Police are investigating a series of racist signs that were placed around an Aboriginal-owned station in Western Australia, one of which said two Wongatha elders would “end up the same as [killed Kalgoorlie teenager Elijah Doughty]”.
The signs were placed on fences and buildings at Pinjin station, about 145km northeast of Kalgoorlie in the eastern goldfields, last week.
Among the messages on the signs were “Black nigars holding up mine” and “We destroy black nigars”.
Station owners Leo and Lawrence Thomas, brothers and elders of the local Wongatha people, have been in a protracted dispute with Hawthorn Resources – which has a controlling stake in the neighbouring Anglo Saxon/Trouser Legs goldmine – since 2015.
They have made a number of reports of racist abuse and threats by mine employees and have received an apology from the company in the past, but say the abuse has continued.
They allege that another sign, using the same font and similar construction, was part of the Trouser Legs site office until this week.
Hawthorn Resources has denied responsibility for the signs.
“Hawthorn, its officers, its employees, its partners and contractors had no part in creating or erecting the posters and categorically deny any allegations of this nature,” the company secretary, Mourice Garbutt, said in a statement.
“Hawthorn reported this matter to the Western Australian police immediately upon discovery, and is assisting them with their investigations. The company finds the posters highly offensive, and takes any allegations surrounding them seriously.”
Police visited the station on Wednesday and removed the signs for forensic testing, after One Nation MP Robin Scott raised the issue in state parliament.
Scott said the treatment of the Pinjin community by Hawthorn Resources “has the potential to return the mining industry to the dark ages”.
“They are under siege at the station,” he said. “They can no longer take their womenfolk or their children or grandchildren out there for fear of injury and also racist taunts from the mining company Hawthorn Resources Ltd.”
He said the reference to Doughty, a 14-year-old Wongatha/Noongar boy who was run over by a non-Indigenous man and whose death sparked a series of protests in Kalgoorlie, was particularly hurtful.
In a letter to Scott, read out in parliament, Leo Thomas said: “As an Aboriginal elder this is the worst type of racism I have experienced in my lifetime.”
Thomas does not oppose mining and has family who work in the mining industry.
One of the signs named the mining minister, Bill Johnston, saying: “Minister Johnston and DMIRS [the department of mining, industry regulation and safety] support us so eat our dust + put up with noise or piss off.”
Johnston told Guardian Australia he was “very angry” his name was invoked in the dispute, which he said was a matter of negotiation between Hawthorn and Pinjin station.
“I don’t hold any sympathy with racist people,” he said.
Johnston said it was the worst example of racism in a mining dispute that he had seen in five years as minister and opposition spokesman, and said it was out of step with the modern mining industry. He did not suggest Hawthorn was responsible for the signs.
He had met the Pinjin community a number of times, most recently last month.
Hawthorn began mining the site in December and as of June had recovered 2,537 ounces of gold.
In December the warden’s court ruled in the company’s favour in a dispute over whether some station infrastructure, including sheds, stockyards and water pipes, were built within the footprint of the pastoral lease or on unallocated crown land.
Tisala corporation, which operates the station, accused the company of unlawfully destroying roads and a water tank and ripping up water lines. The company maintains they were illegally built on crown land.
The case is ongoing.
