Liberal National Party Premier Campbell Newman has failed to convince Queensland workers that more assets need to be sold-off to reduce state debt.
Since mid-April, the state government has run a $6 million “Strong Choices” media campaign, which it claims is part of a commitment to “an open dialogue with Queenslanders about the challenges, opportunities and choices that confront us’’.
The centrepiece of the “consultation” is the Strong Choices website, which has received more than 50,000 submissions commenting on the three options on offer: increasing taxes, reducing services and the sale or lease of state assets.
The loss of more than 12,000 public service positions, cutbacks to vital community services and hikes in utility and transport costs have already hit hard. Unsurprisingly, the overwhelming majority of responses have opposed the sell-off or leasing of assets and called for an increase in taxes – specifically on mining and gambling.
Queensland is undergoing unprecedented economic expansion. The rate of growth has been high for the last 15 years (apart from a blip following the global financial crisis), and greater than any other state.
Yet the Queensland Resources Council has been promised no increase on state mining royalties for at least 10 years. “Raising those sorts of taxes may have an impact on jobs, on economic growth, on mines being developed and tourism’’, Treasurer Tim Nichols told ABC Radio on 11 May.
Such is the two-faced nature of the LNP government that, in the wake of an announcement by rail corporation Aurizon (formerly part of Qld Rail) on 7 May that 480 rail maintenance positions were being cut, Newman told reporters: “People know these things happen with privatisation.’’
Unions such as the Electrical Trades Union have been vocal in opposition to the Strong Choices campaign and the privatisation agenda of the Newman government, and have organised petition campaigns and where possible mobilisations of members at regional community consultation meetings.
But much more is needed to tap the sentiment against privatisation and growing opposition to the LNP government. Only a concerted campaign of industrial action led by unions, along with community protests, can guarantee a halt to public asset sell-offs and the protection of jobs and services.

