It takes a village...

I had a call this afternoon from Denis of The Nature of Robertson. For the last few years - in among bouts of very serious ill health - Denis has, along with others in the Save Water Alliance in the Southern Highlands of New South Wales, been doing battle with Sydney Water and the NSW Govt in regard to robbing the water of the Kangaloon Aquifer. Pop over to the blog and read up in the 146 posts on Kangaloon.

This afternoon when Denis rang it was to tell me that the NSW Govt was shelving - but perhaps not losing interest in - the Kangaloon Aquifer. He was bathed in the sweet smell of success. The battle has been long and hard. It has had its horrible moments. Denis has dragged every bit of skill he has - in putting reports together for government representations, in addressing public meetings, in photographing the invasion and the damage caused - into the fight.

And all this work by Denis and the community has brought positive results. What a community can achieve when it works together!

This is what Denis loves about his community of Robertson - a tiny village atop the Illawarra escarpment of the Southern Highlands. The spirit. The spirit that welcomed him and by which he feels supported. And now it has proved to have the spirit to fight off a government which wants to have its water and drink other people's too.

~~~

When you can do nothing else: bear witness.

A royalty, a river and a ripoff

A royalty payment at last!

But what's the cost when compared with what is lost - the river!

Aboriginal insecurity: thinking on vines and fig trees. Part 3. Muck to Muckaty

A national speaking tour, From the Heart - For the Heartland, by Traditional Owners of the four proposed nuclear dump sites in the Northern Territory has just concluded.

The Traditional Owners represented Fishers Ridge (near Katherine), Muckaty (near Tennant Creek), Mt Everard and Harts Range (near Alice Springs)
This document comes from the Warlmanpa people, Traditional Owners of Muckaty Station. Muckaty has only recently been added to the list of proposed sites at the request of the Northern Land Council. Only one family group at Muckaty is supportive of placing a nuclear waste dump there. The majority are against the proposal and are not supported in this by the Northern Land Council. This contrasts to the support given by Central Land Council to the Traditional Owners at Mt Everard and Harts Range.

Prior to the inclusion of Muckaty, Fishers Ridge was the only proposed site within the area covered by Northern Land Council. However, heavy rainfall and floodwaters which resulted in the proposed dump site being inundated mean that, in all likelihood, Fishers Ridge is a clear non-starter. This would have left no proposed dump site in the Northern Land Council area. That would have meant that the two remaining proposed sites were both in the Central Land Council area and CLC is supporting the opposition of the Traditional Owners.

So, Miss Eagle's nose tells her that something is fishy about the Muckaty proposal.

There is an old saying which Miss Eagle (a Napanangka) is in the habit of applying to everything.

Cui Bono? Who benefits?

Who benefits, indeed?

Aside for the long-term interests of the nuclear industry, there are two beneficiaries in the short-term. Clearly the Howard Government who is doing the bidding of its constituency. But it is clear that the Northern Land Council wants to be seen as a clear player in the search for a dump. Why?

Why - when the majority of the Traditional Owners at Muckaty are against the proposal? Could it possibly be that the Northern Land Council itself would be a beneficiary of some kind if a site was chose within Northern Land Council boundaries? Would it receive brokerage fees from a proposal which could bring in to the community - so its supporters say - about $12 million? Northern Land Council has never been overwhelmingly effective in the area immediately north of Tennant Creek. The best indicator of future behaviour is past behaviour.

Miss Eagle thinks that the Muckaty proposal has not a thing to do with the views or the welfare of the Traditional Owners and the community at Muckaty. It has more to do with Northern Land Council and the King of Yirrkala, Galarrwuy Yunupingu, whose personal fiefdom the NLC has been.

The Howard Government is looking for a dump site for nuclear waste. As Dave Sweeney of the Australian Conservation Foundation has put it: the policy of the Howard Government is that Australia becomes the world's nuclear quarry and the world's nuclear waste dump. The Northern Territory Government does not support the nuclear waste dump proposal. The Port of Darwin is significant is the quarry-dump scenario since it is believed that Darwin will become the key port, the key transport hub in Australia's servicing of the world nuclear industry.

