Artwork 13: Australia in Colour
Vincent Namatjira is in the news and I have mining on my mind
Artwork 13: Australia in Colour
In Vincent Namatjira’s portrait of Gina Rinehart, the mining magnate is depicted with a shocked expression, her eyes wide and her head tilted slightly backwards. Turning towards the viewer, her posture is also suggestive of a surprise paparazzi snap. Australia’s richest person and most notable female plutocrat is rendered in blotchy but effective pinks and fleshy browns. Perhaps it was these tones that she found unflattering and led her to seek its removal from Namatjira’s solo exhibition Australia in Colour at the National Gallery of Australia (NGA), Canberra. Rinehart’s objections to the portrait only drew more attention, and hopefully more punters to the exhibition which closed on 21 July 2024.
To my eye, though, Namatjira has achieved something more significant than a caricature. This portrait captures the type of power without responsibility or consequences so demonstrative of this country’s ongoing colonial sensibility. As a viewer I almost can’t look – but I also cannot look away.
Rinehart, the daughter of mining magnate Lang Hancock, is the chairperson of Hancock Prospecting, a Western Australian company whose assets include both mining and agricultural businesses (beef, dairy, fertiliser). Her widowed father was initially famous for discovering the world’s largest iron ore deposit in 1952 which has produced one of the largest mining operations in the country.
The impact Rinehart has, and has had, on political spheres is as big, if not bigger, than the actual mines which she owns. According to Bloomberg, her net worth is 30.9 billion. Hancock Prospecting’s Roy Hill mine is a $10 billion ‘mega’ iron ore operation, removing 55 million tonnes of ore per annum. It features pink breast cancer supporting trucks and a female workforce participation above industry standard. Like any self-respecting Aussie, Rinehart is proud of her family’s family-owned business. Boasting they are ‘the most successful privately owned company ever in Australia’s history’ – as though her father’s near-decade long lobbying of the government to lift export bans or the many concessions given to such companies by the Australian federal government have nothing to do with the ‘private’ success. Rinehart received an OAM in 2022 for her charity work.
Mining money goes everywhere in Australia, and it is particularly effective in the arts and creative industries to soften the blow of environmental destruction while presenting these big business folk as rich in culture, too.
Vincent Namatjira is a painter from Indulkana in South Australia, he has Western Aranda heritage. His biography reads like a bingo card of triggers for white racists: His grandfather was watercolour artist Albert Namatjira. He’s been painting portraits since 2013, including both personal and political subjects holding nothing back when it comes to myths and mythmakers. His works link thmes of leadership, wealth, power, and influence. His portrait of Adam Goodes won the Archibald Prize in 2020 and depicted the artist himself with his subject. They share many similar experiences as black men in this country. Namatjira was also the first Aboriginal artist to win the always contentious portrait prize.
Namatjira’s portrait sits alongside a kaleidoscope of individuals forming a kind of national portrait of the country’s consciousness. Former Prime Minister Scott Morrison, Queen Elizabeth and Captain James Cook, feature alongside more conventional heroes from a First Nations perspective: Adam Goodes, Eddie Mabo, Vincent Lingiari and Cathy Freeman. Each has been depicted using Namatjira’s economy of detail, but still rendering each unmistakably. The portraits are presented closely together on the wall. It’s not about one individual. The title of the artwork, Australia in Colour also forms the exhibition’s title, reminding us that this is about us as a nation.
The exhibition began touring in Namatjira’s home state of South Australia, but the nation’s capital serves as an appropriate location for controversy to erupt. It was while on display in Canberra that Rinehart discovered the artwork. Her inclusion in this lineup of national influencers is fitting. Namatjira wants us to consider the movers and shakers who have, for better and worse, left us with a massive psychological slag heap (if you’ll pardon the pun). The culprit, ultimately, is colonialism. Our national psyche has been formed through this rupture and we must come to terms with it. By including black heroes Namatjira makes clear that we’re not going to get anywhere unless we listen to the voices of First Nations people.
Mining on my mind
Speaking of mining, on a much smaller scale I recently I became aware of a rare earth mineral mine proposed in the southwestern corner of New South Wales. The site is about 130km from Mildura and 25km from Lake Victoria and the Murray River. That’s my neighbourhood. Significantly, the proposed site is part of an ephemeral lake system that feeds with Barka (Darling) and Murray rivers. It is listed in the Directory of Important Wetlands in Australia, collectively covering 269,000 hectares.
