Saving Walmandan and saving the whales – more important than gas and money

Gerry Georgatos, courtesy of The National Indigenous Times - photo courtesy of Damian Kelly/Broome - nit.com.au - http://nit.com.au/opinion/1775-saving-walmandan-and-saving-the-whales--m...

Woodside Board directors and executive managers and Woodside's former venture partner of Chevron in the $40 billion Browse Basin LNG development proposal on Walmandan country were angry at the compulsory acquisition threats by West Australian Premier, Colin Barnett, a source within Woodside claimed.

The claim came from a source within the company who is close to the Board of Directors and executive management team.

The source said Woodside board members had dissented that an agreement should be reached between the Kimberley Land Council on behalf of the joint claimants, the Jabirr Jabirr and Goolarabooloo and Woodside and its venture partners after the highly publicised compulsory acquisition threats by Premier Barnett.

"This is not how we wanted it," the Woodside source said. "We were after an agreement achieved patiently and in good faith, with heaps of goodwill between the claimants and ourselves. What the public think of Woodside does matter to us, it matters to our Board and it matters to most stakeholders."

"Board Chairman Michael Chaney, board member Christopher Haynes and marketing executive Reinhardt Matisons amongst others were quite disturbed by the manner in which the State Government handled the negotiations," the Woodside source said.

"They were livid when the Premier came out with his threat of compulsory acquisition. His impatience, impertinence and crass threats were seen by management and the board as a throwback to another era, not what this day and age is about.

"If our board members thought like this then of course the majority of the public would think so too!

"We don't want to be seen as a multinational bully when we spend as much as we do with social responsibility and with public relations.

"There was no reason for Premier Barnett to push things along, we would have got there and maybe the claimants would have finished up with a better deal, less stress and division and just felt better about it than they do now.

"Some of our people were so upset, as were some within other companies too, that they did not want the proposal to go ahead. It is just as likely as unlikely the gas hub will not happen.

"There are other cost effective alternatives. However we tread cautiously with government and there may even be a change of government in March.

"It is true to say Colin Barnett wants the precinct at all costs where we want it only if it is the best option, as there are other options.

"Woodside does not forever want to be seen as killer of whales, as complicit in ecocide and as imperialists running roughshod over Indigenous peoples but the State Government has just completely messed up."

When contacted by the National Indigenous Times about the claim, a spokesman for Woodside issued a statement which said: "Sorry, we have no comment to make on this particular issue."

This was the first time Woodside did a "no comment" to this National Indigenous Times reporter on questions – not wanting to confirm or deny, therefore in effect to me at least confirming the dissent and where there is smoke there is fire. The source at Woodside is an impeccable authority.

Woodside would only provide the following to other questions posed:

"The Native Title Agreement between Woodside, the State of WA and the Goolarabooloo and Jabirr Jabirr Native Title claim group, secures the land south of James Price Point required for the State Government's LNG precinct and provides a significant package of benefits and initiatives for Indigenous people in the Kimberley," the Woodside spokesman said.

"The agreement includes a range of initiatives with the potential to enact meaningful and positive change to the economic and social circumstances of Indigenous people in the Kimberley.

"Woodside's commitments under the Agreement include ongoing education, training and employment initiatives, Indigenous job targets, support for Indigenous businesses, cultural initiatives and milestone payments that will be implemented as project milestones are met, including a final investment decision.

"Woodside remains committed to the James Price Point development reference case. We have received all of the tender bids for the onshore and offshore infrastructure for the proposed Browse LNG development.

"We are now undertaking a disciplined commercial assessment of those tender bids to determine costs and economics for the development to be in a position to make a final investment decision in the first half of 2013."

A couple of months ago the National Indigenous Times wrote that Chevron would be the first to pull out from the venture however many said we were wrong and that my information was just plain nonsense – however a fortnight ago our disclosure that Chevron executives and board members were also dissatisfied with the handling of the agreement between the government, themselves and the Goolarabooloo and Jabirr Jabirr peoples proved correct – Chevron pulled out of the venture. As our source said, in addition to various cost benefit analyses, the company did not want to be lumped with the legacy of being perceived as complicit in destroying the breeding grounds of the world's largest mammals, whales and once again being seen as a ruthless company trampling over the rights of Aboriginal peoples especially after the compulsory acquisition threats.

The Sea Shepherd's Steve Irwin arriving in the Kimberley with former Australian Greens leader Bob Brown was the last straw for them. Chevron has been working hard to sell a message of working with and contributing to Aboriginal communities and it has indeed spent various monies and built relationships with Aboriginal communities and operators and all this would be pummelled with the immediate, short term and long term perceptions of Chevron part and parcel of the $40 billion gas hub spoiling pristine environment and dredging the Browse Basin. They knew they'd get no respite publicly especially from harm evidenced, disseminated and broadcast, harm to whales and their breeding grounds – they would not be able to live it down.