John Howard - the recovering climate change septic - is telling us ad infinitum, ad nauseam that nuclear power stations dotted the length of Australia's eastern seaboard will be the solution to carbon emissions and climate change. It will be a clean fuel. A clean fuel, eh? Compare to what? Coal. True - when thinking of air pollution, nuclear power might be preferable. But just as there is waste from coal, there is waste from the nuclear industry. The government intends to put this in drums in the ground.

The waste that will go into the dump concludes:

• approx. 50 cubic metres of highly radioactive waste produced from reprocessing more than a thousand existing and future spent reactor fuel roads from Lucas Heights in Sydney. This will be arriving over the next 40 years and it is expected that it will come through the Port of Darwin.
• approx. 130 drum per year of radioactive, compactible low-level solid waste comprising vials, gloves etc - again from Lucas Heights.
• approx. 20 drums per year of drums of solidified radioactive 'sludge' produced in the treatment of reactor wastewaters courtesy of Lucas Heights.
• Hundreds of tonnes of radioactive non-compactible contaminated items including materials from the decommissioned old Lucas Heights reactor, pipes, and machinery.
• A stockpile of over 5,000 drums of low-level radioactive waste which will be shipped from Lucas Heights.
• Over 800 drums of historical wastes including radioactive thorium, beryllium and uranium from Lucas Heights.
• Over 2000 litres of radioactive contaminated charcoal ex Lucas Heights.
• Around ten cubic metres of highly dangerous solidified molybdenum long-lived intermediate level waste produced by Lucas Heights.
• Over 2000 cubic metres of radio active contaminated soil currently stored at Woomera.
• Other Commonwealth Defence Department and CSIRO (Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation) historic radioactive waste.

So Miss Eagle smiles a wry smile. When needs must, strange bedfellows arise. The Howard Government has wanted to eliminate the land councils. Now, it may need a Land Council to get what it wants. Mmm.....

The Traditional Owners have come up with their own symbol which they are asking people to wear to protest the use and pollution of their lands.

Dianne Stokes, a Traditional Owner of Muckaty and a Warrumunga/Warlmanpa woman of the Kalumpurlpa community says:

Top to bottom we got bush tucker right through the country. Whoever is taking this waste dump into our country needs to come back and talk to the Traditional Owners. We're not happy to have all of this stuff. We don't want it, it's not our spirit. Our spirit is our country, our country where our ancestors been born. Before towns, before hospitals, before cities. We want our country to be safe.

What do Ministers in the Howard Government have to say?

• Alexander Downer, Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade, has said:

I would rather have it in the Northern Territory than in Mount Barker just down the road from my electorate office.

• Brendan Nelson, Minister for Defence and formerly Science Minister, has said:

...why on earth can't people in the middle of nowhere have low level and intermediate level waste?

• Julie Bishop, formerly Science Minister and currently Minister for Education, has said:

...all the sites in the NT are well away from houses...some distance from any form of civilization.

Miss Eagle finds it obscene that we have as Minister for Education someone who cannot even recognise or acknowledge the locale of one of the oldest - if not the oldest - cultures in the world. There are none so blind as they who will not see.

Aboriginal insecurity: thinking on vines and fig trees. Part 1

Moreton Bay Fig Tree, Queen's Gardens, Townsville

Photo by Alice at A Growing Delight

Micah, an eighth century prophet of the Tanakh/Old Testament, is a great friend of Miss Eagle. He is much quoted. One of the most frequent quotes is

and they shall beat their swords into plowshares,

and their spears into pruning hooks;

nation shall not lift up sword against nation,

neither shall they learn war any more;

Not so often heard is the next verse, Micah 4:4

but they shall sit every man under his vine and under his fig tree,

and none shall make them afraid;

for the mouth of the Lord of hosts has spoken.

