At the time the new mineral discovery became publicly known in 1985, Gimbat was still a pastoral lease and so not available for land claim, and Coronation Hill itself was not subject to any other form of legal protection for environmental or Aboriginal values. In September 1985, members of the environmental movement alerted the NLC and the ASSPA that a mining company had reported very encouraging test drilling results at Coronation Hill. An ASSPA research officer brought the matter to the attention of a meeting of Jawoyn people, and suggested that the upper South Alligator valley be treated as a priority area for sacred site survey.[4] Following a visit to the valley with three Jawoyn men, including two senior custodians, and supplementary interviews elsewhere, the officer prepared a report for the registration of an area of about 250 km2 on the southwestern side of the valley, including most of Coronation Hill (Cooper 1985). Registration of that area as a sacred site, the Upper South Alligator Bula Complex, by the ASSPA in October 1985 meant that further testing of the mineral deposit at Coronation Hill could not proceed without permission from the ASSPA.
The process of obtaining such permission involved consultation between BHP’s on-site project team and the custodians, mediated by officers of the ASSPA. Those officers had the responsibility of ensuring that the custodians understood and approved of proposals put to them, before recommending to the ASSPA that site access be allowed. At this stage, sacred site registration was the only legal impediment to further mineral exploration, and the ASSPA was the only agency with the power to regulate BHP’s access to the deposit according to Aboriginal wishes. Like the NLC previously, the ASSPA also tried, by its representations to Canberra, to insert the Aboriginal interest in the proposed Kakadu Stage III area into the Government policy debate and into regional land-use planning as an independent third voice alongside the mining industry and the environmental movement.[5] In that broader regional context, then, the ASSPA shared with the NLC a common view of the extent of the general Jawoyn interest in the future of Gimbat.
Over the following months, the NLC also maintained its interest in the area. It remained satisfied that the Jawoyn opposed mining development at Coronation Hill and represented their position as such. Two NLC officers recorded statements of concern about works at Coronation Hill from a small group of Jawoyn during a visit to the area in November 1985. A Senate Inquiry into the resources of the Kakadu area had by then begun its work (SSCERA 1988), and the first NLC submission to it in December asserted Jawoyn opposition to the mining project.[6] In January 1986 three NLC officers heard anti-mining statements made at a Jawoyn Association meeting, after which the NLC expressed concern for the sacred significance of the area to the Federal Ministers for the Environment and for Resources and Energy. A meeting in March of NLC Regional Members passed a resolution supporting Jawoyn opposition to the project.
This marked the culmination of the first stage of the NLC response to the issue. It was a period in which its officers were able to maintain a role only as observers and informal advisors to the Jawoyn, in which they had no standing to formally oversee land use or site access, but in which their view of Jawoyn interests and wishes with respect to the area, and specifically regarding Coronation Hill, was based on a consistent record of expressed Aboriginal anti-mining sentiment. While they deferred to the ASSPA’s jurisdiction, they also noted their first reservations as to its approach. In March, on a joint visit to Canberra, the senior NLC legal officer recorded his concern over hearing the ASSPA director telling government ministers and senior bureaucrats that the Jawoyn custodians might compromise over Coronation Hill.
The BHP project team spent the wet season preparing work plans for the following year, and establishing informal communication with some individual Jawoyn. When in March 1986 its development proposals were rejected by a Jawoyn meeting, it embarked on a broad campaign of informal liaison and information, including field trips, to familiarise small groups of senior Jawoyn people with its personnel and with their work at Coronation Hill, and to ascertain from the Jawoyn the location and extent of sacred places in the upper South Alligator valley. This latter aspect of the BHP team’s liaison evoked objections from both the NLC and the ASSPA, both of which wanted communications contained within channels that allowed for proper consultation procedures and representation of Jawoyn interests (Dodson 1986).[7] The NLC during that period recorded further Jawoyn comments opposed to the mine, while the ASSPA director thought mining could be negotiated if communications were handled sensitively.
The BHP project team’s initial phase of liaison culminated on 1 July when they organised a Jawoyn meeting that approved the resumption of works at Coronation Hill in those areas already disturbed by past mining. On a report from its officer in attendance at that meeting, the ASSPA gave official approval for conditional and staged development to occur.[8] A second meeting of 4 July, however, conducted by a Jawoyn Association officer and observed by NLC representatives and the ASSPA chairman, reversed that decision. A further ASSPA meeting in Katherine on 11 July discussed this reversal with a number of participants at the two meetings, including the senior custodians, and decided that the approval it had given was valid. The NLC regarded this as a failure by the ASSPA to act on the instructions of traditional owners.
The two decisions of early July were only the first of a long series of contradictions to emerge from Jawoyn meetings and consultations over the ensuing months. These presented a major source of indeterminacy for effective management of the issue and remain an important interpretive problem that is beyond the scope of this chapter (see Keen and Merlan 1990: 67–82; Levitus 2003; Merlan 2004: 259–66). The BHP team proceeded to develop its ‘good neighbour’ relationship with the Jawoyn, and introduced a Jawoyn employment program on site. In October 1986 a meeting of about 30 Jawoyn, including two site custodians and some other senior people, agreed to BHP’s proposals to expand its exploration and development works, this time to areas not previously disturbed.[9] By the end of the year, the results of the drilling program had proven the existence of a commercial mineral deposit. Alongside good exploration results and successful dealings with the Jawoyn, the Federal policy environment was also looking favourable for mining. In September and December 1986, government ministers announced that while Stage III of Kakadu would be declared, 35 per cent of the area would be reserved for a five-year mineral exploration program. Coronation Hill was acknowledged as a project of special economic significance that would be approved subject to proper clearances.[10] In early 1987 the project team maintained continuous direct dealings with the Jawoyn, expanded the employment program, began preparation of an Environmental Impact Study, proceeded with feasibility studies and planned the steps towards a full mining agreement with the Jawoyn. In March the ASSPA confirmed approvals for work proposed late the previous year.