Paul Cleary: Yindjibarndi Native Title Fight

Rare Air with Meri Fatin

"I think it’s a scandal in this country that so much wealth is being extracted and Aboriginal people are no better off."

Paul Cleary is author of "Title Fight: How the Yindjibarndi Battled and Defeated a Mining Giant". For over a decade he followed this story as a journalist, before finally sitting down to the task of recording the complex and troubling detail of this tale in a book.

If ever a story was worth telling, it's this one. It highlights an organisational culture in FMG that on one hand revered and respected Aboriginal people, but on the other used the courts and a vast array of unconscionable tactics to secure below par compensation native title agreement with traditional owners. And it reveals the tenacity and vision of Yindjibarndi people and their leader Michael Woodley who in 2020, after a thirteen year dispute, secured exclusive native title over the land FMG has been mining.