This is one of Micah's latter day prophecies so, even in the 21st century - it is arguable - that we cannot expect the fulfilment of the prophecy. However, while fulfilment may be postponed, these prophecies have embedded themselves in Judaism and Christianity as ideals for which the people of God strive.

This week has been one in which, at least for Miss Eagle, the pain and insecurity of Aboriginal people has coalesced around three major issues: the nuclear industry; the legal system; the abuse of children.

Miss Eagle can never feel what Aboriginal people who exist at the margins of white settler society feel and experience. However, Miss Eagle has spent most of her life in Northern Australia - in North Queensland and the Northern Territory - the site of the manifestations of these three issues. Miss Eagle has lived amid some quite significant Aboriginal communities and populations. So while she is not affected as her Aboriginal friends are, she does experience the pain of the issues of this week in something like a reflected manner: through a glass darkly.

Bringing these major issues affecting Aboriginal people and nations into a coherent post is not easy. Thoughts could not be quickly expressed. One could not rush to verbage to express such deep pain. Miss Eagle is not sure she has found a pathway to coherence even now. So, dear Reader, Miss E begs you to indulge her patiently as we tread this pathway to a connected, coherent view of what is happening and what it really means. In treading this pathway, we will travel behind the headlines. Hopefully, we can sublimate emotions and the emotive. This will be not easy - and may well be impossible.

...to be continued

Nuclear waste dump for Muckaty?

Sammy Jungarayi Sambo (left) and Bindi Jakamarra Martin - a Stephen Cherry photo for The Age

The Howard Government wants to put a nuclear waste dump on Muckaty Station, north of Tennant Creek in the Northern Territory, and has done a multi-million dollar deal with the Northern Land Council and some of the traditional owners to allow it to go ahead. Not all of the traditional owners approve of the deal and many residents of nearby Tennant Creek (pop. 4,000) - where Miss Eagle also used to live - are not happy with the deal either. The member for the seat Barkly, Elliot McAdam who is the Minister for Housing in the NT Government says; "This potential facility could compromise the social, cultural and traditional ties of Aboriginal people to their country."


Traditional owners who are not in favour of the dump are in Melbourne on Monday to address public meetings on the subjects. You, dear Reader, can hear them at two venues in Melbourne:

1. "From the Heart, For the Heartland" Traditional Owner Speaking Tour. Indigenous traditional owners and community members from areas in the NT proposed for the Federal radioactive waste dump are undertaking a 2 week speaking tour of south eastern cities. They will be speaking on MONDAY JUNE 18 10.30-12noon at the Rooftop Room, Northcote Town Hall, 189 High Street, Northcote. They are asking for an rsvp for this meeting (natwasley@alec.org.au)


2. A public meeting will be held on the same day (Monday 18th June from 6.30-8.30pm at the Trades Hall, cnr Lygon and Victoria Sts., Carlton South.
   

See you there!

God, creation and the placement of the Word

HT to the staff at Ekklesia for this one. God, dear Reader, seems to have difficulty getting the attention of the forty-third President of the USA. And, it is likely, that the Lord of Hosts is having difficulty getting a guernsey with the media of the said USA. All that clamouring of the religious right clogs the channels, the airwaves, and the advertising it would seem! So God booked space in The Independent across the pond in the UK. Did God use an ad agency? Saatchi & Saatchi, perhaps?

So, dear Reader, check out what God wants to say to the recalcitrant George W. Bush.

Advocacy for the environment: a defender in Robertson

To-day is World Environment Day. Denis Wilson's blog, The Nature of Robertson, is a great defender of and advocate for the environment. Pop over and read to-day's post. Miss Eagle has left a comment there.

Crowded House and Live Earth without Hessie

Paul Hester - we'll miss you

The newly re-formed Crowded House will headline the Sydney Live Earth concert on 7/7/7. This will be their first outing since re-forming but will be tinged with some sadness because of the absence of the late Paul Hester. Miss Eagle looks forward to Crowded House being around again.

