Indigenous title claim settlement ‘one of the most complex’ in SA history
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Version 0 of 1. The Kokatha people of South Australia have settled an 18-year native title claim, gaining land rights, compensation and undisclosed agreements with the government and the BHP Billiton mining company over land in the state’s north-west. The native title claim was first lodged in 1996 and was finally settled in a special federal court hearing at Andamooka Station on Monday. The claim relates to almost 34,000 square kilometres between Lake Gairdner and Lake Torrens and covers agreements over the Olympic Dam mine as well as compensation over past extinguishments of native title. The acting attorney general for South Australia, Ian Hunter, said the case was one of the most complex in the state’s history. “This settlement will resolve long-standing federal court proceedings, create certainty around tenure and land access issues and resolve the state’s compensation liability arising under the Native Title Act.” As well as the native title determination, the Kokatha have also entered into an historic Indigenous land use agreement. The South Australian government said the agreement would provide “certainty” around land use in the region, as well as native title agreements over specific future opal mining operations at Andamooka and future operations associated with the Olympic Dam mine. Andrew Starkey, chair of the newly formed Kokatha Association, told Guardian Australia the decision is “18 years of a long struggle finally come to an end”. Starkey said the Aboriginal land use agreement would bring huge benefits to the community and set it up for future generations. “We’re pretty happy about that because for the longevity of the Kokatha – particularly the young – there will be a whole raft of employment opportunities, joint ventures with other companies in the region,” he said. “A lot of our people have very close affiliation with those areas. It was their grandparents and parents who worked on their leases all those years ago. A lot of our young want to go back to country, and that’s a good way to get them up there working in the pastoral industry and working on their own country.” He said part of the agreement granted the Kokatha people three long-term major pastoral leases on Roxby Downs, Purple Downs and Andamooka Station. “The life of the mine now, they say, is going to be 200 years, and that’ll be in the terms of the lease, so as long as the mine is there we’ll have the lease on those pastoral leases with the option to purchase them at a later date,” said Starkey. The community will be setting up trust funds to administer some of the benefits to come from the new deals. The solicitor who acted for the Kokatha people said there were a number of overlapping claims that had to be resolved before the native title was settled. Oskar Linde said the “brutal” toughness of the Native Title Act meant it was a “pretty high bar” to prove a claim. “A lot of their dreamtime stories … travel right into where the mine is. Back in the early 1980s when the mine was first discovered, before the Kokatha people had any rights to comment on it, they were still out there trying to stop any interference with their traditional stories and ancient ceremony sites and so on,” Linde told Guardian Australia. “Because BHP were intending to expand their operation they did have to negotiate so the Kokatha people were faced with some very hard decisions during that,” he said. “But ultimately the indenture act … gives BHP certain rights and the NT act gives the traditional owners certain rights and in the end they were able to reach agreement about it, but it did take a number of years.” |