Australia has refused the United Nations Human Rights Committee’s (CCPR) order to provide “an effective and enforceable remedy” to the Wunna Nyiyaparli of Western Australia’s eastern Pilbara region.

The Wunna Nyiyaparli people had lodged a complaint about being barred from the court process in which they are seeking to establish their native title rights over Country in July 2023.

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They lodged a native title claim in 2012, over land within a broader 1998 native title claim of the Nyiyaparli, the language group they are a part of.

The land of the Wunna Nyiyaparli sits within the Nyiyaparli claim. However under that agreement, the Wunna Nyiyaparli was not able to “speak for” or exercise their rights over their own Country.

Nyiyaparli and Wunna Nyiyaparli land is rich in iron ore: Andrew Forrest’s Fortescue Metals operates Christmas Creek and Cloudbreak mines on their land and Gina Rinehart runs the gigantic Roy Hill mine nearby.

The Wunna Nyiyaparli claim sought to curb mining expansion on Country, as under the pre-existing 1998 Nyiyaparli native title claim, further developments were threatening it.

Wunna Nyiyaparli elder Ailsa Roy lodged the CCPR complaint on April 2, 2019, following a July 2016 Federal Court hearing on Wunna Nyiyaparli heritage. That case had been so poorly prepared and communicated to the unrepresented Wunna Nyiyaparli people that three representatives who attended the court ended up being locked out.

After being ordered by the CCPR to provide a remedy to the Wunna Nyiyaparli people within 180 days, Australia dragged its feet for 15 months before responding that it would not.

“Australia has a pattern of refusing to enforce decisions of the Human Rights Committee,” human rights lawyer Scott Calnan, whose been representing the Wunna Nyiyaparli, told Sydney Criminal Lawyers.

“It’s very disappointing that [Labor] don’t consider........

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