Trick or Treaty: When Diplomacy Digs Deeper Than the Mines

[Animal Rights Zone]

Trick or Treaty: When Diplomacy Digs Deeper Than the Mines

‘Trick or Treat,’  they said. And the Prime Minister, in a strategic costume change, handed over the country’s rare mineral wealth like a bowl of Halloween candy.

In the spirit of justice and ecological remembrance, ARZone offers a reminder that environmental destruction is never neutral. It’s a choice, one that erases habitats, silences Indigenous resistance, and buries animal lives beneath the language of progress.

                                                                             

Anthony Albanese won the 2025 election on a wave of climate urgency and left-leaning promises. His platform leaned green, pledging sustainability, Indigenous consultation, and ecological stewardship. But within weeks, the Prime Minister stood beside Donald Trump, pledging billions to expand rare earth mining. The handshake sealed more than a deal. It marked a betrayal of the very ecosystems and communities that fueled his win.

The $13 billion mineral agreement, framed as a strategic move to counter China’s dominance in rare earths, commits both countries to fast-tracked extraction. Mining stocks surged. Diplomats smiled. And habitats trembled.

Did we learn nothing from the destruction of 46,000-year-old caves at Juukan Gorge, where, in 2020 Rio Tinto legally blasted two sacred rock shelters on Puutu Kunti Kurrama and Pinikura Country in the Pilbara. The caves held 47,000 years of continuous Aboriginal presence such as stone tools, faunal remains, even a plait of human hair linking Traditional Owners to their ancestors.

Now, five years later, a replica is being built. But, no replica can restore what was lost: not just artefacts, but Country—and with it, habitat sovereignty: a living, relational bond between people, land, and nonhuman kin.

And Juukan is not an anomaly. In 2025 alone, satellite evidence revealed over 900 square kilometres of bushland bulldozed across 176 properties in NSW and Queensland. In the Sheas Nob State Forest, which is part of the proposed Great Koala National Park, logging machines razed towering eucalypts while an Indigenous Elder pleaded for the devastation to stop.

These are not isolated incidents. They are part of a pattern, a settler-colonial logic that treats habitat as expendable, sovereignty as negotiable, and silence as strategic.

Animal rights begin with the right to be left alone. But in the Albanese–Trump mineral deal, no one is left alone. Not the marsupials whose corridors will be carved into mines. Not the Indigenous communities whose lands will be reclassified as 'strategic assets.' Not the ecosystems whose destruction will be framed as 'green growth.'

This is not progress. It’s performance.

And satire, like The Shovel’s Halloween piece, helps us see it. Albanese’s mineral handover is framed as a costume party, a transactional spectacle where national resources are offered for approval. It’s funny, until it isn’t. Because beneath the costume lies a truth: environmental destruction dressed as diplomacy.

ARZone marks this moment with remembrance of Juukan. We remember Sheas Nob. And we remember that justice isn’t strategic—it’s sacred.

---

🗂️ Glossary of Terms

🪧 Strategic Costume Change

A symbolic shift in public persona, often used by politicians to rebrand extractive or harmful policies as progressive. In this post, it refers to Albanese’s pivot from climate advocate to mining diplomat, dressed in diplomacy while handing over mineral wealth.

🌱 Habitat Sovereignty

The right of ecosystems, and the communities who steward them, to exist without intrusion, extraction, or reclassification. It honors Country as living, relational space, not a resource. Juukan Gorge and Sheas Nob exemplify the violation of habitat sovereignty under settler-colonial logic.

🧭 Green Diplomacy

The framing of extractive deals as environmentally beneficial or strategically necessary. Often used to justify mining, logging, or land reclassification under the guise of sustainability or geopolitical balance.

⛏️ Extractive Logic

A mindset that treats land, life, and culture as commodities to be mined, logged, or traded. It erases sovereignty, silences resistance, and repackages harm as progress.

🔥 Legacy-Lit

A style of advocacy that blends emotional honesty, forensic critique, and symbolic closure. It marks moments with clarity, ritual, and remembrance, ensuring that harm is not forgotten, and justice is not abstract.

Photo Source: The Shovel 

.......

[Alberta Louise]

Performance? Our prime minister Anthony Albanese in a Joy Division tee-shirt nearing Fright night 31st October Halloween celebrations. Go figure. That lucky mule. Tell us where the real misery begins.