Jon Lamb

Queensland workers reject asset sell off

Despite clear opposition from the Aboriginal traditional owners, the push for a nuclear waste dump at Muckaty Station, 120 kilometres north of Tennant Creek in the Northern Territory, continues.
The campaign led by traditional owners to stop the waste dump is gearing up for the next stage in the fight.
On 26 August, the Federal Court set June 2014 for a case to be heard on whether the nomination of the site for the waste dump followed due process. The nuclear free campaigner for the Australian Conservation Foundation, Dave Sweeney, told Red Flag:
“The case has been brought by a group of senior Aboriginal traditional owners who argue that both the Commonwealth and the Northern Land Council (NLC) have failed in their statutory duty to identify, engage and obtain consent from the appropriate Aboriginal owners. They are seeking to have the existing nomination ruled invalid.”
Muckaty was nominated by the NLC with the support of only one of the five clan groups holding ownership and cultural ties to Muckaty Station.
The Rudd-Gillard Labor government has used divide and rule tactics, former resources minister Martin Ferguson boasting at one stage that he had offers for numerous locations across the NT for a waste dump if Muckaty Station fell through.
Opposition ignored
Barb Shaw, an Aboriginal activist with connections to Muckaty Station, told Red Flag, “There has always been opposition to the nuclear waste dump on Muckaty … There has been a campaign running ever since the site was nominated and announced. There has been big opposition from Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people, from right across Australia.”
Shaw explained: “People from four of the clan groups have travelled around Australia talking about the nuclear waste dump. There has been a nuclear-free ride from Lucas Heights all the way to Muckaty … People are aware of it and do oppose it, because they know it is wrong and that the waste hasn’t come from this country, yet they want to put it in the country. Aboriginal people are very culturally and traditionally connected to the land … any form of nuclear waste is not part of our culture.”
Shaw is concerned by the nomination process and the role of the NLC. “There is a need for free, prior and informed consent in this issue, but there was no information given to the people. They weren’t properly informed about the waste dump, and they haven’t been able to give full consent if they want a nuclear waste dump there or not”, she said.
Spurious excuses
The rationale for the dump is spurious. There is no compelling scientific or public safety necessity for one to be built.It has been repeatedly claimed that a specialised waste dump is required to safely store low level waste (LLW) and long lived intermediate level waste (LLIW).
Most of the LLW is derived from medical isotopes used in hospitals and clinics, while the LLIW comes almost exclusively from the nuclear reactor at Lucas Heights in Sydney. It is this latter type of waste that is of most concern because it is highly toxic and radioactive for a lengthy period.
Sweeney explains further: “In the 1990s there was a departmental decision made that the best way to manage Australia’s radioactive waste was through developing a centralised remote dump or store. This decision was made by unelected bureaucrats and has since been uncritically adopted and advanced by successive federal governments. A remote dump is one way to manage waste; it is not the only way and has never been proven to be the best way.”
The push for a nuclear waste facility also ties in with a desire by the Australian ruling class to maintain a stake in the global nuclear industry. Aboriginal rights, the safety of workers and environmental concerns are being quashed or ignored in order to pursue profit.
The justification for storage of medical waste is also a complete furphy. Sweeney told Red Flag, “The medical myth is a deeply disturbing aspect of the Muckaty story. Both major parties have consistently misrepresented the situation by claiming that the Muckaty dump is needed to ensure Australians have access to nuclear medicine for therapeutic and diagnostic reasons.
“This is not the case – and medical waste is not the driver for the planned dump. Medical and public health bodies including the Medical Association for the Prevention of War and the Public Health Association of Australia have repeatedly condemned the conflation of these issues”, he said.
The promotion of the waste dump on an economic basis, including for local Aboriginal communities, also deeply concerns Shaw. “It is disgusting to talk about a nuclear waste dump as being part of economic development because there is no economic development in nuclear waste dumping”, she said.
“People around the country need to do their homework. They need to look at Mother [Nature] at work, especially when we have had accidents like Chernobyl, the tsunami in Japan and Fukushima, and of course there is the bombing of Maralinga here. The general public needs to think about whether they want to have nuclear waste travelling through their towns and their states, because accidents do happen.”
Whatever the outcome of the legal proceedings, Sweeney says that a public campaign needs to continue, including a transparent discussion about what to do with existing nuclear waste – simply passing unjust legislation and railroading Aboriginal and community rights is not the answer. “We need to move from the failed search for a vulnerable postcode to a genuine commitment to a credible process. Radioactive waste lasts longer that any politician’s promise, and we need to get its management right. This needs to be based on sound science and open and inclusive decision making and reflect international best practice. None of this is occurring at Muckaty.”

Cathy Lawless

No NT nuclear waste dump!

