Native title win floors Forrest

THE Federal Court has found a major indigenous group in the Pilbara is entitled to exclusive native title rights over land on which Fortescue Metals has built its Solomon iron ore mine.

It paves the way for a potentially massive compensation claim against the company founded by chairman Andrew ‘Twiggy’ Forrest.

In a historic ruling after one of the nation’s longest-running native title cases, Justice Steven Rares yesterday found in favour of the Roebournebased Yindjibarndi Aboriginal Corporation.

The corporation has been at war with Fortescue over royalties and land access since 2007.

Yindjibarndi leader Michael Woodley has long promised to pursue Fortescue for compensation – potentially for hundreds of millions of dollars – if the group was able to prove it had exclusive native title rights to the land.

Justice Rares ruled yesterday that the Yindjibarndi were entitled to exclusive native title rights over all unallocated Crown land in the claimed area and the Yandeeyara Reserve, except for a small area occupied by Rio Tinto’s Tom Price railway.

“That is because I am satisfied that the Yindjibarndi established … that a manjangu (or stranger) still has to obtain permission from a Yindjibarndi elder before entering or carrying out activity on Yindjibarndi country,” he said.

The claim – first lodged in 2003 – includes unallocated Crown land occupied by Fortescue’s multibillion-dollar Solomon Hub mine.

The Yindjibarndi Aboriginal Corporation rejected Fortescue’s compensation offer of $4 million a year for access to its land – an amount well below the industry norm.

The company was later able to proceed with the mine without signing a land-use deal with the Aboriginal representative body.

Fortescue instead funded a splinter group, the WirluMurra Yindjibarndi Aboriginal Corporation, which broke away from the Yindjibarndi group and has won lucrative contracts on the Solomon project.

In 2015, evidence given to the Federal Court showed Fortescue had covertly arranged a meeting of the Yindjibarndi people aimed at removing Mr Woodley and his allies as leaders.

Justice Rares found at the time the notice of meeting was “calculated to mislead” because the Yindjibarndi people were unaware they were voting to give up exclusive possession of their land.

Fortescue has rejected suggestions that it sought to influence the outcome of the meeting.