Quandamooka sand mining - Image, www.workersbushtelegraph.com

Quandamooka sand mining – Image, www.workersbushtelegraph.com

Quandamooka sand may be here today, gone tomorrow. Sand is the world’s most in demand resource, and before long the world will be without sand for urbanisation’s insatiable urges, and for technology’s production lines. The Queensland Government and the multinational robber barons know this. That Trojan Horse, the Native Title Act should have protected the rights of the people over their land’s deposits of sand. This is not a resource deep in the earth like ores and minerals which are freed up to robber barons and profiteers under exploitive laws. Native title is about the lands and seas and not what is deep within the, such as minerals and ores. By fact of being below the surface minerals and ores are not the property of any particular people or the responsibility of the custodians of the environment so native title would have it – it is only the access to their lands that is a point of potential negotiation according to native title. But sand is not found below the surface.

Quandamooka Yoolooburrabee Aboriginal Corporation (QYAC) has challenged the Queensland State Government in the High Court of Australia for its oligarchical decision to extend sand mining for an additional 16 years on North Stradbroke Island.

Read more on sand mining – The Scarcity Wars, Sand – here:

What is not being said in the squabble over whether the Government should have extended the sand mining is how lucrative the supplying of sand is and how much in demand it is. Sand is in such demand that far too many Governments and profiteers will take as much of it as they can even if it means environmental degradation and irreparable effects. Sand smuggling and sand trafficking is a huge business right around the world. Singapore’s territory mass has been extended by 20 per cent in the last three decades, and this has been achieved from the sand of neighbouring countries. Many ASEAN countries, like Indonesia, Malaysia, Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam have banned sand exports because of the degradation to the environment which has meant whole communities have had to relocate.

Sand in large quantities is lucrative, and as per usual the carpetbaggers have jumped in. The demand is so huge that ships worth hundreds of millions of dollars dredge the ocean’s sea beds daily, so Australia’s onshore supply cannot be missed by profiteers.

The Queensland Government bypassed the people of North Stradbroke and bypassed environmental and human habitat considerations and amended the North Stradbroke Island Protection and Sustainability Act, extending sandmining onwards from 2019 to 2035. Quandamooka Elders did not consent to the extension.

What is the point to the Native Title Act when it is bypassed altogether? But Dr Gary Foley once said it best, “Native Title is not land rights, reconciliation is not justice.”

Quandamooka Elders lodged a writ in the High Court against the Government only a fortnight ago. This followed a Traditional ceremony on the island.

QYAC Chair of the Board, Cameron Costello believes the Native Title Act will save the day for the Quandamooka. This is a huge call, because for the most part it never has for anyone. The silence from the National Native Title Tribunal is deafening. That though is not news.

“Campbell Newman’s Government wrote to us in 2012 saying they wanted to meet to extend sand mining and if we didn’t meet they were going to suspend our native title benefits,” said Mr Costello. These types of threats are not uncommon. In Western Australia Premier Colin Barnett’s threats of compulsory acquisition are now well worn.

“From that letter to us, the State knew it was breaching our Indigenous Land Use Agreement.”

The Quandamooka people had only scored native title rights in 2011.

Now the background that stirs questions as to the Newman-led Government’s decision to extend the sand mining is that in 2011, after the Quandamooka’s native title rights were secured in the High Court, the Anna Bligh-led Government passed the North Stradbroke Island Protection and Sustainability Act, which was crafted by Environment Minister Kate Jones and in liaison with the Quandamooka Elders. The Act phased out the sand mining on the island by 2019, dedicating 80 per cent of the island to a national park, to be in effect by 2027. But sand is in higher demand than most other resources.

Without too much delay, soon after the incumbent Government came to power in 2012, they amended the Act in October last year, passing it in November. Mines Minister, Andrew Cripps tabled the amendments.

Minister Cripps pushed the line that he acted in the interests of Stradbroke residents who were dependent on the sand mining for their employment and that 2019 is too early to phase out the mining. The mining companies are only too happy to have these jobs “protected”.

