From Schwartz Media. I'm Ashlin McGee. This is seven am. Here's a question for you. Can you place a value on lost cultural heritage, on separation from land and ancestors, and on families divided? It's not just a moral quandary, it's the question of cold hard cash. In Australian courts right now trying to work out just how much compensations owed to a group of traditional owners in WA's Pilbur Region.
Hindabundi traditional owners have been locked in a long running legal battle with Andrew Forrest's Fortescue Metals Group and the WA government over what the Federal Court ruled was illegal mining on their land. Today contributor to the Saturday Paper, Ben Abbertangelo on the one billion dollar battle and the very personal toll that it's taken on those fighting it.
It's Monday, May twenty seven. Ben, tell me about Yinjubundi Country and this small community of Najuana and the man you met there, Michael Woodley.
So. Jinjubundi Country is located in the Pilber region of Western Australia.
It is a very humble town with a big heart.
It has got majestic hills and escarpments that are rich red colors. It's incredibly vast, like the whole of Western Australia, but the Pilber region itself is quite an expansive space, and in my mind it gets to the heart of the Australian story. It is a region that archives some of the earliest human thoughts. There is countless sites that map human occupation back ten, twenty thirty, forty fifty thousand years. But at the same time, what's interfacing with that is
everything that we understand to be contemporary. It is the epicenter of resource extraction.
It is where you know.
The majority of the world's iron ore is extracted from. There is offshore gas being plundered out of the waterways, and it gets to, I suppose, the heart of that ancient eternity clashing with the contemporary realities of.
Modernity kind of got awa.
So I first met Michael Woodley towards the end of twenty twenty. He's a senior Indi Bundy lawman and the CEO of the Inji Bundy Aboriginal Corporation, which is the prescribed body corporate to represent the interests of the Inju Bandy people. Mate, it's so good to reconnect and it's just been a.
Privilege to Yeah, you're just a remarkable man. Oh thank you. I'm for letting on things as well.
Right for your for your for your using.
It was fortunate enough to speak with Michael he was zigzagging around town. Was fortunate enough to get some of his time to hear about his reflections. And I say this because for most Australians that are aware of who he is, is known because he's been the person that has stood up to Andrew Forrest.
Okay, and so how did Michael Woodley become this guy who's known for battling Andrew Forrest and his enormous mining interests.
So Andrew Forrest is I think he's held up in the Australian imagination as a great Australian bloke with a twenty.
Billion dollar fortune.
Andrew Forest is one of Australia's richest people and as the founder of mining giant for Tescue, he's been a key business figure for decades. But that wealth that Andrew Forrest has accrued, that has transformed him into Australia's richest man. The bedrock of that is exploitation of Aboriginal people's country, and specifically the Indie Bandy people's country.
I've belaid it one message I give, and I've been giving this ever since I became a businessman.
The more you know Ooriginal people, the more you love it.
The crux of the story is that Andrew Forrest and Fortescue Metals Group in the early two thousands wanted to develop Injubandi people's country.
The problem for them was.
That the Injured Bandy had already received Native title status, so for Fortescue to legally start developing on their country under Native title laws, they had to broker an agreement. So Michael Woodley and Andrew Forrest met in a small Roburan youth center where Andrew Forrest marched in seeking to broker that agreement with Michael Woodley. Now, what Andrew Forrest came to the table with was essentially a fixed payment of roughly zero point zero five seven percent of the
mind's income. And for context, we're talking about a development that would last decades, that would churn out tens of billions of dollars. So when Michael Woodley refused to sign onto that agreement.
We read your agreement. We understand your agreement and could be prayed with you as.
Craft right, which he would also if he was to do so, would be signing away. You know, scores of sacred sites would be signing away. You know, really integral important pieces of Jinjibarne country that are central to their mythology, to their existence, to their sustainment.
But there's a big issue. An issue comes with you know, anybody people looking.
After ourselves from the country that make a new bridgie, so your share elders.
And your investors. So Michael Woodley was seeking a five percent uncapped rate and when you know, those talks broke down, it triggered a sprawling legal battle that has gone on for now close to fifteen years.
Then how did it even become a legal battle? So how did fourdescu medals come to push ahead without approval from the native titleholders?
Yeah, an important thing for this conversation is that a lot of people have an understanding that native title is land rights.
It's not.
Native title doesn't give traditional owner groups a riter veto. It doesn't enable them to say no to those that want to develop their country.
It just gives them a statutory.
Timeline to negotiate with those companies and forces them into coming to an agreement. So I suppose a really key point here is that not only did they proceed with the operations without authority without that agreement, they also look to finance a breakaway group.
This meeting, held in March last year, revealed the bitter divide between Michael Woodley's group, which opposes the project, and a breakaway group of landowners.
Okay, well we're going to luck vote motion. I think the hands of those who support this motion of big up five.
The meeting was ugly and physical. The breakaway group claimed to have won a vote by this show of hands, enabling them to negotiate directly with Fortescue. It was a big win for Twiggy Forest.
And Fordescue just pushed ahead with their plans.
In twenty thirteen, Fortescue opened its first Solomon mind Fire tale on the Indie Bandy people's country without an agreement, without their consent, that's bending reality and fundamentally, in my mind, that's what has enabled Fortescue Metals Group to turn out close to fifty billion dollars of profit without ever paying a cent to the people whose.
