65 David Ritter
Photo: Ric Davies
76
Applicants for the Mayala native title claim sign the Irvine Island mining agreement following a claim meeting
attended by some 250 Mayala people in Broome, Western Australia in June 2011.
imposed on the bodies as mandatory.
Underfunding by government created
a direct imperative for NTRBs to seek alternative funding from resource companies
on a cost recovery basis: that is, when a
resource company required negotiations
with a native title claimant group to be
discharged under the future act system as a
precondition to obtaining their mining
tenements, the corporation would provide
additional financial resources to make the
engagement possible. These additional
monies would generally go on the cost of
extra community meetings (often expensive and resource intensive affairs to bring
a dispersed community together), as well
as the impost associated with retaining
additional staff potentially including
lawyers, anthropologists, archaeologists,
indigenous liaison officers and others. This
further capacity might be hired for short
periods or for years – depending on the
scale and duration of the negotiations in
question.
The author’s primary involvement in
the native title process was as Principal
Legal Officer of the NTRB for the Murchison, Gascoyne and Pilbara regions of
Western Australia (the north west)
between 1999 and 2005, now known as the
Yamatji Marlpa Aboriginal Corporation
(YMAC). YMAC’s jurisdiction covers over 1
million square kilometres, with offices in
Geraldton, South Hedland, Karratha, Tom
Price and Perth. Yamatji means Aboriginal
‘man’ in the Murchison and Gascoyne,
while Marlpa is used to denote the Aboriginal people of the Pilbara.
The areas in question are highly
resource rich, including significant deposits
of iron ore, natural gas, copper, molybdenum and gold. As a consequence, the major
emphasis of my job became overseeing the
professional advice and representation
provided on negotiations with resource
companies, rather than pursuing the land
claims themselves. The direct result of
development pressure was that actually