The Great Darling Anabranch, or just the Anabranch as we know it, is included in this list because it satisfies criteria 1, 2, and 5. I’ll list these if you’ll forgive a bit of legislative jargon:
1. It is a good example of a wetland type occurring within a biogeographic region in Australia
2. It is a wetland which plays an important ecological or hydrological role in the natural functioning of a major wetland system/complex
5. The wetland supports native plant or animal taxa or communities which are considered endangered or vulnerable at the national level
In other words, it is a fragile and significant home to many special animals, including this cheeky fella:
The mine project plans to extract mineral sands including ilmenite, rutile, zircon, lucoxene, monazite and xenotime which they claim are used in renewable energy technologies and medical devices. I always wonder how we got to a place in this discourse where ‘renewable’ technologies are used to justify such a dangerous and destructive project as a mine. It’s patently counter intuitive.
The community is presently divided over whether the mine should go ahead. Some locals, including most of the local council, welcome the jobs and money that the mining company, RZ Resources, promises to bring. Others, including the farmers of the proposed 17-year mine site, are opposed. One farm has been acquired and another opposes the project.
An Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) more than 1500+ pages long was published online in May with 28 days to lodge objections. Too few objections were received during this window, however it is still worth sending late objections which can be potentially considered if you (yes you, dear reader) did not hear of the proposal in time to submit something.
Please consider writing a short (or long) letter to the Principal Planning Officer in the NSW department of planning, housing and infrastructure. Note that you would like to make a late submission and were prevented from doing so sooner because of insufficient information.
I’ve included some suggestions below and would encourage you to consider adapting these in a letter to relevant ministers as well.
Address your letters to:
Mandana Mazaheri, Principal Planning Officer, NSW Department of Planning, Housing and Infrastructure (mandana.mazaheri@planning.nsw.gov.au)
The Hon. Penny Sharp MLC Minister for Climate Change, Minister for Energy, Minister for the Environment
The Hon. Paul Scully MP Minister for Planning and Public Spaces
The Hon. Courtney Houssos, MLC Minister for Natural Resources
Start your letter with “I oppose the Copi Mineral Sands Project (application number SSD-41294067) on the following grounds”. Here are some reasons which I have raised in my letter:
Aboriginal Cultural Heritage
The Heritage Assessment conducted by OzArk identified six sites within the Heritage Assessment Area with moderate significance due to the presence of hearths or a scarred tree. No sites have been assessed as having a high scientific significance (p. viii). However, the impact assessment (Section 14.2) concluded that there are 65 Aboriginal sites that will be destroyed by the Project. Of these sites, 62 will be totally destroyed and three will be partially destroyed.
The Heritage Assessment found that ‘the loss of the 65 sites, should the Project be approved, contributes to the cumulative harm to Aboriginal cultural heritage values in the region’. Unfortunately, OzArk suggest that ‘as the impacted sites are neither remarkable in their manifestation nor contain artefacts or features that are not commonly represented in the region, this loss of heritage value is manageable and the intergenerational loss arising from the Project is minimal at a regional level.’ These claims are misleading, they generalise about Aboriginal cultural heritage and the assessment cannot possibly claim to have accounted for what current and future generations of Aboriginal community will value as ‘remarkable’. Further consultation is needed with Traditional Owners and Custodians who are owed the right to self-determine how these sites are looked after.1
Water
The proposed mine is a wet mine using highly saline water extracted from the earth. Mining waste, including salt, heavy metals and radionuclides, will be cycled through above ground storage and mine pits. There is risk of contamination of the soil surface and underground water by chemicals emitted from the mining processes. There is also the risk that contaminated groundwater from the mine could impact the Murray Darling aquifers.
The mining company, RZ Resources, has no experience operating a mine, until this project they have only undertaken survey work. Their compliance history demonstrates that this company is not fit to operate this or any mineral sands/rare earth mineral mine. They have received both an official caution (2023) and a penalty notice (2021) from the resources regulator for false or misleading information. The list of breaches included drilling to unapproved depths, using unapproved machinery, failing to have an adequate community consultation strategy, failing to rehabilitate land, failing to consult with landholders, digging sump and burying soil without approval, and failing to comply with requests for information. Downstream impacts from highly saline and heavy metal content in water have also not been clarified.
Thorium, Uranium and Monazite
An expert witness statement from Dr Harry Watts on radiation for another mineral sands mine (Goschen in Victoria) noted that: ‘the rare earth mineral concentrate is a fine material that may produce a lot of dust. Engineering controls for total containment are necessary. In addition to storage of radioactive materials on site, there will be movement of radioactive materials throughout the plant from the flotation cells to the sulphation baking kiln to the leaching and precipitation units, to the mixing units. It is necessary to encapsulate or isolate the materials in these processes from the environment’ (March 2024). These details have not been provided in the EIS and there remains a significant risk to human and animal life posed by airborne radioactive particles.
