How Indigenous people got zilch from a billion-dollar mining bonanza

More than $1 billion in resources revenue has flowed from the earth into the Victorian government’s coffers in the past three years – and none of it has gone to the traditional owners of those lands.

Such is the extent of land injustice faced by Victoria’s First Peoples – exposed in evidence before the Yoorrook Justice Commission that lays bare the scale of economic exclusion imposed on Indigenous people in this state.

Djiri Djiri dancers perform before Monday’s Yoorrook hearing.Credit: Justin McManus

The historic truth telling inquiry has held a month of hearings into the injustices and inequities stemming from the violent dispossession of lands, waters and skies from First Peoples since the arrival of European settlers.

Premier Jactina Allan’s appearance – the first by a state leader at a formal, Indigenous-led truth telling and justice commission – briefly brought wider interest to the inquiry, but the crux of the hearings was generally overlooked.

Yoorrook commissioners heard eyeopening details about the revenue reaped by the state from the extraction of energy resources. Figures showed how traditional owners remain locked out of substantial economic opportunities in Victoria.

Gold royalties tallied up to almost $150 million over the past three years – and some $297 billion since 1851, for those keeping score. For coal, it was more than $885 million in the past three years, alongside some $40 million from oil and gas and almost $80 million from sandstone and gravel extraction.

Premier Jacinta Allan appeared before the Yoorrook Justice Commission this week.Credit: Justin McManus

And how much of that revenue went to Aboriginal-led traditional owner organisations, the commission asked? All government ministers and department representatives offered up the same answer: None.

No traditional owner organisations primarily benefit from resources revenue, the inquiry repeatedly heard, and there is no mechanism in place that allows First Peoples to participate in the generation of wealth from their traditional lands.

A strategy is in place for renewable energy that aims to generate economic participation for traditional owner groups in about a decade, but the state currently generates zero revenue through this.

“If the principle is right for renewables, why shouldn’t it be right for gold extracted today?” commissioner Anthony North asked.

Commissioner Eleanor Bourke.Credit: Justin McManus

So can it be applied to gold, coal, gas and stone? Apparently, yes.

“We need to change,” Resources Minister Lily D’Ambrosio told the commission in response. “It’s a failing ... I’m not going to make an excuse for it.”

Water Minister Harriet Shing revealed the state made about $83 billion from water entitlements over the past 13 years. From this revenue, state expenditure on First Nations water programs amounted to $39.2 million.

Under examination, Shing admitted the allocations of water and funding to traditional owner organisations had been “inadequate over a long period of time”.

The commission explored ideas of restitution and redress with government ministers and bureaucrats, including the return of proprietary land titles to traditional owners and with them the rights to valuable water resources.

They flagged these matters would be key components of forthcoming treaty negotiations, set to commence this year.

Even on matters of land rights – where it could be argued that progress has been made in terms of First Peoples gaining back some control of their ancestral homelands – the numbers aren’t much better.

The hearing was told that only miserly freehold title rights for traditional owner groups had emerged, despite native title processes and Victoria’s Traditional Owner Settlement Act.

Commissioner Travis LovettCredit: Justin McManus

Freehold title is land that traditional owners can build houses on, farm crops, agist livestock, or otherwise develop, lease or take a mortgage over. But on Gunai Kurnai Country, in the state’s east, traditional owners have had “returned” a little over 1.5 square kilometres of freehold land – out of a total of 22,800 square kilometres.

For traditional owners of the Wotjobaluk Nations, in the Wimmera northwest of Melbourne, just 4.21 square kilometres of 35,830 is freehold title.

For the Dja Dja Wurrung in central Victoria, it’s 1.12 square kilometres from 17,370, while in the Taunurung, northeast of Melbourne, it is less than one square kilometre from 20,210.

“A speck in terms of the vast amount of land in the deal that’s been struck?” counsel assisting the commission Tony McAvoy, SC, suggested in his examination.

“Yes, that’s a small amount in comparison to the rest,” Minister for Treaty and First Peoples Natalie Hutchins said.

The maths shows freehold title is less than 1 per cent of the total size of traditional lands recognised through Native Title determination in the courts or the state’s recognition and settlement agreement.

Most of these land “hand backs” are reserved for national parks and state forests, which remain under the management of the state with limited input from traditional owners, the inquiry heard.

Asked by commissioner Travis Lovett how that evidence made her feel, Hutchins replied that she was “disappointed that the land holdings are so low” but suggested that could be improved through treaty.

Yoorrook chair Eleanor Bourke summed up the frustrations of traditional owners in a passing statement in response to the revenue figures submitted by D’Ambrosio.

“I find it striking that it has taken this truth commission to get to a conversation … about what is possible from the wealth of this country,” Bourke said. “We need a different kind of approach, a different mindset. We don’t need pretty reconciliation action plans. We actually need strategies devised with our people, with traditional owners in place.

“This is just the stark reality about how far we have been ignored in our spaces.”

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