Mining jobs deal helps indigenous tighten grip on futures

Twenty hand-picked trainees from the Gove Peninsula will begin program preparing them to work on a new mine.

Balumba Gondarra, 18, and Michael Yunupingu, 19, will be part of the first intake into the Gulkula Training Centre in Arnhem Land. Picture: Peter Eve.

Bauxite has played a role more critical than perhaps any other bit of dirt in the modern land rights struggle.

The 1963 Yirrkala bark petit­ions protesting an Arnhem Land deal to mine the ore used to make aluminium arguably kicked off the drive to legally reclaim indig­enous property.

It was to be a profound matter not merely of ownership, but of deep cultural identity; of connection to country.

Those petitions, which hang in Parliament House, and the Wave Hill walk-off that followed them in 1966, were stations along the way to the 1967 referendum by which the federal government took responsibility for laws regarding indigenous Australians.

Various territory and state land rights acts followed, and the High Court’s 1992 Mabo decision, which established native title.

Now, at Gulkula on the Gove Peninsula, where this past weekend’s Garma cultural festival has been held, 20 hand-picked trainees will begin a 17-week program preparing them to work a new mine on the same land that sparked those original protests.

Except this time the entire ­operation — training centre and mine — is fully owned by the ­Gumatj Corporation, representing one of the 12 clans that signed the 1963 petitions. The tables have been turned on generations of exploitation.

And it is an apt coincidence that the ore, with forecast produc­tion already contracted to business partner Rio Tinto, lies on the very land that Malcolm Turnbull and Bill Shorten visited at the weekend to discuss the matter of ­indigenous constitutional recognition.

That struggle — for a referendum that would complete, in many people’s eyes, the unfinished business of 1967, and bring true self-determination — has its own end in sight for trainees ­Michael Yunupingu, 19, and Balumba Gondarra, 18.

Their career prospects are great, but the practical benefits are even more immediate. “I’m really looking forward to it; really excited to stay away from walking around, to staying out of trouble,” Mr Yunupingu said. “It was hard to finish school, there were a lot of funerals and other commitments to take up your time, which big companies might not understand.’’

The training centre has been established with $2.4 million in funding from Rio and contributions from the Northern Territ­ory and federal governments.

Gumatj Corporation chief executive Klaus Helms said the project was “a testament to what indigenous people can achieve working in partnership with business and government”.

There will be two student ­intakes a year, and with the nearby­ mine expected to be productive until 2030 some of them will gain jobs there.