Western Australian Liberal Premier Colin Barnett has given the green light to local and multinational mining companies to expand exploration and commercial production of shale gas reserves found in the Canning Basin in the Kimberley region. In doing so, he has demonstrated his government’s ongoing commitment to ride roughshod over Aboriginal rights and environmental concerns in order to stitch up money-grubbing deals for mining and construction companies.
Ranked among the top five shale gas deposits in the world, the fields of the Canning Basin are a potential super-profits bonanza for Australian and overseas mining corporations. The deposits cover a huge area – over twice the size of Victoria. According to the United States Energy Information Administration, the known deposits in the Canning Basin are more than double Australia’s offshore reserves and represent the most promising location for unconventional gas extraction outside the United States.
The gas will be extracted by hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”), which involves pumping sand, water and chemicals into underground rock formations to create fractures through which the gas can be released. The process risks ground water contamination and other environmental impacts. It was banned in France two years ago.
The expansion of mining operations in Western Australia will dramatically increase the number of fracking wells and pipeline and road construction stretching over tens of thousands of square kilometres of Aboriginal land. The area includes the second largest artesian basin in Australia. In many places aquifers are adjacent to the strata where fracking operations will take place.
Community opposition
Lack of consultation with traditional owners and concerns over the spread of fracking wells has sparked community opposition. Jabir Jabir woman Lorna Kelly told Red Flag that people are not aware of the extent of current exploration, let alone future plans. “There wasn’t proper info on the ground for the public, so while we were trying to protect James Price Point, they were actually working on other deals which were taking place, which actually started in 2010.”
Kelly is deeply concerned about the impact of mining. “The fracking is a major concern within our community and has a major impact on our environment – it can lead to deformity and impacts all living things. One of the major issues is that we Aboriginal people still hunt and live off the land.”
Legal challenges are being prepared by clan and family groups from the Yawuru, Nyikina Mangala and Karajarri. Wayne Bergmann, a spokesperson for KRED Enterprises, which is representing traditional owners, told reporters on 19 June: “We are concerned that the agreement creates a new form of tenure for the companies and has major effects on the procedural rights afforded to the traditional owners under the Native Title Act … The act is flimsy enough as it is without the state government trying to circumvent it to support the interests of big multinational companies over Aboriginal people.”
The Barnett government has also passed legislation securing land at James Price Point for a future gas processing facility, which has been at the centre of a campaign by a coalition of Aboriginal and environmental activists who have fought to protect sacred sites and unique coastal areas. The mining companies and the government have sought to divide and manipulate the community.
Kelly points to some of the current mining practices and impacts around the Fitzroy Crossing area of the Kimberley: “With regards to water, with regards to employment and our people working in different places, the town [Fitzroy Crossing] is showing an ugly side. There is a lot of red neck stuff going on that our people have to put up with if they try to do some training to get into work which is rubbish.”
‘Third World situation’
“You have got those who are trying to protect the environment and those who are trying to stay alive and stay afloat with their family”, Kelly told Red Flag. “There needs to be consciousness and awareness raised in regards to the Canning Basin and the shale gas and fracking going on. We don’t want that in our community. We don’t want that in our region. A lot of our people still live in a Third World situation, you know. Australia is a very rich country and Western Australia holds considerable wealth, so how come we are still living a Third World lifestyle today? It doesn’t measure up.”
“We still have to prove today, through the process of native title, who we are – when we know where we come from and who we are and how we are attached to country”, she said.
Whatever crumb-like benefits may be offered from the expansion of projects in the Kimberley, it will do little to overcome decades of abject poverty and exploitation. The poor track record of the Barnett government on Indigenous rights, along with the policies of previous Labor state governments, has led to serious social breakdown and trauma for Aboriginal people across WA.
Youth suicide rates are among the highest in the world. Aboriginal leaders have described the situation as “an absolute epidemic”. At the same time, the rate of incarceration of Indigenous youth is steadily rising, adding to the dislocation of a generation. Aboriginal youth in WA are 43 times more likely to be detained than non-Aboriginal youth.
Kelly told Red Flag that the fight against the mining companies and the government is “a matter of protecting our humanity. It’s our human rights – our right to live on this planet, our right to look after what we have without being run over by mining companies and the government. The government needs to see who we really are. We make this country, we are not just herds of cattle. We are human.”

