YINDJIBARNDI ELDERS SHARE HEARTBREAK IN FMG COURT CASE
BY ELIZA KLOSER
Yindjibarndi Elder Margaret Read and Elder Tootsie Daniels in front of FMG Executive Chairman Andrew Forrest.
The long-running legal battle between a mining company and an Indigenous community in the Pilbara continued on Tuesday as Yindjibarndi Elders gave evidence to the Federal Court.
Yindjibarndi Aboriginal Corporation (YAC) is seeking compensation from Fortescue Metals Group (FMG) over activities at the Solomon Hub iron ore mines in the Pilbara on Yindjibarndi country.
Yindjibarndi Elder Tootsie Daniel spoke of the cultural significance of the land and the loss experienced by the community.
“When I looked at the country it was so beautiful… that country is no more there,” she said. “It breaks my heart.”
“Our heart is broken, our wirrard (soul and spirit) is dead.”
Mrs Daniel said that this is not the first fight the Yindjibarndi people have had for their country.
When the Harding Dam was finished in 1984, the community suffered a great loss.
Mrs Daniel said that the dam destroyed sacred sites including Yurala Elder Long Mac’s rain-making site.
Mrs Daniel said that Long Mac “shot himself because of the dam,” and that the community have long-suffered from culture being destroyed by developments.
Yindjibarndi Elder Margaret Read gave her testimony from a Karratha hospital bed, saying she never gave anyone permission to mine on Yindjibarndi land and had been stopped from visiting her own country.
Ms Read said she tried to visit the mine in 2022 but was denied access by FMG.
“We have sacred sites there,” she said in her affidavit. “We were refused permission to our country. I shouldn’t have to ask anyone’s permission. They should be asking permission from us to be there.”
Ms Read spoke of the spiritual significance of the land and of the “little people” (spirits) that “are still there, still watching over us,” even though mining had “upset" them.
Mrs Daniel also warned of the spiritual impacts of mining.
“If you don’t respect [the spirits], it can come and hurt you and make you sick,” she said.
“I believe it’s the spirits in the country that have caused the industrial deaths in the mine,” she said in an affidavit presented to the court.
YAC are seeking a 10 per cent royalty that will equate to around $500 million per year from the company founded by Andrew Forrest.
Most witnesses in the case will be testifying in August, but Mrs Daniel and Ms Read’s witness statements were brought forward due to fears their conditions could deteriorate before then.