Ludlam: Protect the Kimberly

Senator LUDLAM (Western Australia) (13:14)

I rise to speak on what is happening at the moment up in the West Kimberley in my home state of WA. There are scenes being played out that are reminiscent of Noonkanbah in the West Kimberley-for people with long-enough memories-where Aboriginal people and their supporters blocked access to country by bulldozers that were protected by the Police and even Army units sent up by the then Premier Charles Court to allow an American drilling company access to a sacred site, which they duly violated. With a touch of irony, there was no oil there and the entire exercise was a complete waste of time. Those scenes were absolutely formative in the West Kimberley. They are the reason that we have an Aboriginal Heritage Act, such as it is, in WA.

These scenes are being played out all over again as Woodside moves heavy equipment on site to begin land clearing for the Browse Basin gas project-a gigantic industrial complex which is being proposed for 40 or 50 kilometres north of Broome at the moment. It is amazing to hear the reports and see what is happening up there. We now have a blockade camp at Minari Road. They have had up to 120 people blocking the road and trying to stop-successfully-Woodside and its contractors getting equipment onto country. My dear colleague Robin Chapple MLC spent quite a bit of time up there, performers John Butler and Dan Sultan have been there, and I was very fortunate to visit with my team a month or so ago.

It is extraordinary to see this because this project has not yet been approved by either the state government or the federal government. In my experience non-violent direct action, with people putting themselves in the way to stop these sorts of projects, generally comes last, after all options have been exhausted. But in this case it is happening before either the state or federal government has given formal approval-because the company has decided to move in and start land-clearing anyhow. They are proposing to put in roads and flatten areas-allegedly to do work to complete their environmental impact processes-before approvals have been given.

As was the case at Noonkanbah, local opposition is the backbone. These actions are being led by local Aboriginal people and supported by West Kimberley residents. Blow-ins like me, who manage to turn up when we can, are very much in the minority. This action is being run by residents of the West Kimberley who oppose the influx of industrialisation of precisely the wrong kind. The blockade is taking place along nonviolence principles. Ironically enough, one of the reports I have read shows that the only people who are being let onto the site at the moment are security guards to protect the contractor's earth moving equipment. Apart from that, nothing is moving at all. People are conducting themselves with great respect for the Aboriginal people who are leading this movement up there, and very little work, if any, is occurring from time to time. The question is: why on earth are they having to take these kinds of matters into their own hands as happens from time to time? In this case it is absolutely crucial that we pay attention to why people feel so strongly about the way Woodside and the joint venture partners are conducting themselves and what the state government has unleashed while the federal government stands passively by and allows it to happen.

It is worth paying attention to a little bit of history to realise how things got so bad and why we now have this collision of interests and this clash on the cape in the West Kimberley. The former Carpenter government in Western Australia had a process in place that was not perfect at all but did have at its heart the principle of free, prior and informed consent. There were more than a dozen sites on the table and the Kimberley Land Council had been tasked with liaising with Aboriginal communities up and down the cape and across the length and breadth of the top end of the West and East Kimberley. They were saying, 'If you don't want your site to be in question, if you don't want to be at the table for these negotiations, then take it out.'

At that point, there was a change of government and the Barnett government was elected. There were four sites remaining and everybody in those negotiations knew they could take their country off the table if they sought to. The Barnett government, of course, rejected that approach in its entirety and went for compulsory acquisition. Within a couple of weeks of the election, they were talking about returning us to the colonial past of Western Australia-'give it to us or else we'll take it'. They were doing this under cover of native title laws that say you have the right to negotiate but you do not have the right to say no. It is no more than a colonial land grab. It is absolutely disgusting what the Barnett government is doing in that instance. They would have had a site by now if they had pursued a path of free, prior and informed consent. Instead of having a site they have a conflict, and Woodside has played entirely into this dispute in the same way.

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