Newspaper articles about uranium mining in ‘Alligator Rivers Region’, written by Lee Tate for the Melbourne Herald, 1978

Lee Tate, an Australian journalist, covered the Ranger negotiations for the Melbourne Herald in 1978. Tate writes about this period in the article: As it happened… behind the stories – mining uranium’s green light in ‘Have-A-Go News, No. 339, June, 2020.

A handsome man in his twenties with shiny black skin, Galarrwuy Yunupingu emerged from the Northern Territory bush and into the national spotlight in the 1960s and 1970s.
Born in 1948 at Gunyangara, a beach on a beautiful headland near Nhulunbuy, in Arnhem Land, Galarrwuy found himself walking a wobbly tight-rope between Indigenous rights and white-business affairs.

The young man with the widest smile and dazzling white teeth became chairman of the Northern Land Council. Our paths crossed in the seventies in Darwin and Canberra as this athletic man led elders to surrender Indigenous rights and hopes to sign-off on uranium mining rights.

“I wasn’t totally happy with the agreement but it was the best under the circumstances. Without this, the Aboriginal people would be losers,” Galarrwuy told me from his Darwin office at the time.

In April 1978, after years of tough negotiations, Galarrwuy went fishing in the Northern Territory with Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser. “Mr Fraser told me that if there was a dispute (over the deal), it would have to go to negotiation and this could mean Aboriginals would come out of it with a worse deal,” he told me.

Galarrwuy could see the light after many years of relentless and sometimes bitter talks between clashing clans, the Federal Government, company negotiators and others from the big smoke. Enormous amounts of money were in play. Indigenous people were to be the beneficiaries. Laws had been passed to allow mining and the time had come to sign or let arbitrators decide.

The Northern Land Council engaged $300-a-day New York rights specialist Steven Zorn as their chief negotiator. Traditional landowners, descendants of Aboriginals who lived in the Alligator River region at least 30,000 years ago, were slap-bang in the middle of the world’s biggest uranium deposits.

Tribal elder Elijah Namarabunjdja of the Mirarr Gundjeibmi clan and Maudie Gundjalk, sole survivor of the Kodjkarndi clan, together with 105 others in 18 clans were to be beneficiaries of $280 million in uranium mining payments and royalties.

But missionary Peter Carroll, with 10 years work experience in the area, said: “If these peoples affected had a choice on whether mining should proceed or not, they would say no, regardless of the amount offered.”

My story in the Melbourne Herald on September 16, 1978 was headlined: “They’re the reluctant millionaires.” Nearly $300 million would be divided between several Land Councils (40 per cent), people affected by the mining (30 per cent) and all NT Aboriginals (30 per cent).

Some budgets would need to be signed off by the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs and money was allocated to trusts on behalf of elders. It was the turning point for Ranger Uranium, Australia’s uranium mining industry and an energy-hungry world.

Galarrwuy (whose name means ‘the area on the horizon where the sea merges with the sky’), this Yolngu man of the Gumatj clan, was 1978 Australian of the Year, the University of Melbourne honoured him with an Honorary Doctor of Laws and Australia Post included him in its 2017 Legends “indigenous leaders” series to mark the 50th anniversary of the 1967 referendum. Last year, Galarrwuy became a member of the senior advisory group set up by Ken Wyatt, Minister for Indigenous Australians, to help co-design the Indigenous voice to government.

Lee Tate’s private collection.