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SUBMISSION TO THE JOINT STANDING COMMITTEE ON NORTHERN AUSTRALIA Background I have been the CEO of Yinhawangka AC RNTBC since November 2019. I am new to this role but a key part of the responsibilities of the RNTBC is to protect, as best we can, Yinhawangka country. I have attained a reasonable, if incomplete, knowledge of the mechanisms for protecting important Yinhawangka places available to us. The Yinhawangka country stretches, roughly, from the Beasley River in the west to the Great Northern Highway in the East, Karijini National Park in the north to just touch on the Ashburton River in the South. Paraburdoo is the only Town, there are small aboriginal communities – Bellary Springs, and Wakuthuni, and some of the world’s important iron ore mines. The only producer here is Rio Tinto, but the other two big Australian producers are actively exploring, and there are many smaller explorers. This geological formation is known as the Hamersley Group. Figure 1A map showing the Yinhawangka country and some neighbouring areas. The Yinhawangka lands include the southernmost part of the Hamersley Range, which contain some of the greatest deposits of iron ore in the world. This area is also known as the Hamersley Sub-Region of the Pilbara Bioregion. It is a truly magnificent part of Australia. A large part of it, perhaps 25%, is already covered by mining leases, and it is considered ‘underrepresented’ in the National Reserve System. There are threatened species here, like the ghost bat, the northern quoll and the Pilbara olive python, and many plants, which might only exist on one range or another. Yinhawangka women hold a lot of medicinal knowledge of these plants. The archaeological indications of deep-time Yinhawangka occupation can be found everywhere. It has been an extraordinary experience for me, as Yinhawangka people and archaeologists and anthropologists have opened my eyes to the stories and complexity of this landscape. The Hamersley was a refuge for people during a great drying around the Last Glacial Maximum. The yintha - permanent waterholes – are sacred to Yinhawangka people and guarded by warlu, the creation serpent. One of the most important archaeological sites in Yinhawangka country is Yirra. Yirra is the largest of a series of shelters situated along the rock face, next to a land bridge (an artificial bridge of rock and rubble between two ridges) at Rio Tinto’s Channar Mine. The Minister gave Sn. 16 and Sn. 18 consents in 2000, A serious of tests and surveys were carried out by Rio Tinto and revealed a great amount of cultural material and strong evidence of multiple occupations from the present through to the Pleistocene. It is a physical record of at least 23,000 years of occupation. No other site in the inland Pilbara (as of 2019) offers such a comprehensive dating series for the period surrounding the Last Glacial Maximum. Yirra sheds light on human adaptations over a period of great climatic change. Yirra is recorded in the ACMC system (Other Site 17720) but it is not a registered site. It is 65 meters from a massive (110m high) land-bridge that haul pack trucks use to deliver ore from the mine pit. Large boulders have rolled down the land bridge embankment (Fig. 3) and there is a significant amount of soil erosion on the land bridge embankment face. Eroded material has already made its way through the gully below the Yirra site and into the Turee Creek tributary. Rio Tinto’s Cultural Heritage Management Plan for the Paraburdoo area does not provide for any management actions relating to Yirra. It is not up to Yinhawangka to talk about other people’s country and in this submission, I will respect that and share my experience regarding Yinhawangka heritag. Terms of Reference (a) The operation of the Aboriginal Heritage Act 1972 (WA) and approvals provided under the Act; Since I have been with Yinhawangka the Corporation have only lodged one Heritage Information Submission that (I understood) was the mechanism to Register a Site with the DPLH. That submission related to ceremonial meeting place, pool and dance ground called Mundarie, and I received no response from the Department. When I followed up in June, the Department suggested that I should email the Registrar of Aboriginal Sites and they would process “as a stand-alone submission.” We proceeded to do so and are waiting for an outcome on Registration. Mundarie has been listed as ‘lodged’ with DAA since 2013 It has been suggested to me by experienced professionals in this field, that the DPLH will register sites preferentially for Sn. 16 and Sn. 18 applications, rather than to simply protect a site, and that they don’t have adequate resources to protect sites. During heritage surveys for mine planning at the Western Range, Rio Tinto recently applied to register 10 sites for Sn. 16 approvals. One of these was rejected by the ACMC, with what appeared to be