Better barra than a river no more

Meanwhile, in the Northern Territory, certain North Australians are busy shooting themselves in the collective foot and legislating for a massive environmental disaster of the future: here are the future eaters of to-day. What is the alternative? Being able to catch the best fish in the whole of Australia: the beautiful barramundi of Borroloola.

Inserting the word McArthur in the search space at the top left of this blog will lead you, dear Reader, to Miss Eagle's previous posts on this topic: the destruction of the Northern Territory place of beauty and barramundi, the McArthur River.

Read the debate here. Find out why Barbara McCarthy, Alison Anderson, and Karl Hampton who are Aboriginal ALP members of the NT Legislative Assembly cross the floor of the House to vote against their own party. It is noteworthy that Barbara McCarthy who represents the NT seat of Arnhem is a Borroloola girl and firmly embedded in that community.

How other Aboriginal ALP members voted: Marian Scrymgeour who is the Northern Territory Minister for Natural Resources was absent when the vote was taken. Elliot McAdam, the NT Minister for Housing and Member for the seat of Barkly in which Borroloola and the McArthur River mine are situated, voted for the legislation. Those who were bound by the convention of cabinet solidarity voted for the bill - except when absent from the House.

Praying for rain: a doubtful pursuit?

The Burrinjuck Dam - Christmas 2006 - getting lower and lower

The following email, dear Reader, was in Miss Eagle's inbox this morning, forwarded by my friend K. Please note: Crossway is Australia's largest Baptist congregation.

This is a message that Stuart Robinson Senior Pastor of Crossway Central shared with the congregation this morning.

Dear Family in Christ,

While at the garage getting my car fixed, I received a call from Pastor Danny [Nahlia] stating that as he and his wife were having a time of prayer this morning, the Lord revealed that it's time for the Nation of Australia to once again come together and pray for rain in response to Prime Minister John Howard's call to pray for rain! (just like Old Testament Biblical days when the King and the Prophet worked together to call the nation and people to prayerfully return to the Lord God of Israel)

In immediate obedience to the voice of God, Ps. Danny and Catch the Fire Ministries are calling on the church and nation of Australia on Wednesday 25th April (Anzac Day) from 3:00pm - 4:30pm to gather together wherever you are to prayerfully seek the Father in heaven for rain! "If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn away from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land." 2 Chronicles 7:14

If you live in Melbourne, we encourage you to join with us on Wednesday 25th April at Fitzroy Gardens (next to Captain Cook's Cottage) from 3:00pm - 4:30pm as Catch the Fire Ministries will lead a gathering of repentance and prayer for rain across Australia!

Most amazingly, 1 hour after I received the call from Ps. Danny, he was contacted and interviewed for 30 minutes by the editor of the Age Newspaper who asked him, "Have you thought of responding to the Prime Minister's call for prayer and what are you going to do?" Tomorrow's (Sunday 22nd April)edition of the Age Newspaper will carry an article about calling the church and nation to pray for rain.

Please forward this email and spread the Word to everyone you know across
our nation!

Let's unceasingly seek the Lord in prayer, fasting and repentance for Him to send the early and latter rains across this Great Southland of the Holy Spirit!

Thanking and Blessing You,

Jason Golden
Catch the Fire Ministries
PO Box 7427
Dandenong
VIC 3175 Australia
Tel: 613 9794 8211 Fax: 613 9794 9311
www.catchthefire.com.au

Miss Eagle replied to K. as follows:

K., I don't altogether agree with this praying for rain stuff.

