A Champion Of Native Land Rights

Sydney Morning Herald

Monday December 12, 2005

Chips Mackinolty Chips Mackinolty is a Darwin writer and graphic artist, and worked with the Jawoyn Association from 1985-2001.

Bangardi nga-Derkolo Lee*

IT WAS the height of the bitter controversy over mining at Guratba (Coronation Hill) in the early 1990s, with BHP poised to begin excavation on Jawoyn traditional lands north-east of Katherine in the Northern Territory.

Jawoyn leaders Bangardi nga-Derkolo Lee and his brother Raymond Fordimail were furious at one of their white advisers. At a moment when all seemed lost, and federal cabinet seemed highly likely to approve mining, the adviser had suggested that there should be a plan B - that options should be explored in terms of royalties and other benefits should mining go ahead.

For the Jawoyn people, however, there was to be no plan B: no going back. Not only was mining in Bulademo, Sickness Country, an anathema - and a profound threat to their people - Aboriginal ceremonial leaders across Arnhem Land were watching to see what the Jawoyn, whom they had supported, would do.

Jawoyn interests prevailed: in one of his last acts as prime minister, Bob Hawke forced through a cabinet submission that banned mining at Guratba.

But within months, Lee found himself a painfully reluctant leader of the Jawoyn people after the early death of Fordimail through tuberculosis. It was not a task he wanted, yet within the next two years Lee was to host a national indigenous leaders' summit at Manyallaluk, which led to the Eva Valley Statement on native title. He was also to be a lead negotiator in Australia's first native title settlement over mining, for gold at Mount Todd, a year before native title legislation was introduced federally. In the 12 years since, he had overseen the development of the Territory's largest Aboriginal-owned tourism operation, Nitmiluk Tours.

Born on the banks of Beswick Creek, 80 kilometres east of Katherine, Lee was adopted and brought up by a senior Jawoyn Derkolo clansman, Don Jambalili, along with his Ngalkbon mother, Daisy Bordu. He grew up in the bush, at Beswick cattle station, as well as at Barunga, then known as Bamyili. There were times, also, living in makeshift humpies on the edges of Katherine. When she was three, Lee's sister Rita was removed by native welfare authorities. He wasn't to see her again until he was 18. He avoided that fate, his parents camping in a banana plantation at Manyalalluk whenever Native Welfare turned up. Schooling was limited and regimented at Bamyili.

Speaking Ngalkbon, he remembered "getting a flogging for not speaking English - we were like people from two different worlds trying to talk to each other, trying to communicate, speaking two different languages". Although he did quite well at school, high school in Darwin failed: he and two others ran away after a few days and returned home, where life was a strange mix of tradition and hunting on weekends, as well as being under the thumb of the superintendent. During this period he developed ritual connections that went east as far as Groote Eylandt, and south-east to Ngukurr.

At about 14 he went into the workforce, as a ringer and butcher, later as a mechanical works supervisor; for a time he joined a boxing troupe. Later he served for a decade as town clerk at Barunga until he moved into Katherine to run the Jawoyn Association. The Whitlam government brought huge changes to Aboriginal affairs, many of which Lee criticised. From a highly regimented government settlement, where people were fed in communal kitchens, overnight in 1973 self-management was brought in: "Things fell to pieces ... went down ... the government didn't train people to take over responsibility." Alcohol began having an impact as well.

Lee remembers his parents moving into Katherine for months at a time to drink, and the devastation it was causing other relations. It affected Lee as well: he was always willing to admit that he spent much of his 30s on the grog, often living in the long grass. "I was enjoying life with my mates ... drinking at that time for all sorts of complicated reasons," he said.

The Aboriginal Land Rights Act 1976 was to set irrevocable changes for the Jawoyn, and for Lee. Amid huge hostility from the Territory government and local non-Aboriginal interests, the Jawoyn lodged a claim over Katherine Gorge. There were street marches in Katherine; Rights for Whites groups formed. Lee gave evidence in the land claim, and after 13 years of hearings, delays and negotiations, traditional lands at Nitmiluk were returned to the Jawoyn.

Although Lee often said he avoided responsibilities, leaving them to his older brother, this was not entirely true. As well as being town clerk, Lee also headed up the Katherine Aboriginal Action Group in response to the massive influx of service personnel when the Tindal air force base was established in the mid-80s, and served on the Aboriginal Development Commission. Lee was one of the negotiators with the Marshall Perron government over Katherine Gorge, which achieved what is to this day Australia's most powerful lease agreement over Aboriginal land.

The subsequent battle over Guratba, in Kakadu, was to be Lee's blooding. With strong Northern Land Council support for the custodians, and after a commission of inquiry, Sickness Country was saved. Fordimail's death was a tragic footnote to an historic victory. "I was dragged in by all my senior council members," Lee said. "They selected me because I was next in line for all those responsibilities."

And those responsibilities were substantial, and growing. The Mabo decision of 1992 coincided with an American operator, Zapopan, wanting to mine north of Katherine at Mount Todd. Using what was described at the time as the "big stick" of native title, the Jawoyn negotiated Australia's first native title deal in the hot January of 1993.

It was touch and go; once again Perron insisted a deal be struck. The mine went ahead, in return for large tracts of land, much of it going into a greatly expanded Nitmiluk park, as well as jobs and training. Although short-lived as a mine, at one stage 35 per cent of the workforce at Mount Todd was indigenous. At the same time, the Lee-led Jawoyn Association struck a deal giving it a 50 per cent share in Nitmiluk Tours at the Gorge in 1995, which will move to 100 per cent this month. It was not done with government funds: the Jawoyn obtained commercial loans.

During the 1990s, Lee served as a member of the Northern Territory Tourist Commission, as well as the Parks and Wildlife Commission, as a member of the Gurig and Kakadu national park boards, as well as chairing Nitmiluk. Other land claims were won; lands were purchased; enterprises established. He negotiated with governments, of all persuasions, on the basis of representing a sovereign Jawoyn nation: his motto was "a helping hand, not a hand-out". He had a grudging respect for Perron, dealt extensively with federal politicians from both sides of the fence, and was serving with the Clare Martin Government's indigenous economic development task force.

At times, he was a strong critic of the Northern Land Council, of which he had been an executive member. He was deeply opposed, long before it became a popular orthodoxy, to the devastation caused by welfare dependency.

In 1997, he launched the Jawoyn's five-year plan and, two years later, the first mining policy by a body representing an Aboriginal language group. Both opposed the payment of royalty moneys to individuals; both saw maximum benefit through training, education and employment: the vision his elders had promoted in their first land claim. In the last months of his life, Lee and the Jawoyn struck a deal at Nitmiluk which could last 30 years.

Lee nearly died in 2000 from the tuberculosis that had taken his brother, a Third World disease still prevalent in the Top End of the Territory. The experience inspired a successful push to establish the Sunrise Health Service for communities east of Katherine. Back then he said: "When I retire, I would like to sit on the tribal elders council ... making sure it will still be our country ... and that it's not going to be pushed into the Western side too much, so we can still keep an eye on it."

It was not to be. Unable to win his final fight with cancer, this man of vision died with his friends and family in Katherine.

Chips Mackinolty is a Darwin writer and graphic artist, and worked with the Jawoyn Association from 1985-2001.

*Mr Lee's family has requested his given name not be used, nor his photo reproduced. Bangardi nga-Derkolo identifies Mr Lee's skin and clan names.

© 2005 Sydney Morning Herald

Back to News Index | Back to Home