In the tussle of protest against a brewery development Aborigine shouts down Aborigine. This was the disturbing crescendo to a bitter fight over land rights in the late 1980s. On the one side, stood the Perth Aborigines, who claimed the site was sacred, the home of a Dreamtime serpent called the wagyl. Against them, railed a group of other Aborigines accompanied by white men. "A lot of Aboriginals know [the wagyl] is absolute, unmitigated bullshit," explained their white leader, Graeme Spencer a one-time Labor MP, and vocal opponent of native land title. In this film we reveal how developers paid $10,000 to bus in and pay the Aboriginal protestors "I don't think they knew what they were doing," explains a protester's brother, "they don't even know if the wagyl exists, they had no right going down there." The pro-development Aboriginal protest was enough to persuade the Judge that the site was not sacred and the developers got their way.

All over Western Australia one very busy mining company is fighting lucrative native title claims. The aim, according to critics, is to split Aboriginal groups and to discredit native title law by encouraging rival land claims. With 79% of Australian land being contested between Aborigines, farmers and developers, the fight it seems has got dirtier. As one lawyer states, "There's some very, very powerful and wealthy interests that believe they're threatened by native title. And I believe that they're working very hard against it."

In the rubble from the construction of an 80's gas plant lie the Yaburara Aborigine's rock carvings. This area was described as 'one of the great art galleries of Australia', yet many of the carved rocks ended up as bedrock for the gas plant. Val Hoborrow, one of the few remaining ancestors of the Yaburara formed a group to claim undeveloped Yaburara land. She was initially surprised when Kingstream, a major steel company backed her claim to the tune of $28,000 but, "didn't really think anything of it, you know, why he wanted to help." It transpired that the Kingstream backed land claim covered an area including a key competitor's mine - Austeel, who stood to loose millions fighting the claim. The Yaburara case turned out to effectively be legal extortion, Val Hoborrow's ethnic concerns were used to fight a commercial war. Joining the fight was also Graeme Spencer the Labour MP involved in the Brewery protests. Here he candidly admits that the "case was fertile ground" to further discredit native title.

At a heated meeting over land earmarked by Kingfisher for a mine, Aborigines fight over the sacred meaning of their land. Among them are Aborigines on side with Kingfisher, and indeed paid by the steel conglomerate. After it seems a career of successfully pitching Aborigines against each other Graeme Spencer is dismissive of Aborigines real feeling for their heritage. "The idea of land being absolutely germane to Aborigines is just nonsense...they'd sell their land for a corned beef sandwich."
As the spurious land claims rattle through the courts, the history and culture of the Aboriginal people erodes along with the abandoned sacred carvings buried in the bedrock of development.