I think what we should be doing is praying for ourselves and the condition we are in. I am pleased to see this scripture quoted - "If my people,who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek myface and turn away from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heavenand will forgive their sin and heal their land." 2 Chronicles 7:14

But an hour of prayer at Capt Cook's cottage won't do it.We have to reflect openly on what we have done and have a national discussion about this.We have wrecked this continent in just over two hundred years. We have turned large tracts of land to salt, we have polluted the rivers, and the oceans. We have denuded the land and now there is a word heard in this country which I had never heard before - desertification. There is a company in Queensland, Cubby Station, that no one does anything about - perhaps they don't have the power but I also wonder if they don't have the will - which has diverted water for itself. This water used to flow into the Murray-Darling Basin. Now it doesn't. Australia is losing animal species to extinction faster than anywhere else on earth. So that's what we are doing to the land, the trees, the water, and the animals. And this prime minister says pray!

Then lets look at what we have done in the last few years to people. We have concentration camps on Australian soil. We have deported our own citizens away from their country and locked up our own in these concentration camps. We are turning away to other countries humanity in need - in spite of the bible's injunction on how to treat sojourners....because, as Yahweh reminds us, you were once sojourners. Jesus, Mary and Joseph fleeing from a murderous Herod would not make it into this country! Australia has supported a prime minister who does this. A prime minister who writes letters of support for Danny Nahlia and whose support Danny Nahlia welcomes. And this prime minister says pray!

Let's take a look at our society - we pay sportsmen small fortunes, idolise them and tolerate their abuse of human beings, their rape of women, and their drug habits. Our country rushes to wars they have no business to be in and oversees large scale bribery in the sale of wheat. And this prime minister says pray!

Every day of my life I look out my windows at the Dandenong Ranges National Park - a very beautiful God-blessed part of the world. Last week, in a part of the Ranges I look at often, two young women took their lives in what is believed to be a suicide pact. Suicide and depression in Australia is a major issue. In fact, it appears to be a significant barometer of ourselves.

John Howard came to power saying he wanted to make Australians feel comfortable. Look around. Some are comfortable and a lot of those who are comfortable are self-interested, self-seeking, greedy and ambitious. The needs of the poor are neglected. Ordinary people have their public schools de-funded to provide funds for schools who are so wealthy one would not think they needed more money. Our public facilities like hospitals are falling to pieces. Our national infrastructure - around which we build our economic well being - is in dire need of investment. No one seems to be able to figure out how to run a university system without hanging hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt around the necks of the young. Housing for rental and purchase is becoming out of reach. And the prime minister says pray!

The prime minister could do something about the significant problems listed above. And, if he had tried to do all this, and we had tried to get all this done and reformed ourselves, and then we had failed, I think we could then reflect and pray. But to throw prayers God-ward and yet not acknowledge our sins....I think that is blasphemy.

Let me know what you think, K.

Blessings and bliss

Drought

Photo by John Mitchell
And the LORD shall guide thee continually, and satisfy thy soul in drought, and make fat thy bones: and thou shalt be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water, whose waters fail not.
Isaiah 58:11 / KJV

Our river and its health is no secret

This is over the top!

Miss Eagle would remind the Northern Territory Government that the river belongs to the people: firstly, it belongs to Aboriginal people, the traditional owners; secondly, to the people of the Northern Territory; and, lastly, to the people of Australia.

Why charge an exorbitant fee so that the people might know the details of what has been done in an attempt - a good, bad or indifferent attempt - to protect the McArthur River?

Lastly, I would remind the Northern Territory Labor Government that it was not elected by the people of the Northern Territory to carry on like this.

Those who have worked so hard to put it in power and waited so patiently through years of dastardly Country Liberal Party Government do not want this.

World Environment Day 2006

The members of the Eastern Region Environment Committee of the Anglican Diocese of Melbourne have been busy little bees. To-day is World Environment Day and yesterday at church at St Thom’s at Upper Gully we received a handy little brochure on Water Saving. While Melbourne is not the driest part of the dry continent, its residents are quite water conscious and have constant reminders to vigilance so the Water Saving brochure was a contribution to the whole civic water saving ethos. The brochure explains to us as follows:

Australia is the driest inhabited continent on earth. Most of Australia is classed as arid or semi-arid, with 80% of the continent receiving less than 600 millimetres, and 50% receiving less than 300 millimetres, per year.

