Queensland Indigenous group appeals to UN over mining on traditional land

The Mithaka people of south-west Queensland have appealed to the United Nations to investigate the state government for opening up their traditional land to mining.

They accuse the Newman government of violating international law by failing to consult them over the removal of “wild rivers” protection laws in favour of shale oil exploration.

A submission to the UN special rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples on Thursday also says the dangers posed by chemical “fracking” threaten the Mithaka’s rights to a traditional culture entwined with the waterways known as channel country.

Mithaka representative Scott Gorringe told Guardian Australia the decision to go to the UN was “the first step in our last resort”.

The special rapporteur can question the Australian government over the Queensland government’s actions and formally raise concerns, as it did in 2012 over the commonwealth’s Northern Territory “intervention”.

Gorringe said the Mithaka hoped the UN referral would embarrass the Newman government into reassessing its “ideology led” approach that favoured economic growth while “ridiculing and devaluing the environmental aspects of this country and the cultural aspects of Aboriginal people”.

The Mithaka’s submission was prepared with the help of US environmental and human rights lawyer Martin Wagner.

Wagner said the Mithaka had “rights under international law to be meaningfully consulted and involved in decisions about the exploitation of resources on their traditional lands, particularly when that exploitation threatens their culture”.

Like other Aboriginal nations of central Australia, the Mithaka have a culture and oral history that through “songlines” codify knowledge of water sources among the red dunes of the outback.

Gorringe said former laws protecting rivers that feed Australia’s largest lake (Lake Eyre) and its major underground water source (the Great Artesian Basin) “had the support of every stakeholder except [oil and gas company] Santos”.

Santos is test drilling for shale oil and has flagged plans for $1bn investment and 300 fracking wells in the region.

Gorringe said the wild rivers laws were repealed and oil and gas prospecting licences issued amid “a Mickey Mouse consultation process” that “systematically ignored” the Mithaka.

“We haven’t had the opportunity to speak with this government about decisions made on our country… not a single face to face meeting,” he said.

“The only opportunity I’ve had to speak to a member of this government about it was when I rang in on an ABC talkback show and got [premier] Campbell Newman.”

Gorringe said Newman’s response was “what his response always is” - to cite support for development among northern Queensland Indigenous communities in Cape York and near the Gulf of Carpentaria.

He said thinking differed in channel country, which was “built on the back of cattle (farmers) and Aboriginal people – the two things that will suffer greatly with the damage of water”.

Gorringe said government rhetoric about repealing wild rivers laws to allow more irrigation for farmers was “a smokescreen” for a mining industry that would deliver it much larger royalties.

A spokeswoman for the natural resources and mines minister, Andrew Cripps, said government consultation over the western rivers involved “equal representation” from Indigenous groups, environmentalists, councils, graziers and miners.

“The Queensland government acknowledges that some people in the community had concerns in relation to potential resources development and the sustainable use of water in the channel country,” she said.

“There is also a clear desire amongst a number of community leaders and local residents in the same region for economic development and job opportunities.”

The spokeswoman said the oil and gas industry had “co-existed with Indigenous, grazing and tourism interests” in that part of Queensland since the 1960s “and we strongly believe that it can and will continue to do so”.

She also noted the native title claim of the Mithaka, who currently number 300 people, had “not yet been determined”.

The Mithaka’s submission says their claim, pending since 2012, still gives them procedural rights to consultation and cultural considerations over their land under a number of international treaties.