Elder Galarrwuy Yunupingu wants bark to have more bite

GALARRWUY Yunupingu has called for a new pact giving Aboriginal people the right to control economic development.

GALARRWUY Yunupingu has called for a new pact giving Aboriginal people the right to control economic development, 50 years after the signing of the Yirrkala Bark Petition began the land rights movement in which he made his name.

The Gumatj clan leader and veteran land rights activist yesterday described existing legislation as "empty", and asked what it gave Aboriginal people to look forward to in the future.

"I would like to say one thing to the Prime Minister: this land rights here is empty, it's full of everything but it's full of nothing," Mr Yunupingu said. "I will let you have a think about that; I will let you have a close think."

He made the comments in the northeast Arnhem Land community of Yirrkala, a town still racked by waves of petrol sniffing, kava abuse and chronic unemployment. Mr Yunupingu said telling the commonwealth the local Yolngu tribes wanted companies to stop mining land around Nhulunbuy and to "please go away" was the original purpose of the 1963 Yirrkala Bark Petition. But he said attitudes had changed.

"The land rights is for the Aboriginal people, but the land ownership and use of the land ownership is not for Aboriginal people - it's for mining companies and for whitefellas," he said. "What will there be for us to look forward to?

"It's the economic development, the work, the money that comes into the hands of Aboriginal people through their own country . . . we want to develop our own land."

Addressing a crowd that included fellow Yolngu leaders, federal and Northern Territory ministers and other dignitaries, Kevin Rudd described the Bark Petition, the first traditional document recognised by parliament, as the Magna Carta of the indigenous world. He said it had brought two cultures together, and took up Mr Yunupingu's challenge by promising to engage with local leaders on how they could make use of their land. "It should not be the whitefellas around the country that tell you how to use your land," the Prime Minister said. "Our indigenous brothers and sisters should have the same rights as everyone else to make decisions on how to use their land."

The Gumatj Corporation operates as a contracting firm, has a property portfolio and runs small businesses. It is seeking control of mining leases, and wants to pursue further development. Mr Yunupingu would like other Yolngu groups to follow suit.

Coalition indigenous affairs spokesman Nigel Scullion said Aborigines were right to want to reap the benefits of development, and that land rights legislation was not "fixed in the moment".

Speaking first in Yolngu Matha, Mr Yunupingu told the story of the Yolngu Church Panels, which used to stand astride the altar in the Yirrkala Mission.

He said painting those panels had brought the Yolngu clans together, and from there had come the Bark Petition, then the land rights battle.

Mr Rudd said that journey through the Gove land rights case and the Woodward royal commission, to land rights legislation and the Mabo decision had "changed our nation's story".

Drawing on his 2008 apology to the Stolen Generations, he said words needed to be "translated into reality".

Wali Wunungmurra, chairman of the Northern Land Council and one of three surviving signatories to the Bark Petition, reflected on how hard it had been for Aboriginal people to communicate their message with governments far away, often through translators.

"We had to sit down and talk to people, tell them that this is what we are really fighting for, our rights to the land we are living on now," he said.

Mr Yunupingu called on the Yolngu clans to unite in the spirit of the panels and fight to "win the land rights yet again", but this time for economic development.