Kuku Djungan Background The Traditional Country of the Kuku Djungan is roughly West of Mt Carbine to Chillagoe in North Queensland (Dry Country people). Their most significant cultural site is Ngarrabullgan (named Mt Mulligan after prospector and explorer James Mulligan), a mountain situated in the Hodgkinson Basin.   In 1874, Mulligan named the Hodgkinson River after William Hodgkinson, the mining warden at Etheridge. Mulligan’s discovery of gold in the Hodgkinson River in 1876, created a gold rush causing many of the Palm River miners to relocate to the area. In the same year, the Hodgkinson Minerals Area was proclaimed. In 1907 coal was discovered at Ngarrabullgan which caused further disruption for the Kuku Djungan. On 19 September 1921, an explosion in the tunnels killed 75 people in total. It is still considered the worst mining disaster. The Kuku Djungan people believed this was retribution. Of particular significance, is the work published by archaeologist Dr Bruno David, who has worked alongside traditional custodians at Ngarrabullgan.   Suzette Coates first came into contact with the Kuku Djungan in 1981 when she worked as the Principal of the North Queensland Aboriginal Legal Service. Coates appeared for them in Court from 1981 until she became a Magistrate in 2006. In Coates’s long and varied legal career acting on their behalf, she became involved in all their  legal dealings. Coates lists what she considers the significant events on their behalf and has forwarded her material to the South Australian Museum. Firstly, after Coates completed the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody acting on behalf of all Aboriginal families in North Queensland (11 deaths in total), she was requested to purchase “Kondaparinga” cattle property of 54 square miles (A huge land holding in cattle properties terms funded by the Commonwealth) on behalf of the Kuku Djungan Corporation which included all Traditional Owners in 1991. Kondaparinga Station includes the Hodgkinson River and Ngarrabullgan (Mt Mulligan). In brief, the respective traditional owners were dispersed following the collapse of coal mining at Mt   Mulligan (Ngarrabullgan), the introduction of award wages for stockmen and the forced removal of Indigenous children where one parent was non‐Indigenous. Their physical locations were Chillagoe, Mareeba, Yarrabah and Palm Island. The state of Queensland determined that the transfer of Lease for grazing purposes to the traditional owners and Kuku Djungan Corporation would include the execution in the transfer of Ngarrabullgan for   the creation of a National Park (State controlled). This was objected to by the Kuku Djungan Corporation. At the final moment of settlement after 10 months of intensive negotiations, the State of Queensland agreed to the entire transfer of the Kondaparinga with a lease back from the Kuku Djungan Corporation to the State and the prospective development of Indigenous Rangers (a first for  Queensland) with an agreement for a National Park in Indigenous hands (a Queensland first).   Page 16 of 30 SCHEDULE ITEM 1 ANNEXURE B continued The other significant events were in short form: 1. The first appeal by way of Judicial review to the Supreme Court of Queensland against a decision of a Magistrate acting as a Mining Warden. 2. The first development of Indigenous Tourism on this property in Queensland. 3. Native Title in the complexities of completing claims when an Indigenous Corporation was   the lessee of a pastoral holding. 4. The Chairman John Reginald Grainer (1939‐1997), Gordon Gertz and Suzette Coates spearheading the largest award for breaching Race Relations (Racial Discrimination Act 1975 (Cwlth) in 1992 for discrimination on the basis of Race against the Royal and Graham Hotels in Mareeba with a subsequent successful appeal to the Federal Court.