Twiggy Forrest’s Latest Land Deal Is A Huge Slap In The Face For Traditional Land Owners

A $17 million farming land deal by billionaire mining magnate Andrew ‘Twiggy’ Forrest is being criticised after it was revealed that the land includes a former “native reserve” that was set aside for First Nations people back in the 1800s.

Forrest purchased 7975 hectares of prime farmland surrounding Australia’s only monastic town — New Norcia — located 130kms north of Perth. Despite the land being believed to be worth around $40 million, Forrest snapped it up for just $17 million after the monk community made the “difficult decision” to sell the land to pay for the historic child sex abuse claims of Indigenous people who stayed at the mission’s orphanage up until the mid-1970s.

But despite the fact that the land was only being sold to pay compensation to the Indigenous people who were victims of horrific sexual abuse on the land, traditional land owners — the Yued people — were kept in the dark about the sale “until it came out in the paper.”

The “Native Reserve” Deal

According to documents obtained by the ABC, 13,000 acres of the land was originally designated “under exceptional conditions” in 1886 and leased to Benedictine monk Rosendo Salvado to be used for Aboriginal people to live on and farm their own land.

“He hoped that Aboriginal people would settle down as landowners on this land, in the European sense, and he believed this would assist in their transition to become ‘civilised’, which was his plan,” Historian Tiffany Shellam from Deakin University’s Contemporary Histories Research Group told the ABC. “This was always the way in which new land was acquired from the government, this promise that Aboriginal people would be using the land, cultivating and labouring on it.”

The understanding that the land would be used for the benefit of Aboriginal people was a key part of how Salvado secured the deal in the first place, however, there was a clause included in the original deal that would allow the Benedictine community to buy the leased reserve land at an undisclosed later date.

And low and behold, in 1947, the Benedictine community cashed in on this deal, effectively leaving the Yued people with nothing.

The Child Sex Abuse Claims

A Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse in 2017 found that the New Norcia Benedictine community was one of the worst places in the country for child sex abuse by priests and religious brothers between the 1950s and 1970s.

According to the report, “33 alleged perpetrators were subject to one or more claims of child sexual abuse.” The average age of these victims was just nine years old.

The Abbott of New Norcia John Herbert confirmed to the ABC back in September that more than $10 million worth of payments have been given to the survivors of historical child sex abuse to-date. There are currently 20 outstanding cases of historical child sex abuse.

Twiggy’s Deal Is A Slap In The Face To The Yued People

Beverley Port-Louis, who attended the orphanage between the ages of seven and 10, is not bitter about her experiences and admires the work Salvado did for the Aboriginal community. However, she is saddened that the community is left with nothing in the multi-million dollar deal.

“He [Salvado] founded that place for Aboriginal people,” she told the ABC. “And today, we’ve got nothing.”

Port-Louis is disappointed that there was no acknowledgement of traditional owners in the sale, despite the fact that there is clear evidence that the land was initially given to them (and, obviously, is traditionally their own land).

“You’ve got an obligation, a moral obligation as far as I’m concerned,” added Port-Louis.

Yued elder Ben Taylor voiced his frustration to the ABC, noting that his father was a labourer on the farm and directly worked towards making it the prime farming land it is today.

“They should be speaking to us,” said Taylor. “Salvado had a vision for Aboriginal people, to give them land to become farmers.”

Had the land remained a reserve and not been solely purchased by the Benedictines in 1947, the Yued people would have retrained their native title rights, which makes the result of the sale all the more devastating for the community.

“To sell it now at such huge profit, with no benefit for the Yued community or the Aboriginal community of New Norcia, I think is quite devastating,” said Shellam.

While this deal is a particularly obvious example of First Nations people having their land stolen out from under them, it’s important to note that our society is built on stolen land. You can do your part to fix the problem by paying the rent.

Harvest Road stressed its desire to meet with traditional land owners when it eventually takes over the least in 2023 in a statement to Junkee.

“Harvest Road is committed to investing in New Norcia’s future.We are respectful of the current lease that is still in place until 2023. We look forward to meeting with the Traditional Custodians of this land and are delighted to work with the surrounding communities to create training and employment opportunities together,” the statement read.

“This is a long-term investment in Western Australian agriculture and we are committed to ensuring this investment benefits not only our beef industry through our vertically integrated supply chain, but also members of the regional communities in which we operate.”