“The McArthur River currently runs through the middle of the MRM mining lease,” says the Anglo-Swiss miner Xstrata’s website. A multi-national corporation, bothers to come all the way down here to extract 150,000 tonnes of lead and zinc out of our landscape each year, and look what happens.

The McArthur river, described on the same website as, “…a slow-flowing stream for about 10 months of the year, which during the wet season sometimes opens to a flood plain”, has got in the way of the new open cut style of mining.

After all the surveying, assaying and claiming of a sizeable chunk of landscape that McArthur River Mining has done, the lazy old indigenous river has the temerity to run ‘right through the middle’ of their operation!

They appealed to the Northern Territory and Federal governments for the OK to re-route the river around the mine. No worries there, mate. Get some excavators, dig a five-kilometre trench, divert the water into it and Bob’s your uncle.

“Hang on a minute bruz,” said the local indigenous population at downstream Borroloola. “What about the fish, the birds, the river and the land itself that we’re responsible for?” The High Court agreed and in December last year the traditional owners won their case against the mining company.

The court ruled that the former Commonwealth environment minister Ian Campbell’s approval of the expansion did not follow the proper process. But MRM pulled out the big guns. All 76 jobs would be lost by Australia Day if the new Federal government did not fix everything pronto.

Oh, oh – another tricky one for Peter Garrett. But he was up to the task. His January 22 press release said that he: “has advised the key stakeholders that he intends to approve with conditions the proposal to expand the mine’s open pit which includes the diversion of the McArthur River.

“My decision is limited to protecting matters of national environmental significance under the EPBC Act, in this case the freshwater sawfish and a number of migratory birds. I will ensure that they will be protected by any decision I make and any conditions I apply.”

Then strangely he went on to say: “I am required under the federal environment legislation to consult with my Commonwealth colleagues, but will also give McArthur River Mining and the traditional owners the opportunity to comment on my intended decision and approval conditions to ensure procedural fairness”.

In other words he’d made up his mind but was happy to chat about it. So there you have it. Bad luck for the river and the traditional owners but good news for the 78 workers and Xstrata’s shareholders.

Perhaps it’s time to follow the lead of Tourism Australia and make a series of ads aimed at some of these foreign resource corporations. The catchline could be: “Who the bloody hell are you?”