Sunday 14th April 1996
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This is Murrandoo Yanner the Aboriginal who is single handedly trying to close down the Queensland state's largest mining
operation, the Century Zinc Mine. He is theleader of a group of Aborigines, a minority voice who he allegedly leads by intimidation,
in the remote shire of Normanton in Cape York. The summit meeting organised for yesterday erupted into chaos when Mr Yanner accused Premier Borbidge of "marching in with bullyboys and intimidation tactics" then led a mass walk out of his 200 followers. Earlier yesterday Mr Yanner had closed the shire hall where the meeting was to be held, and banned non-Aboriginals from a hastily convened meeting in which threats and intimidation were allegedly the order of the day.
When Premier Borbidge and his party arrived including the Federal Minister for Aboriginal affairs, Senator Herron, State Minister for Minerals and Energy, Tom Gillmore and former Liberal Senator, Aboriginal Neville Bonner it was obvious that the group led by Yanner were looking for a confrontation.
Mr Yanner took centre stage and demanded that the large media contingent were removed from the hall drawing loud cheers from the Aborigines in his group. Mr Borbidge refused to let the meeting start until all those who wished to stay were allowed to. Borbidge said "We booked this hall for a public meeting and that's the way we are going to have it."
Amid wild scenes of shouting and jostling Mr Yanner and Mr Borbidge had a face-to-face controntation before Yanner left with the group.
Now this is exactly the sort of thing that the average Aussie gets steamed up about. You have a multi-billion dollar mining project that will offer enormous opportunity for the locals, but you get a single rabble-rouser who creates a small group and then intimidates the community. It doesn't matter whether that person be black, white, pink or bright blue, it should not be allowed to pre-determine the views of the general population.
Sounds like we will have to bail out our government..
In a stunning match played out yesterday between the Queensland Reds and the New South Wales Waratahs the Reds won by 15-13.
It appears the drop in Australian Rugby League match attendances is the one sided matches played out with one team typically demolishing the other in a cricket score type result.
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