no grounds. Our archaeologist appealed the rejection but did not receive a reply. Anecdotal suggestions are that the ACMC has been directed to a ‘quota’ of rejected sites. In this case it should be noted that archaeologists and Rio Tinto’s heritage staff recommended registration of all of these sites. All of the Section 18 approvals that Rio Tinto has applied for in Yinhawangka country have been approved. It does seem to me that the discretionary power of the Minister (to direct the ACMC to do anything) that has existed since 1980, the limited resources of the Department and the ACMC, the limited role of Aboriginal people speaking for their country, and the limited role of experts like archaeologists and anthropologists, all act to render the ACMC impotent in the exercise of the functions that the Parliament originally intended them to exercise. Figure 2 Yirra Site Figure 3 A boulder that has rolled off the land bridge. Figure 4 Overview of Site showing Erosion Material It seems to me to be self-evident that the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs in Western Australia, is conflicted, in that he is also the Treasurer and the Minister of Finance (as well as, absurdly, other substantial portfolios). The Western Australian Treasury, of course, benefits from every additional tonne of iron ore that is exported from the State. The Government itself is vulnerable to a mining sector that is quick to cry ‘jobs, jobs, jobs’ at the slightest hint of regulatory oversight. Even though an iron ore industry that is respectful of the land from which it is born, would employ substantially more people than one that is hell-bent on the cheapest path to production. The matter of limited resources is an important one. The development of iron ore mines in Western Australia is massive in scale and relentless in nature. Government approvals – environmental and heritage – are given for entire mountain ranges rather than simply mine sites. Even the best resourced agents of heritage protection, the mining companies, seem to be under-resourced to deal with the scale of work that they have at hand. Government regulators that have suffered from continual cost-cutting and the loss of expertise, as well as unfettered Ministerial discretion, cannot keep up. It goes without saying that our Corporation, a relatively small one for the Pilbara, with 10 staff including one heritage professional, and a Ranger team of 3, is overwhelmed by the amount of attention that we should be paying to these matters, and our lack of the technical expertise. (b) the consultation that Rio Tinto engaged in prior to the destruction of the caves with Indigenous peoples; It is not our place to comment here. (c) the sequence of events and decision-making process undertaken by Rio Tinto that led to the destruction; As above. (d) the loss or damage to the Traditional Owners, Puutu, Kunti Kurrama and Pinikura people, from the destruction of the site; As above. (e) the heritage and preservation work that has been conducted at the site As above. (f) the interaction, of state indigenous heritage regulations with Commonwealth laws We would probably need to be advised of any Commonwealth regulatory requirement that would apply to development on Yinhawangka lands, and in my limited experience here, that has not happened. (g) the effectiveness and adequacy of state and federal laws in relation to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultural heritage in each of the Australian jurisdictions. My understanding, and I look forward to the Standing Committee’s report to learn more, is that Commonwealth Laws do not often come into play in the protection of aboriginal heritage. My view is that State laws are ineffective and inadequate in the protection of aboriginal heritage. This applies in terms in terms of the letter as well as the application of the Aboriginal Heritage Act. (h) how Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultural heritage laws might be improved to guarantee the protection of culturally and historically significant sites; The Burra Charter seems to me to be a good starting point for the conservation of Australia’s cultural heritage, including our Aboriginal heritage. The Australian Heritage Commission’s Ask First: A Guide to Respecting Indigenous Heritage Places and Values also lays out a guide. Indeed, there should be nothing controversial about the criteria set out in Section 5 of the Aboriginal Heritage Act. It is a matter of empowering the ACMC to enforce them. I would recommend that Expert voices - Aboriginal people, archaeologists and anthropologists - supported by technical and regulatory infrastructure that befits a first world country, should substantially make these technical decisions. No single person should have the power, at the stroke of a pen, to destroy sacred places or places that are an important part of the human story.

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