TITLE FIGHT

THE GREAT PHILANTHROPIST VS THE PEOPLE OF THE PILBARA

While multinational companies operating in the Pilbara have paid the 0.5% royalty and helped set up trust funds to manage the money, the Yindjibarndi are up against Australia’s Fortescue Metals Group, founded by Andrew ‘Twiggy’ Forrest, which dismisses these payments as sit-down money or ‘mining welfare’. Some of Fortescue’s early deals involved compensation of a few cents per tonne, or about one-twentieth of the industry standard. This approach saves Fortescue a lot of money, and has also led to the company mining Yindjibarndi country without paying any compensation to the Yindjibarndi Aboriginal Corporation.”