Douglas shire has been blessed by thousands of years of Yalanji tenure and in amongst the past 120 years of injustice and in-opportunity, there are, now, many glimmering examples of hope and achievement shinning through the Yalanji people.

After maybe 7 years of progressive negotiation, the Douglas Shire Council, the State and the Yalanji stuck an agreement to return land rights to the Yalanji over 60%, in fact I recall over 70% of the shire’s area. This ILUA , in terms of its size and impact, is one of the biggest milestones since the Mabo ruling itself. The ILUA does not just award land management rights, but bestows huge tracks of land to aboriginal freehold. Much of the land under freehold title has been overlooked by all but the hardiest miners and cattlemen.
I have close personal bonds to many Yalanji living on these new freehold lands around China Camp. It was both very meaningful and moving when the official handover was made this year at Wujal Wujal, despite Peter Beattie’s mob doing little but blocking progress for years and then jumping in front of the cameras to take credit for the agreement.. The long term impacts of the ILUA, or indigenous land use agreement will take years to be absorbed.
I wonder if the current Cairns Council would have had the time and patience to have sat and made such an agreement with the Yalanji and one of the better legacies of the final term of the DSC, was in its settlement of the generous ILUA. To all the parties to the agreement: my congratulations. From my perspective, I was very pleased to have been in a position to urge generosity and tolerance.
I have been fireside at China Camp dozens of times and I would like to thank the generosity of the Yalanji crew who made my friend and family so welcome. I would also like to thank those in the Yalanji locals who have helped teach me so much. I have, over recent years, concluded that we have a lot more to learn from the Yalanji, than they have to learn from us. Its matters of the heart that are the most important at the days end, despite our white obsession with jobs and prosperity.

My time coming to understand the spiritual perspectives of the Yalanji were to me, a very meaningful and lasting experience, that has had a very major impact on my view of the seen and unseen worlds.
I in particular would like to express my thanks to the times elders like Peter Fisher and the late great George Musgrave spent with me, chatting and brewing tea. The quiet love shining out through the eyes on these old elders is one world’s great blessings.
The Yalanji are on the edge of some major breakthrough projects in Douglas. The Mossman Gorge is one of the main focus points of this uplift and its is beholden on the CRC to listen to the Division 10 councillor and it is important that this candidate be willing to support the Mossman Gorge Communities’ calls, to manage the tourist visitation to the Gorge. There are more visitors to the Gorge than Uluru. In peak season, the Gorge car park is an overflowing mess. The plan to allow local visitation to continue to the traditional swimming holes can sit alongside a system to control the buses and hire cars that clog the Gorge and I call on all candidates to support Bamanga Bubu Ngadimunku plans to control tourist visitation to the betterment of both the tourist experience and the betterment of the Mossman Gorge Community.
Another project which CRC needs to carry on, is the feasibility study and promotion of a walking trail to be built from Cape Tribulation to Daintree via China Camp/Meg Falls. Under Burungu direction, this proposed trail of walkers could have great potential for embryonic, fireside cultural and spiritual tourism in the Chain Camp area. With added vigour from the Daintree community and with my part being played supporting the walking trail idea in Council, it is important that this project not be lost in the amalgamation into Cairns. If elected, I will be continuing to provide a voice for the Yalanji peoples and their aspirations in the bigger pool we are about to swim together.
As the final indigenous matter, the failure of the absurd local government, boundary review junta, to look at the northern boundary of the CRC region reveals the true expertise of this board. The Wujal Wujal community is sited either side of a river. One side is Douglas, the other Wujal. This is madness. Wujal should manage its own backyard. I will be urging the return of lands that should logically be managed by Wujal, to Wujal.

My congratulations to our elders, the community, and my colleagues in the their part in an ever firming change of tenure in Yalanji’s favour.

CONTACT ROD DAVIS: vote@roddavis.org

MOBILE: 0418 235561 or HOME: 0740 994434

MAIL: PO BOX 714, Port Douglas, 4877.