BY BILL MASON

BRISBANE — Some 37 years after they were forced from their homes at gunpoint by police acting on the orders of the Queensland National Party government, residents of the far-north Aboriginal settlement of Mapoon have achieved an agreement that secures the community's future.

On the night of November 15, 1963, police ordered the people of Mapoon, north of Weipa, to gather their possessions and leave their homes. Most were shipped to the tip of Cape York where a new settlement was established. Government officials then burnt the people's homes, church and school to the ground, in one of the worst acts of official racist violence in modern times in Australia.

Unrepentant, Kev Lingard, a minister in the National Party government of Premier Rob Borbidge, told state parliament in November 1999 that the homes which were burnt down were just “straw huts”.

The apartheid-style forced removal was carried out to benefit mining giant, Comalco, which had been granted a mining lease over a huge area of the Aboriginal reserve.

On March 14, in a ceremony marking the new agreement, Labor Premier Peter Beattie apologised to the Mapoon people for the “distress and hurt” caused to the residents. The agreement between the Mapoon people, the state government and Comalco will give the company continuing access to rich bauxite deposits, while providing $4 million a year in development funds to the community.

National Party leader Mike Horan rejected the state government's apology. “I don't think it's right that every time something is done, people have to apologise”, he said. Some things never change!

Tools

• Bookmark This Page
• Print This Page