Dirty Deeds Done Dirty Cheap

[izmeina]

Australia is usually first in the queue to condemn the likes of ISIS or the Taliban for blowing up statues, monuments and museums etc but are always quick to look the other way when the mining company goblins blatantly disregard land rights and destroy Aboriginal cultural heritage just because it got in the way of yet another mine

Years ago, the Western Australian government gave permission to a business to build a giant fertilizer plant on the Burrup Pensinsula which is a place with an enormous collection of ancient rock art. Much older than any of the cave paintings in Europe.
That plant could have been built in any number of places and the rock art was in only one. But that did not matter to the goblins who are all about making life as profitable as possible for their mining mates

And now in the last few days or so yet another mining company has come along and blown up caves with archeologically and culturally significant Aboriginal rock and cave artifacts in the Pilbara. Artifacts that are estimated to be 46,000 years old! But none of that matters in the pursuit of profit.

The fact that there are people living in the area who still have a personal cultural connection to that site and the goblins have been grovelling to them to even be able to mine there in the first place and then go stab them in the back is bad enough

But even if those links were lost long ago, such a site surely must be priceless from the point of view of international heritage and archeology?

Once it is gone, it is gone forever. The fistful of dollars saved by such cultural vandalism may end up being spent on some board room art works, or a share buy back on the stock market that gets wiped out within weeks with nothing to show for it

In spite of Aboriginal land rights being increasingly recognized in the 200 and something year old courts of this country, the mining companies always still find loop holes to do what they want anyway and they never face the consequences.


The state government gets 25 cents a ton 'lease rental' from Iron ore which is the same price they were getting back in the 1960s. They have rarely bothered to index this ridiculous rate for inflation over the last 50 years and any party who tries faces the wrath of the mining lobby. So instead of standing up to these goblins to get a fair price for these non renewable resources, it is easier to kick the can down the road and let the miners trash the joint to get more ore and so pay more royalties
(I just googled and it seems the state government also gets a royalty of 7/5% of the value of the ore but it's still a pathetic pittance)