Of all the water on Earth, only 3% is fresh. Less than a third of 1% is available to humans. The rest is frozen in glaciers, polar ice caps or deep within the Earth, beyond our reach.

Water is one of the most important natural resources we have. It is essential to our existence.

Since 1900, global water consumption has risen 10 fold. UNESCO has predicted that by 2020 water shortage will be a serious problem world wide.

As Christians, we are called to care for, and to share with all, the creation given by God. It is therefore a responsibility of the Church to show leadership in sustainable water management. Action is therefore being taken to raise the awareness of members of the Eastern Region of the Melbourne Anglican Diocese to this responsibility and to encourage an engagement in, and an acceptance of, the challenge concerning water usage by the Church itself and by Church members.

REFLECTION

As a people of faith we have before us the Great Commandment,

“To love God, to love neighbour and to love self”.

The environment is our neighbour, sustaining us, nurturing us and teaching us about ourselves and about that which is different to ourselves.

The land, the water, the air, all that is vegetable and all that is animal and mineral become very intimate neighbours calling each of us to learn more about how we relate to them.

The commandment calls us into a relationship with our living world.

We mutually receive and have reciprocal responsibilities back to all aspects of the Earth’s created order.

We have been offered a time to heal both ourselves and our environment by using this received and share knowledge, we are enabled to hand on our wisdom to those generations yet to be born and also to honour all those who have made this journey before us.

Loving God we thank you for this world of wonder and delight.
You have given it to us to care for, so that all your creatures may enjoy its bounty.

Keep McArthur wild, free, and clean

This report this morning is quite disturbing. This concerns me greatly. I lived at McArthur River Station in 1977 while on a working holiday with my family. This began my love for the river. When I left I promised one day that I would return. 1977 was the year that saw the stealthy declaration of the Borroloola Town Plan by the CLP Government to protect the interest of Mount Isa Mines (MIM) and any future involvement of the river in mine-related activity against the interests of traditional owners – particularly because at that stage a slurry pipeline was being discussed to get the product to port. My husband and I had a close friendship with a Gurdanji traditional owner. At this time the Aboriginal Development Corporation (ADC) was negotiating the purchase of McArthur River Station, on which the Xstrada mine is situated, from Mount Isa Mines. Then one morning people found out that all this effort was for nought. The Northern Territory Government had intervened to protect the interests of MIM.

I kept my promise of 1977. My husband was dead. My children had grown and flown the coop. Sixteen years later, a job came up in Tennant Creek working for the local Member of Parliament in the seat of Barkly. The seat of Barkly covers McArthur River Station, the McArthur River, and Borroloola. I applied. I got the job. I came back. I lived in Tennant Creek from 1993 to 1997. This period covered the gearing up of McArthur River Mine by Mount Isa Mines (MIM) from its previous status as a pilot project. I was used to dealing with MIM because, in the interim, I had spent nearly a decade living and working in Mount Isa. When I consider the agreements made with local aboriginal people by Mount Isa Mines, I don’t believe that the mine has delivered for the interests of local aboriginal people.

For thirty years, I have been concerned with the impact of mining on the pristine McArthur. Now it has become an eventuality.

There is the distinct possibility of a fightback by Xstrada following the NT Govt’s decision against Xstrada’s EIS statement. If this fightback comes about, it will receive strong support from the mining community and will be run by a professional public relations company. Business interests will seek to dominate against the interests of aboriginal people and against the welfare of the local environment.

Human beings know better than this. No amount of dollars - whether it is in the pockets of Australians or the Swiss, in the pockets of corporations or government - can replace the dugong and the turtle (which I have eaten, prepared by an aboriginal clan, beside the McArthur River) if they and their habitat, along with with the barramundi for which Borroloola is famous, are destroyed.