We have made it abundantly clear to the world — as we have been doing for some time — that when we say no, we mean no. We put our culture before coal. www.culturebeforecoal.com
We are fighting hard on a number of fronts – though the system is stacked against us. With your support, we have launched legal action against the Queensland Mining Minister, Anthony Lynham’s decision to issue the leases for the Carmichael mine.
And we will take this further. We have lodged a Racial Discrimination complaint with the Australian Human Rights Commission. We intend this as the start of a challenge to the Native Title Act which sets aside the Racial Discrimination Act and allows our rights to be treated differently to other Australians.
We want to let you know that the generous donations you have made and the moral support you continue to give us help us enormously. Thank you.
Our rights are not protected and we will test the limits of the law in this country. We will never give our consent, or have our consent extracted by misrepresentation, misinformation and inducement.
With your support we will continue to pursue all legal and political avenues, Australian and international, to put a stop to this diabolical and dangerous project.
This is just the start in another chapter of our long but determined struggle to defeat this coal company and all those who would sell our ancestral land and heritage out from under us. The future of our people and culture, and of our lands and waters and plants and animals, and our sacred sites and stories that connect our homelands together into our spiritual home, cannot and will not be based on coal mining.
You may have read or heard some confusing things in the media in recent times about Wangan and Jagalingou agreeing to a deal with Adani for the Carmichael mine.
This is what Adani and their backers in Government and the media want you to believe.
But Adani bankrolled a sham meeting which has engineered a sham outcome. We will be challenging Adani’s phoney land use deal in the Federal Court and will properly discredit it.
As the traditional owners of the land, our fight is far from over.
Thank you.
Adrian Burragubba & Murrawah Johnson for the Wangan & Jagalingou Traditional Owners Family Council
P.S. You can help… buy a Culture Before Coal t-shirt to support our campaign and help get our message out www.culturebeforecoal.com
References:
1: Traditional owners shrug off Adani’s land use pact in Australia – Representatives of the traditional owners said there was no land use agreement reached between Adani and W&J http://www.livemint.com/Companies/Xbx5U6mEicKdpjh60tjTRM/Traditional-owners-shrug-off-Adanis-land-use-pact-in-Austra.html
2: Revealed: traditional owners accepted payments to attend Adani meetings – Exclusive: Indigenous representatives who helped resurrect a pivotal land agreement for Australia’s largest proposed coalmine pocket ‘sitting fees’ http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2016/apr/16/revealed-traditional-owners-accepted-payments-to-attend-adani-meetings
3: Acrimony and legal threat as Indigenous group approves Adani mine – Anti- Adani Wangan and Jagalingou Family Council says it will launch a federal court challenge over ‘sham meeting’ to endorse Carmichael mine http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2016/apr/17/wangan-and-jagalingou-indigenous-group-approves-adani-carmichael-mine