Land their mining. But interestingly, in the courts.
In twenty seventeen, the Federal Court reaffirmed that the Indie Bundi people had exclusive possession over that country. So that sprawling battle has culminated now in this compensation claim being lodged, in which the Federal Court will continue to commence hearings and likely hand down its verdict at the end of twenty twenty five.
I think one way of describing this is a sort of David and Goliath battle, which is a bit of a lazy comparison, But I just wonder how Michael Woodley sees this fight.
Yeah.
I asked Michael that question when I first met him, and he took a very long pause. He had a relatively cheeky smile that washed over his face after he gathered his thoughts, and then he leant in and just said, look, Andrew might be the richest man in the country, he might have access to the best lawyers and mix it with the top end of town, but so what, that's not power. And then he again took another breath and lent in a little bit closer with his eyebrows race and just basically said, you see.
I'm a Inji bindy man.
I know my law I speak my language and I walk the same lands that my ancestors have for tens of thousands of years.
So if you want to talk about power, well that's power.
And I suppose in my mind that's what has encapsulated this story and how one incredibly proud stoic man, with the support of his tiny community has battled and beat a mining tycoon on a shoestring budget.
After the break, why a huge cash payout won't come close to healing the wounds? Ben, tell me about where the legal battle is up to.
Now.
What's happening in the courts as we speak.
So the courts are listening to preliminary hearings for the compensation claim that the Injura Bandy have lodged after twenty twenty when the High Court dismissed Fortescue's application to appeal its judgment. So, after multiple court battles that have spanned multiple years, the court is now hearing this compensation claim and it needs to put I suppose a numerical value
on a whole lot of different things. It needs to consider what the financial value of close to two hundred and fifty sacred sites that have been destroyed, including rock art shelters that prove human habitation for more than thirty five thousand years. It needs to put a numerical value on the cultural and familial ties that have been broken,
many of which that are beyond repair. They also have to decide how much of the fifty billion dollars of iron ore profits that Fordescue has churned out of the Injia Bundy people's lands belong to them, and then probably additionally, start to consider how much of the profits belong to the inju Bundy people over the years ahead, knowing that Fortescue's Solomon Minds still has plenty of great days of
extracting iron ore ahead of it. So you know, are the court's best place to determine what is the just and right and moral outcome? Or can they purely just engage with this through a legal lens and try and come to a determination there. But I know either way when I speak to Michael Woodley, yes there is some solace in the sense that they are getting towards an outcome and they will receive compensation.
They need to be compensated. Our land was taken from us.
We didn't relieve, we didn't give it, we didn't we didn't sell it.
But if everyone had their time over again.
You know, Michael has said that he and many others in the community wish this just never happened in the first place.
Is that because it's caused such huge divisions in the community, Well.
The community is, Yeah, in other hearings, you know, the courts have heard. How you know, family members no longer talk to one another, They avoid each other in the streets. There's enduring, lasting pain that you know, may never heal.
It might take a generation to heal.
It's the destruction of really significant sacred sites that get to the heart of a people's belief system, that gets to the heart of who they are. So in that context, I don't know how you can put numerical monetary value on stripping people from the things that sustain them.
How's Michael Woodly doing?
Now? Michael is.
Someone that just appears to defy gravity. He is always smiling, he's always calm, He's always got a really deep sense of presence. You know, when I speak to him, despite the busyness of his life and you know the challenges that he has to confront, it always just feels like
you're the only person that matters in that moment. But you know, when I asked him about the journey and what he's learned about himself, of course he told me that, you know, he's learned to just let things be the way that they are.
I'm a serious man, but I've learned to be mental as well.
And that he's not necessarily going to change a rock into a flower, and that it's better to just let a rock bear rock. But you can't you can't.
I can't afford something that.
Is not willing to change.
So Michael has moved back out onto his homelands, which is around one hundred k's out of Roeburn, so it is you know, twenty five to thirty people there, I think at the best of times. But for him, you know, it's a spiritual reconnecting. You know, he's really optimistic about
the future. I think he's really pleased that this is coming towards or there's going to be a sense of closure, you know, in the wake of these federal hearings, and I think he's just really you know, optimistic about turning you know, Rowburn and the injury Bardy Nation into a thriving place and a thriving people's and I think, you know, this is happening at a really important time when you know, extractivism in Australia is going to double triple, quadruple down
in the wake of the energy transition and the need to extract you know, volumes of critical minerals to support that. So yeah, there's going to be a lot of eyes watching this and it'll be really interesting to see, you know what that judge hands down towards the end of twenty twenty five.
Ben, thanks so much for your time today, appreciate it.
Thank you.
Also in the news today, Attorney General Mark Dreyfus has revealed he's moving forward with drafting new hate speech laws. The laws will reportedly impose federal criminal penalties against hate
speech about people's race, gender, sexuality, or disability. And British Prime Minister Richie Sunak has taken a break just three days into the election campaign, so what's widely being seen as an attempt to regroup soon I announced on Saturday night that he'll bring back mandatory national service for Britains when they turn eighteen, forcing them to commit to a full time military commission or spend one weekend a month volunteering in areas like the National Health Service or aged care.
I'm Asheline McGee. This is seven am. Thanks for your company today. We'll see you again tomorrow