DAY 2: YINDJIBARNDI COUNTRY CANNOT BE RESTORED, EXPERT TELLS COURT

A leading expert in the Yindjibarndi--Fortescue compensation case says that mining destroys “a fundamental tenet of the dreaming” and the land can never be restored to its original state.

Dr Kingsley Palmer was responding to questions from Fortescue’s legal counsel, Brahma Dharmananda SC, who asserted that the vast area of the Solomon mine could be rehabilitated and Yindjibarndi people would be happy to go back to country.

Dr Palmer said “some of their country is utterly transformed”, leading to “feelings of sorrow and despair, which represents cultural loss”.

Justice Stephen Burley intervened during the exchange and asked Dr Palmer if he meant that “the hills have been changed, the iron ore has been removed, a good deal of it is no longer there?”

Dr Palmer added that the destruction caused by mining meant that “all those fundamental things have been lost and destroyed…it’s become like a hollow log, nothing left in it of vitality”.

“When mining has occurred, a fundamental tenant of the dreaming has been broken and that cannot be remediated, perhaps in the manner you are talking about, he added.

In other evidence, Justice Burley reined in Fortescue’s lawyer when he introduced in cross-examination a report of division among several Indigenous groups over a vast project.

Dr Dharmananda SC referred to a report by Professor David Trigger about division among groups in Cape York regarding a pipeline, and asked Yindjibarndi witness Dr Kingsley Palmer if it was “a danger to assume unity of interests when faced with a mining proposal”.

Dr Palmer responded that the report was not relevant to the Yindjibarndi case because the project involved 6 or 7 groups and a 300km pipeline.

At this point, Justice Burley intervened and said Mr Dharmananda was “choosing raisins out of a cake and presenting them out of context”.

He added that Mr Dharmananda had not established when Dr Palmer had read the report and said he was “quite concerned about the unfairness of choosing paragraphs”, adding that this “needs to be handled with extreme caution”.

Dr Palmer then said he had only been told on Saturday that the report “might be a matter of interest” and he was sent an e-copy.

In other evidence, clinical psychologist Dr Jeff Nelson stopped the WA government’s lawyer, Griff Ranson SC, in his tracks when Mr Ranson tried to assert that he had spent a very short time on his report about psychological impacts from Fortescue’s mining without consent and support for a breakaway group.

Dr Nelson responded: “is a week very short, is 10 days very short?”

Mr Ranson said he would move on to another line of questioning.

Dr Nelson said his interviews with 21 Yindjibarndi people revealed a very deep connection to ngurra (country), and in fact had only come across one other group that was so immersed.

“It was quite stark, only one other group that’s been similarly immersed,” he said.

The hearing resumes on Friday.