A fracking disaster for the Kimberley

Indigenous communities and families are reeling under the impact of a new stolen generation, as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children are removed from their families in staggeringly high numbers. More than a third of the 39,600 children in “out-of-home care” nationally are Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander, even though they make up only 4.6 percent of the national child population.
Since the Northern Territory Intervention began in 2007, the rate of child removals in the NT has increased by 80 percent. In Queensland the number of children removed from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island families has increased by 42 percent since 2007. Nearly half of these children taken by the Department of Community Services have been placed with non-Indigenous foster families or carers. In the NT, nearly two-thirds of the children removed have been placed with non-Indigenous foster families.
In New South Wales, nearly one in 10 Aboriginal children have been removed from their families: of every 1000 children removed from their families in NSW, around 83 are Aboriginal. The trends and figures for elsewhere in Australia are similar. According to the latest report on child protection released by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, the national rate for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children placed in “out-of-home care” has increased from 41.3 to 55.1 per 1000 children. This contrasts sharply with the non-indigenous rate of 5.4 per 1000 children.
Giles challenged 
Rather than acknowledge the horrendous impact of the Intervention and the removal of children, NT Country Liberal Party Chief Minister Adam Giles is committed to entrenching the worst aspects of it. His support for the “case-by-case” forced adoption of Aboriginal children is not surprising.
Federal opposition leader Tony Abbot has made clear his preparedness to pursue such a policy, as well as extending Intervention-like controls over all welfare recipients, especially for the long-term unemployed and welfare-dependent families. As was to be expected, Giles’s recent comments have been supported by apologists for the policies that created the stolen generations, such as reactionary media commentator Andrew Bolt.
Yolnu Elder Reverend Djiniyini Gondarra wrote an open letter to Giles on 16 May, in which he challenged the chief minister: “Mr Giles, you claim that only one child has been taken away and given up for adoption in the last 10 years. But the fact is, about 60 children are being taken away every month in the NT by child protection services. Children are being taken away from us at numbers not seen since the Stolen Generations.
“In the case of the Stolen Generations, as you do today, the policy of forced removal of children was justified as ‘in the best interest of the children’. 40 years after it ended, the nation acknowledged the deep wrong of such a policy and began a long-awaited healing process with our people. What you now propose to do is to tear open the bandages and cut us again.”
Gondarra and other elders and Aboriginal organisations have called for the return of family support services that have been run down or stopped completely by state or territory and federal governments. In particular, they have called for an increase in Aboriginal-managed family support services in all Aboriginal communities, along with the establishment of family group conferencing processes where there are concerns regarding child safety.
The practice of removing children in the NT and elsewhere has further dislocated and undermined Aboriginal communities, already under pressure from the historical impact of colonial occupation and acts of genocide. The result of this legacy and the current policies is reflected in myriad disturbing trends, particularly with children and youth. During the years 2007-11, suicide rates for Aboriginal youth 10 to 17 years of age doubled. Over the same period, Aboriginal youth accounted for 75 percent of all youth suicides in the NT. The suicide rates for Indigenous youth in the NT and Western Australia are presently the highest in the world. Young Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are also over-represented in prison, with the rate of incarceration steadily increasing over recent years.
Fig leaf for racism
While the rationale for the NT intervention was as a measure to deal with child abuse, neglect, truancy and and other problems, this was a fig leaf for a thoroughly racist and paternalist policy. The plight of “at risk” Aboriginal children and the poverty-stricken communities in which they live was never going to improve under conditions where their rights were stripped, along with the imposition of a strict regime of apartheid-like social control.
Bo Spearim, a youth activist involved with the Brisbane Aboriginal Sovereign Embassy (BASE) explained to Red Flag: “We all know why the intervention was really put in place – it was because it came down to the government simply not wanting our people having control over our own destiny. That’s why they suspended the Racial Discrimination Act to have it introduced. They are against anything like us governing ourselves or self-determination … it all comes down to mining and money at the end of the day.
“[The NT intervention is] a trial run for what to put in place in other communities, places like Bankstown and rural areas of New South Wales and in cities and towns elsewhere. They are doing what they have done to our people for many years – take our rights. Gillard and Abbott just don’t get it … how these policies are hurting and stigmatising our people. They always stigmatise our people and show no respect, like when they talk about the rivers of grog.”
Activists from BASE have recently been involved in actions with community members demanding the Department of Community Services return children to their families or relatives. “We want our sovereign rights and a sovereign republic for all people … Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal, wherever you come from, based on equal rights and justice for all.”
From July 2013 the programs run in the NT, Bankstown and elsewhere will result in compulsory income management being extended automatically to include anyone who is under 25 and exiting prison, as well as young people assessed by Centrelink as “unable to live at home” or who are on a “special benefit” due to homelessness. This will disproportionately impact Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and contribute to more children being taken from their families.
The NT Intervention and its offshoots and the removal of children are fundamentally about breaking community connections, breaking ownership over traditional lands and breaking the resistance of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. They are little more than dressed-up old style colonial racism.

Queensland workers reject asset sell off

No NT nuclear waste dump!

A fracking disaster for the Kimberley

The new stolen generation

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