Chevron's Australia-operations managing director is Perth-based Roy Krzywosinski and he has made a point of trying to give more than usually is the case to Aboriginal communities and in building relationships. Under him Chevron has been pushing for acknowledgments from accolades for mitigating damage to the environment. On its website Chevron boasts, "At the United Nations (UN) Association of Australia World Environment Awards in June 2012, we were recognised for our excellence in environmental management." How would this stack up if Chevron was day in day out in the news media perceived complicit in killing whales?

Close to Mr Krzywosinski is Dr Fiona Stanley, a West Australian of the Year recipient, and someone who has given a lifetime of service to Aboriginal health and especially to Aboriginal child health, and who often puts her name to socially responsible organisations. Apparently, she has privately suggested to Chevron that Aboriginal peoples rights should not be seen to be trampled in the Kimberley – the increasing opposition led by local Aboriginal Elders in the Kimberley, Broome residents, an accumulation of social justice and environment activist groups has taken its toll on the multinationals in the Woodside venture – and Chevron's withdrawal from the project has teetered the proposal even though WA Premier Colin Barnett continues to push the line that it is stands a great chance of happening. He would like to believe this. Last year there were more than 60 arrests of protestors at James Price Point and this year the WA Police and State government threw their might at the protest movement to squash any repeat, however in real terms to little avail. Their heavy-handedness with police muscle as if militia providing access to Woodside contractors went down like a lead balloon with not just West Australians, but with increasing numbers of observers nationwide.

However for Premier Barnett the thorn in his dream for a gas hub precinct in one of the world's most pristine locations is the bitter dispute and divide that has brought on the passions into the public domain and in the process exposed State government agendas, and continuing poor policies when it comes to environment and Aboriginal peoples.

The Kimberley's Traditional Owners are split right down the middle whether the billion dollar gas hub project proposed for Walmandan should go ahead and whether it was right for Greens founder Dr Bob Brown to be speak on behalf of Aboriginal peoples and their rights.

Dr Brown and the Sea Shepherd came to the Kimberley to raise the stakes in the campaign to prevent the gas hub at the invitation of Goolabarooloo Elders, Phillip and Joseph Roe. However Jabirr Jabirr Elders lashed out at Dr Brown's visit.

Jabir Jabirr spokesman and Waardi Corporation Chief Executive Officer, Warren Greatorex said "If this project doesn't go ahead, we end with nothing."

"The majority of Traditional Owners in the claim group want this project to happen and they want benefits at long last for our people," he said.

Mr Greatorex is the chairperson of Waardi, which is the administrative body set up to manage the future benefits that will arise from the $40 billion gas hub precinct at Walmandan.

He invited Dr Brown to a meeting while in Broome. "I do not want to see the $1.5 billion in benefits to our people in the Kimberley not happen," Mr Greatorex said.

Mr Greatorex said he and Dr Brown "disagreed" on the gas hub and he was "hugely disappointed after the meeting". He said Dr Brown declined an invitation to visit Jabirr Jabirr country and "he preferred to talk more about saving whales than reducing the epidemic suicide rate among the Kimberley's Aboriginal peoples."

Dr Brown said these remarks were a "nasty representation" of his concern for Aboriginal rights in an otherwise meeting of "goodwill".

"The meeting was in good spirit and we had a very clear exchange of views," Dr Brown said of his meeting with Mr Greatorex.

He said when he returned to Broome in the near future he would visit Jabirr Jabirr country just as he had visited Goolarabooloo country.

Jabirr Jabirr Elders Rita Augustine and Cissy Djarween accused Dr Brown of caring more about whales than Aboriginal peoples.

"We are proud of caring for this country over thousands of years but now we face great challenges, not only about country and our culture but about our survival as Indigenous people," Mrs Augustine said.

"Our people have had to make choice about allowing development on our lands. It wasn't easy but we have made a decision - a majority decision - to face up to our challenges and to build a better future for our children, our people, our culture and our country."

She said she did not want Dr Brown to "use us to push his views. We can speak for ourselves."

"The Browse LNG project presents an opportunity. I want my children and grandchildren to benefit because if our people don't survive, then the real, living culture dies," Mrs Augustine said.

"Some of our own group disagree with that decision and we acknowledge that. The majority of our group voted to support the development, and instructed the Kimberley Land Council to negotiate an agreement that would give us the power to control our own lives," she said. "I am an old woman now and I have witnessed and lived the despair and hopelessness of many Kimberley Aboriginal people.