Additionally, there are no details as to the safety and security assurances for the transport of radioactive materials from the mine. The recent history of poor safety protocols around such transport, and transport routes through population centers, this stands out as a grave concern to the towns along the route from the mine. Compounding this, the particular history of material safety breaches by the company RZ Resources raises the likelihood of a serious and dangerous failure of containment.
Noise and air quality
Noise and poor air quality pose significant risks to the farmers whose land the mine is being proposed on, and of the workers handling the rare earth minerals. The EIS contains insufficient evidence for the control of noise and air quality in an environment that is highly changeable, including significant dust storms which can blow topsoil for hundreds of kilometers. RZ Resources have not clarified how they will prevent radioactive particles from traveling to populated areas. Mildura is 130km from the proposed mine.
Biodiversity
In October 2023 a local birdwatching group visited one of the properties RZ Resources is seeking to acquire. In their 4-hour visit 58 species of birds were identified (not including nocturnal species). Two of the species are listed as vulnerable and one is listed as endangered on the Federal Government’s Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act (EPBC) 1999. The Southern Whiteface and the Brown Treecreeper (south-eastern) are both listed as vulnerable. The Department of Climate Change, Energy, Environment and Water website specifies that a recovery plan is required for these species as they are most impacted by threats including ‘habitat loss, degradation, fragmentation and removal, climate change, predation from invasive species, invasive weeds, firewood collection and competition with noisy miners.’ Major Mitchell’s Cockatoo is endangered and known to Barkindji people as karta-kartaka. The species is of high cultural and community significance across its wide range, not just to Barkindji people. A recovery plan is required, however as with the Brown Treecreeper and Southern Whiteface, there is no adopted or made recovery plan for this species. The proposed mine will have a significant and irreversible impact on the habitat of these vulnerable and endangered species. Nesting sites and food sources have already been impacted by the drilling and exploration activities of RZ Resources which has resulted in dead trees.
Nulla Nulla grass also grows throughout the Anabranch and is an endangered species. This rare species is a perennial plant that requires very specific conditions for growth. The clearing of the surface for the purpose of mining will significantly endanger the species, and given its slow growth, even with a dedicated rehabilitation program, the site will take decades to recover. There is neither an acknowledgement of the grass’ presence in the EIS, no plan for protecting the plants in situ, nor a rehabilitation and recovery plan. In addition to its endangered status, the grass holds cultural significance for the Barkindji and Latje Latje peoples.
Mine rehabilitation
The minimally described rehabilitation plan makes no mention of the above concerns, has no timeline, no financial allocation, and does not even include a material description of the proposed restitution. These facts alone are of deep concern, and the reasonable conclusion is that there is no actual rehabilitation plan.
Given the relatively short history of the company, RZ Resources, its financial structure and its investors, it is reasonable to conclude that like many other short-lived mining interests, the company will cease to exist, and its legal duties be exhausted once principal mining is completed. Therefore, it is highly likely that the scant details on the rehabilitation plan reflect an unserious response from the company.
A review of fauna in mine rehabilitation in Australia found that:
Species densities and richness were frequently lower in rehabilitated compared to undisturbed areas, even more so when only native species were considered. Amongst all criteria used to measure success, recovery of the pre-mining fauna community composition was the hardest to achieve.
The above is potentially behind a paywall, but mentioned here to support what we already know about disturbing ancient and delicate ecosystems. Once damaged they can never be repaired.
If you’ve made it this far, thank you for reading! I wanted to take a moment to welcome new readers whove recently signed up to receive writings about art and may not have expected today’s theme. It’s great to have you here!
If each Slow Looking reader sent a letter to the Principal Planning Officer it would have a huge impact and voice the concerns of those non-human entities who cannot write for themselves. Far western NSW may be often out of sight and out of mind, but we’re all still connected with a responsibility to care for Country.
I’d love to hear if you do write. Please drop me a line.
This is a very brief summary of concerns relating to Aboriginal heritage, I am still making my way through the 700+ page cultural hertiage assessment.
Slow looking has revealed some perceptive discoveries amidst the faces of Namatjira's Portrait collection. Once ones eye is attuned to his style the underlying messages shine through. An interesting article, and I am sure an actual face to face contemplation of the portraits would unlock more details to ponder or even possibly be amused by.