Adani’s ‘final hurdle’ is W&J’s rights


Stories / Sunday, May 7th, 2017

The Deputy Prime Minister, Barnaby Joyce, on behalf of the Government and a host of pro-Adani interests, continues to propagate the lie that all that is needed for Adani to overcome its ‘final hurdle’ – the rights of Wangan and Jagalingou people – is for the Native Title Act amendment bill to be passed in the Federal Parliament next week. After all, Malcolm Turnbull told Gautam Adani that it’s taken care of.

Joyce, in inimitable National Party style, is preempting the Parliament on the passage of proposed amendments to the Native Title Act, and preempting Court decisions on the consequences for Adani. But then, the Nationals never were very good on the separation of powers, due process and the rule of law. Maybe that’s why Adani Mining looks so good to them.

Even if the bill does eventually go through, there’s the matter of our legal action in the Federal Court against Adani’s sham agreement. The passing of the Bill won’t fix that. And that’s the con.

We know the Government has been working furiously behind the scenes, and we know they are exploiting the doubt and uncertainty they themselves created after the Federal Court reverted to the law and overturned business as usual for miners.

We know that all sorts of pressure is on Labor to line up and pass the changes – and can see that crass inducements of steel contracts for South Australia are being dangled in front of the Xenophon Team to get their votes as insurance.

None-the-less, we will continue to state our case to the Parliament to the end. There are many grounds on which this bill should not be passed next week and a proper process of law reform adhered to instead.

We will maintain our litigation against any registration of Adani’s purported ‘Indigenous Land Use Agreement’, which lacks the consent of the Traditional Owners. And we are still litigating the Queensland Government’s issuing of mining leases over our lands in the face of our clear NO vote against the deal.

Adani Australia chief executive Jeyakumar Janakaraj said it is only native title holding back the Carmichael project; that “the next three weeks will be game changers for the Galilee Basin”.

Indeed they will. We intend to prosecute our case against Adani in the Courts come what may in Parliament next week.

Faking momentum for public relations purposes and conning investors does not win court cases or add up to good law making. We will expose Adani’s sham land use agreement and force the State Government to take responsibility for this shonky deal.

The only starting post in sight is the commencement of legal proceedings against Adani’s fake ILUA.

See: Adani starting post in site

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