"Does Dr Brown know what it is like to be taken away from your family, to not have money to buy food, to live in a house that is dilapidated and beyond repair, to see your children grow up in despair, die before they are 50, or even worse, take their own lives before they get to their twenties?" she asked.

"We are not a money-hungry people. This money is not going into our back pocket," Mrs Augustine said. "It will be used to implement suicide awareness programs, training and counselling for families, education and employment opportunities, better health and housing."

She said the Kimberley's Aboriginal peoples had worked to contain the large-scale gas development proposal to a single site.

"While everyone is trying to save the whales, which I care about too, spare a thought for our people," she said.

The former Australian Greens leader, Dr Bob Brown has called on Woodside to abandon its plans for the gas hub at James Price Point north of Broome in Western Australia and instead pipe the gas further south where the prospect of environmental damage would be much less.

Dr Brown said under this proposal the Jabirr Jabirr and Goolarabooloo peoples would still be entitled to be paid the multi-billion dollar compensation package originally agreed to by Woodside.

Dr Brown said there would represent a "win-win" for all parties concerned.

"Woodside should tap its gas from the Browse Basin, 400km offshore, and pipe it further south, while still providing the onshore Traditional Owners with their $1.5 billion dividend," he said.

"No-one I have met so far, in the Goolarabooloo, at several big public meetings in Broome or in the corporate sector thinks this is not a good idea."

There continues to be claims Woodside is seriously re-considering its James Price Point proposal with support increasing to adopt the proposal to pipe the gas to another less sensitive location to ship the gas to international markets.

A source close to the Board and executive management at Woodside confirmed there was growing support for this concept.

"It is not likely the precinct will go ahead at James Price and that instead we will pipe it down," the source said.

"Some of our board members and executive management were disapproving of the compulsory acquisition threats by the Premier, Colin Barnett because this was not how Woodside wanted to come an agreement.

"A final decision is schedule for May 2013 but I can tell you the company is now seriously reviewing the current proposal."

Dr Brown said the proposed gas hub project for James Price Point would be an environmental disaster.

Dr Brown referred to a recent nationwide poll which reported most Australians want the gas hub located somewhere else and the environment in the Kimberleys protected.

"This $45 billion project is even bigger than the vast Qatar gas processing plant in the Middle East," Dr Brown said.

"The project for James Price is staggering in size and impact. It includes a port to take hundreds of gas tankers each year. It comes with a 2.5km breakwater and a dredged approach ditch extending at least 6km out to sea, 300 metres wide.

"The 34 million tonnes of blasted and dredged spoil will be dumped back into the vibrant marine eco-system threatening 300sqkm of the pristine corals, sponge gardens and sea grasses on which dugongs and other species depend on."

Dr Brown said these were the reasons why it was important the $45 billion gas hub precinct not go ahead.

"I was standing off James Price Point when two huge humpback whales, mother and calf, surfaced. I was on an inflatable boat as the mother dived again and swam around us," Dr Brown said.

"It is estimated that more than 10,000 whales are off the Kimberley coast this season. This is not just the world's biggest humpback whale nursery, it is also their home."

Dr Brown said he was indebted to Traditional Owners, from both sides, who have shared their views with him.

"After meeting the Jabirr Jabirr representatives at Waardi's offices in Broome I talked to the Jabirr Jabirr people who came aboard the Steve Irwin to see the whales and express their wish to save this country from the threat of the port and factory," Dr Brown said.

"I also greatly appreciate the plight of the Goolarabooloo people who have told me of their alarm at the impact the project will have on their living culture, songlines and relationship with the Kimberley coast's pristine eco-system on land and at sea."

Dr Brown said the Kimberley coast was reminiscent of its benefits to Tasmania's Franklin which he helped save from the bulldozers three decades ago.

"The wild rivers region attracts more than 120,000 visitors. The Franklin Dam would have left the region a backwater," he said.

"The Kimberley coast, with its massive whale nursery, ancient dinosaur tracks, rare species as well as the remarkable Lurujarri heritage trail of the Goolarabooloo people, is at least as enticing."

Earlier this year Goolarabooloo matriarch, Teresa Roe said her peoples will not allow pristine James Price Point and tens of thousands of years of Aboriginal cultural history "to be destroyed just for money."

Tensions continued to escalate in and around Broome and at the proposed gas processing site at James Price with two Broome grandmothers halting Woodside's exploratory work for a whole day.

