The Federal Court has finalised a landmark ruling determining that destroying sacred sites belonging to the Yindjibarndi nation, mining their Country without consent, and extracting billions in iron ore profits is worth approximately one-twelfth of what the traditional owners thought it was worth.
The court awarded the Yindjibarndi Ngurra Aboriginal Corporation $150 million in compensation for cultural loss and a further $100,000 for economic loss, less than nine per cent of the $1.8 billion the group had sought after Fortescue Metals Group built its Solomon Hub mines on their land without agreement.
A senior departmental official described the ruling as “a watershed moment for the principle that Country has a price and that price is whatever a court estimates a reasonable man would offer at a clearance sale.”
The decision has been welcomed across the resources sector, where executives noted that being asked to pay $150 million for cultural destruction is significantly cheaper than the alternative of seeking prior and informed consent before mining.
Industry analysts have already begun modelling the ruling as a per-cultural-site rate card, with several sources confirming a strong sense that destruction is now meaningfully more affordable than it had been at the start of the financial year.
Outside court, the Yindjibarndi Ngurra Aboriginal Corporation said the size of the payout indicated that “compensation” in this context appeared to mean the smallest number a court could write down without laughing.
The departmental official added that the $100,000 awarded for economic loss should also be understood as recognition of approximately fifteen seconds of Fortescue’s iron ore extraction.
Always was, always will be marked down.
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