Ben Abbatangelo
speaker
92 appearances
1 recordings
1 series
first heard May 2026
last heard 23 May
Ben Abbatangelo’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 1 in all, peaking in May 2026 with 1.
Appearances
But that wealth that Andrew Forrest has accrued that has transformed him into Australia's richest man, the bedrock of that is exploitation of Aboriginal people's country and specifically the Yindjibandi people's country.
The crux of the story is that Andrew Forrest and Fortescue Metals Group in the early 2000s wanted to develop Yindjibandi people's country.
The problem for them was that the Yindjibandi had already received native title status.
So for Fortescue to legally start developing on their country under native title laws, they had to broker an agreement.
So Michael Woodley and Andrew Forrest met in a small Roburn youth centre where Andrew Forrest marched in seeking to broker that agreement with Michael Woodley.
Now, what Andrew Forrest came to the table with was essentially a fixed payment of roughly 0.057% of the mine's income.
And for context, we're talking about a development that would last...
decades that would churn out tens of billions of dollars.
So when Michael Woodley refused to sign on to that agreement...
Which he would also, if he was to do so, would be signing away, you know, scores of sacred sites, would be signing away, you know, really integral, important pieces of Yindji Bandi country that are central, you know, to their mythology, to their existence, to their sustainment.
So Michael Woodley was seeking a 5% uncapped rate.
And when, you know, those talks broke down, it triggered a sprawling legal battle that has gone on for now close to 15 years.
Yeah, an important thing for this conversation is that a lot of people have an understanding that native title is land rights.
It's not.
Native title doesn't give traditional owner groups a right of veto.
It doesn't enable them to say no to those that want to develop their country.
It just gives them a statutory timeline to negotiate with those companies and forces them into coming to an agreement.
So I suppose a really key point here is that not only did they proceed with the operations without authority, without that agreement, they also looked to finance a breakaway group.
And Fortescue just pushed ahead with their plans.
In 2013, Fortescue opened its first Solomon Mine firetel on the Yindjibandi people's country without an agreement, without their consent.
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