Muckaty Station is the quintessential image of outback Australia — rocky, scrubby, rust-coloured plains stretched out beneath a big blue sky.
Amplifying Indigenous voices
Researchers
Paddy Gibson
Craig Longman
Jason De Santolo
Research centre
Jumbunna Institute for Indigenous Education and Research
Partners
Maurice Blackburn Lawyers
Beyond Nuclear Initiative
Warlmanpa community
For many thousands of years, Muckaty Station has been home to the Warlmanpa People. So, in 2007, when the Federal Government and Northern Land Council nominated the station as a nuclear waste disposal site, outrage ensued.
Despite being legally bound to consult with Indigenous landholders and pursue their best interests, the Federal Government failed to do so. Repeatedly.
So Warlmanpa leaders turned to the Jumbunna Institute for Indigenous Education and Research for legal assistance, lobbying and public advocacy.
With a research team made up of both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal members, Jumbunna’s philosophy is all about enabling community self-determination and allowing Aboriginal people to express justice in their own words. According to Jumbunna Senior Researcher and practising solicitor Craig Longman, a secondary goal of the campaign was to encourage non-Aboriginal Australians to reflect on the meaning of justice.
“As a solicitor, I am trained to think about rights and law in a certain way. But when you meet people and hear their stories, you ask yourself – what are my worldviews and values based on? You learn to challenge your own views of law and justice and understand the prejudice behind it,” Longman says.
As such, the research team also utilised filmmaking to amplify the voices of the Aboriginal community and created the documentary Protecting Manguwangku.
“Non-Aboriginal Australians often fail to recognise the deep connection between Aboriginal people and the land,” explains Jumbunna Senior Researcher Paddy Gibson. “But there is something very special about this relationship and there is an urgent need to protect it. We tried to show not only what needs to be done, but why it is so important.”
And by all accounts, it worked. After a long community-led campaign, and with support for the Warlmanpa building around the country, in 2014 the Australian Federal Government withdrew its nomination. What’s more, they’re no longer targeting Aboriginal land held under the Northern Territory Land Rights Act for nuclear waste disposal sites.
While the legal victory was rewarding, Longman says the benefits for the local community extend much farther.
“Children in this community will now be able to grow up in an unpolluted environment, and their connection to their land, and to their culture, will not be disrupted. You can’t quantify that.”
Image credit
Photographer: Caddie Brain via Flickr