Once again the Commonwealth’s 21-year old Native Title Act has been made a mockery. A general understanding in Native Title is that where there is a point of dispute between the State and the Commonwealth over native title interpretations, then the Commonwealth’s understandings override. But this will be difficult when the incumbent Federal Government has publicly declared it will craft changes to Native Title to make it easier to progress mining interests and the handover of tenements.

Minister Cripps has put out the usual lines that Government has complied honourably. “The Government is satisfied the legislation is consistent with the Commonwealth Native Title Act and does not contravene the existing Indigenous Land Use Agreement between the State and the Quandamooka people.”

Sand mining company, Sibelco wants the sand for supply to glass and medical equipment manufacturers. There is just about no product on the planet without silicone. Sibelco confirmed it spent nearly $100,000 in advertising in Premier Newman’s electorate during the State election.

Quandamooka Elders, Evelyn Parkin, Grace Graham, Darren Burns and Gavin Costello were present at the Commonwealth Law Courts in Brisbane when launching the writ. Stradbroke Island is their Country.

“May your eyes and ears be open to the cause of Aboriginal people of Stradbroke Island and Australia,” said Ms Parkin to a gathering outside the Law Courts.

Ms Parkin said Premier Newman’s Government spoke with Sibelco but did not speak with the Quandamooka people.

“We are here because of our Quandamooka people. And most importantly because of our ancestors who have gone before us and who had paved the way for us for our Aboriginal struggle for rights on our own Country.”

“We were raised in our little Aboriginal community at One Mile, near Brown Lake,” said Ms Parkin.

“We have our connection. I was born on the land of my sister – Grace. Grace was born there.”

Mr Costello said that “mining leases were till 2019” and had been acknowledged in their Indigenous Land Use Agreement subsequent the High Court native title win in 2011. He said that the extension “contradicts the order put down by the Federal Court of Australia under the Native Title Act.”

But Native Title being the piecemeal rort that it is means that Quandamooka people have to fight tooth and nail on counts such as damage to culturally sensitive sites.

Mr Costello said that the cultural and sacred sites are not protected, but of course the mining company is saying otherwise. But damn it is about time that native title rights should not be contingent on the preservation of cultural rights. Till native title rights become more about land rights and ownership of the land then they are near next to nothing and what little is gained with native title remains vulnerable without wider land rights protections.

Queensland Native Title Services solicitor Kevin Smith said to journalists that the Quandamooka peoples High Court challenge may have a positive impact.

“There are many hundreds of Indigenous Land Use Agreements and if a State Government can unilaterally unpick hard work and the good faith negotiations of its predecessors then it has serious concerns for the legal system.”

But this has been happening for two decades.

Quandamooka Elder, Dale Ruska said his people’s native claim application was the third claim application lodged and accepted by the High Court, Mabo being the first one. But it took two decades and a couple of hundred native title determinations later before a sliver of justice came to the Quandamooka people in 2011. “The Quandamooka claim was lodged in 1991 with the original intent to obtain legal recognition through Australian law of our first nation sovereign rights as the original owners and people.”

Then the Mabo ruling in 1992 facilitated native title which arrived as an Act of Parliament in 1993.

Mr Ruska is one of the Quandamooka Elders who do not accept the native title settlement, as he sees it as a worthless piece of paper which subtracts natural rights rather than protecting them. Soon after the settlement he said, “We do not all accept the consent determination of Quandamooka native title rights made by the Federal Court of Australia on 4 July 2011 as being settlement of our first nation sovereignty.”

Countries which have banned sand exporting and which try and regulate sand mining are undermined by wealthier nations, but Australia is one of the world’s wealthiest nations undermining itself, the environment, the peoples of North Stradbroke Island, the Aboriginal rights struggle and the future. But we have seen this over and over again by one Government after another, State and Federal, with fracking, uranium, the list is long.