriginal interests
at all the prevention of uranium development in Australia.
The Labor Party has spread a web of intrigue in the north.
The Labor Party involvement has been designed to frustrate the
negotiations with the Aboriginals and to destroy the credibility
of their representative body, the Northern Land Council, and the
credibility of its spokesman, Galarrwuy Yunupingu.
It is not too difficult to guess at the motive. The intriguers
do not want ' men on the scene whom they cannot manipulate and use
for their own purposes. The Labor Party spokesman on Aboriginal
Affairs, Dr Doug Everingham, set out the position very clearly
in a letter he wrote to, Galarrwuy Yunupingu last month when the
push against him was at its strongest indeed, on the very day
of the attempted coup.
The thrust of Dr Everingham's letter seems to have been to accustom
Galarrwuy Yunupingu to losing his position as his people's able and
eloquent spokesman. His opening sentences, however, contain a
most telling admission, and I quote:
" I can understand your feelings that the ALP may be using
Aboriginals for their own vested interests," Dr Everingham wrote to
Galarrwuy Yunupingu. I quote again:
" It is true that some people, most of them on the Labor side of
politics, care more about stopping uranium mining and changing the
Government in Darwin or Canberra than they do about Aboriginals or
land rights."
Well, that is certainly true, and those people have been plotting,
intriguing, whispering and conniving amongst the Aboriginals of
the Northern Territory. This is despite the decision the Council
reached last month that Aboriginals should reach their own decision
without the dubious benefit of their self-proclaimed friends.
What has happened here is that a group of political activists
tried, and failed, to stir up opposition in the community against
the development of Australia's uranium deposits. Having been
rejected by the trade unions, and by the community at large, they
have turned on the Aboriginals of Arnhem Land in a final and
desperate bid. We have seen the spectacle of high-powered hatchet
men operating on the Aboriginal people to achieve their own aims
at the expense of the Aborigines, and at the expense of all Australian!
Their actions have been disgraceful. From the time the Government
made its decision in August last year, it has carried out, and will
continue to carry out, its obligations to environmental interests
and to Aboriginal interests. We will soon be considering our
next steps in this matter.