Cabinet papers 1990-91: tirade over Coronation Hill mine

Bob Hawke launched an embittered attack on cabinet colleagues as he opposed mining at Coronation Hill.

Bob Hawke launched an embittered attack on cabinet colleagues as he opposed mining at Coronation Hill in support of Aboriginal opposition to the project, a move he believed contributed to his loss of the prime ministership.

After Mr Hawke’s vehement intervention, cabinet, in 1991, decided not to allow mining at Coronation Hill and the site was incorporated into Kakudu National Park. This was despite several ministers being in favour of mining and the Treasury and Industry departments warning of dire consequences for investment if a decision to block it was taken.

Cabinet met the Jawoyn people who opposed the mine on the basis that their god Bula lived under the ground and sickness would be visited on them if mining proceeded.

Mr Hawke said that when the issue came before cabinet and there was support for the mining proposal, “I was annoyed beyond measure by the attitude of many of my colleagues, of their cynical dismissal of the beliefs of the Jawoyn people.”

He challenged cabinet that those who opposed the Jawoyn position essentially were saying that the traditional owners were talking “bullshit”. “I think I made probably one of the strongest and bitterest attacks I ever made on my colleagues in the cabinet,” Mr Hawke said.

He said there was no doubt this contributed to his loss of the prime ministership to Paul Keating later in 1991.

Mr Hawke said he attacked the “monumental hypocrisy” of cabinet rejecting the Jawoyn’s beliefs about their god while the same people who denigrated that belief “can easily accommodate and embrace the bundle of mysteries which make up their white Christian beliefs”.

He said this “supercilious supremacist discrimination” was abhorrent to everything he held to be important Labor beliefs.

Treasury warned that if a decision were taken not to allow mining it feared that it would be difficult for the government to persuade the investment and business community that Coronation Hill should be considered a special case.

Hawke archives 1990-91

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