Native title dispute goes to court after Queensland mining lease extended

Traditional owners vow to fight state government's decision to prolong mining on North Stradbroke Island

Australian Associated Press

The former Labor government banned mining past 2025. Photograph: Dave Hunt/AAP

Indigenous North Stradbroke islanders are taking the Queensland government to the high court over a mining deal they say tramples on their native title rights.

The case is challenging the state's decision to extend mining on the island off Brisbane until 2035, 10 years after it was legislated to end.

The island's traditional owners, the Quandamooka people, say the Newman government's legislation contravenes the commonwealth's Native Title Act.

"What the extension does now is jeopardises our environment and jeopardises our cultural heritage sites," the chief executive of the Quandamooka Yoolooburrabee Aboriginal Corporation, Cameron Costello, said on Friday.

Costello said the extension denied Indigenous people their right to hunt, gather, meet and conduct traditional ceremonies on the island.

"That's what this does – it strips our rights to do that," he said. "It was meant to be national park for the preservation and for the economic benefit of the Quandamooka people."

In 2011, the former Labor government banned mining past 2025 to create more national parks, which would be partly managed by the Quandamooka people.

The chief executive of Queensland South Native Title Services, Kevin Smith, said traditional owners believed the Newman government's legislation to extend mining was invalid under the commonwealth’s Native Title Act.

Elders delivered a writ to the high court's registry office in Brisbane on Friday morning.

Costello said the situation was disappointing given elders across the country had fought so hard for land rights, while native title holders on the island had already begun investigating sustainable industries, such as agriculture and fisheries.

"Instead of putting our energy into those things we are now having to protect our rights that our ancestors have fought for," he said.

"[After] sixteen years of negotiation, for my elders to have to go back to parliament two years after the native title and beg for their rights to be heard, it's very disappointing."

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jun/06/native-title-dispute-court-queensland-mining-lease-extended