Committee to Defend Black Rights --- "Home on the Ranger -- Where the Radioactive Water Flows" [1986] AboriginalLawB 4; (1986) 1(18) Aboriginal Law Bulletin 3

• Home On The Ranger – Where The Radioactive Water Flows

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Home on the Ranger – Where the Radioactive Water Flows

The Northern Lands Council (NLC), acting o behalf of four hundred traditional owners, began proceedings in the High Court on October 25 against Energy Resources of Australia (ERA), owners of the Ranger Uranium Mine in the Northern Territory. They also instituted proceedings against the Commonwealth.

The Court action is basically a renegotiation of the original Ranger Agreement, signed back in 1978, which the NLC now claims is invalid because it was signed "as a result of duress, undue influence and unconssionable conduct by the Commonwealth".

Mr Galarrwuy Yunupingu, NLC Chairperson, points out that Aborigines have no contractual relationship with ERA and are therefore unable to enforce environmental safeguards in the agreement. He feels the vital interests of the traditional owners are being overlooked.

Meanwhile Ranger Mine is pushing to release an enormous quantity of contaminated waste water directly into Magella Creek this wet season. Under its operating agreement the mine isn't permitted to release any water into the World Heritage Kakadu National Park (which surrounds it) from the mining complex, called the Restricted Release Zone.

However, a report released only weeks ago by ERA, its Best Practicable Technology Report (BPT), again recommends the government allow nearly one million cubic metres of radioactive water flow this wet season. Beat practicable technology in Ranger's books obviously amounts to what's cheapest, quickest and least likely to interfere with profits.

Already over the past six months there have been more then ten spillages of radioactive material at the mine, and even after the most serious (on September 24, when 150 cubic metres of uranium tailings sprayed outside the Restricted Release Zone), the traditional owners were not informed. These incidents breach Section 17(a) of the Uranium Mining (Environmental Control) Act, and the company is open to $100,000 fines. The Northern Territory government is, at this stage, refusing to prosecute.

With royalties set at 4.5 per cent, a total of $6.5 million has been paid to Aborigines over the last two years, but ERA has profited more than $100 million in the same period. The NLC will be arguing in the High Court that by applying royalty formulas used in the United States, royalty payments should rise from 4 per cent to nearly fifteen per cent of the company's profit.

Mr Yunupingu says that Aborigines have tried unsuccessfully to resolve their dissatisfaction through negotiations with the Hawke government. "The decision to commence court action has not been taken lightly," he said. "Legal advice has been sought and a lengthy and exhaustive period of consideration end consultation has passed before reaching the current stage,"

"But we have grown up a lot since those days when the Fraser government used all of its expertise and pressure to have the agreement signed. The NLC and the traditional owners from Kakadu can now stand on their own feet."

Committee to Defend Black Rights Newsletter, No 2, December 1985