Ranger Uranium Mine and the Mirarr (Part 1), 1970–2000: The risks of ‘riding roughshod’

The Mirarr struggle against uranium mining on their ancestral lands commenced in the 1970s, when the Australian government disregarded Mirarr opposition to the development of the Ranger mine and exempted the community from exercising rights granted to First Peoples under the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act 1976. This paved the way for construction of Ranger and the adjacent town of Jabiru. Ranger has been a continuing source of conflict between the Mirarr and their representative organisation (the Gundjeihmi Aboriginal Corporation), the Northern Land Council, the mine's operator (Energy Resources of Australia), and the Commonwealth government ever since. This paper, the first of two charting the relationship over time between Mirarr and Energy Resources of Australia, examines the history and legacy of Ranger and the proposed Jabiluka uranium development. Reporting on primary data gathered during interviews with key stakeholders in the mining company, Gundjeihmi Aboriginal Corporation, Jabiru community, regulatory agencies and other knowledgeable respondents, it finds that there was systematic indifference to the impacts of mining on Mirarr and limited regulatory oversight. The paper employs the interpretive lenses of rights, social and business risk, and social impact in order to understand the legacies of the mine and to present a modern interpretation of Ranger's history.