The grandmothers drove their van onto the Manari Road access near the James Price project site and manoeuvred the vehicle sideways. Tyres were removed and the axles cemented into the road. They then had themselves locked-on from 10am till 5pm - till police disassembled the locks.

The women, aged 62 and 64, were charged with obstructing a carriageway, breaching a move-on notice and for obstructing police. Police alleged that they locked themselves onto a vehicle laden with concrete in the path of a convoy travelling to James Price Point.

This followed a week of civil protests near the site, 60km north of Broome after up to 200 West Australian police, at an estimated cost of $1 million being sent to Broome to escort Woodside workers and equipment and to break up protests.

"I am crying for my country, for my people. We are fighting really hard to keep this country alive. I don't want any of the money, I want my country," Mrs Roe said.

Mrs Roe is the daughter of Paddy Roe, a Goolarabooloo Traditional leader whose bones are buried in the sand dunes at James Price Point.

The Goolarabooloo withdrew from the Kimberley Land Council negotiations with the State Government over the gas hub proposal instead lodging their own claim and writ in court.

Mrs Roe's son, Joseph Roe is a Senior Law Man and along with Philip Roe has stood his ground at Walmandan Tent Embassy camp nearby the proposed gas hub. The Tent Embassy is now more than a year old.

The battle to stop the multi-billion dollar gas hub project north of Broome in Western Australia proceeding became a full scale public confrontation with the world renowned Sea Shepherd environmental organisation and former Greens leader, Dr Bob Brown joining with Goolarabooloo and Jabirr Jabirr peoples to fight the project.

The Sea Shepherd ship, the public face of the world famous anti-whaling campaign that took on the might of Japan in the Antarctic and won, and Dr Brown set forth on one its protest ships, the Steve Irwin and sailed from Melbourne to James Price Point a couple of weeks back and the rest is history as it brought the nation's attention to the plight of the whale nursery and to an environment too good to be true for many..

The entry of the Sea Shepherd was a coup for opponents to the gas hub because the organisation has earned a worldwide following for its work in preventing the killing of whales and in campaigns to protect the environment.

Goolarabooloo matriarch, Teresa Roe and Walmandan's Senior Elders Philip and Joseph Roe, Richard Hunter and Mitch Torres joined Dr Brown and the crew of the ship when the Steve Irwin at Broome this week before sailing to James Price Point to begin monitoring and preventing where necessary work that affects the pristine waterways being carried by the Woodside joint venture

Dr Brown vowed the Sea Shepherd crew and supporters were ready to take on the might of the West Australian State and Federal governments and some of the world's biggest multinationals to stop the project proceeding. Some of them have heeded what he said.

He declared the battle to save the pristine region of the Kimberley would be "the new Franklin Dam campaign".

A Sea Shepherd spokesman said the campaign to stop the project was very important.

"Woodside has already started drilling into reefs and to enable the big ships to come in, there would be further drilling and dredging up to 6km out to sea. A jetty several kilometres long would also be constructed," the spokesman said.

"This area is the biggest humpback nursery in the world. Blue whales also pass through to calve further north of the spot. Constructing the gas factories and a port would mean noise pollution, destruction of habitat and also boat strikes to whales.

"If the gas factories went ahead it would open the door to the industrialisation of other parts of the region and could lead to coal and uranium shipments out of the Kimberley wilds.

"It has taken over three decades for the Western Australian humpback population to bounce back from the brink of extinction. The last thing our Aussie humpbacks need now is gas factories and a giant industrial port in their breeding grounds."

The Sea Shepherd organisation agreed to join the campaign after being approached by Walmandan's Goolabarooloo Senior Law Bosses, Joseph and Philip Roe.

"We have seen the work you have done to protect the whales in the Southern Ocean," they said in a letter to Sea Shepherd.

"We would appreciate any support you can give us to protect the humpback in our Sea Country from the proposal to build an industrial port at James Price Point for LNG export."

Their appeal for help followed a decision by the West Australian Environmental Protection Authority to give its approval for the James Price gas hub project to proceed.

However, that decision has been derided when it was revealed four of the five panel members had to withdraw from considering the application because of conflicts of interest.

The decision was left to the remaining member, Chairman Dr Paul Vogel to give the project the green light.

The whole EPA process has now been thrown into question with claims the approvals on such an important issue should not have been left to one person but to a group of independent, respected experts.

Elder Philip Roe said the battle to stop the gas hub proceeding would be fought on many fronts including in a joint campaign with the Sea Shepherd sure to secure the nation's attention.

"We have to stand up for our ancestral lands which are still the lands of our people and of our children," he said.

"We cannot allow for destruction what has been here for thousands of generations."

Dr Bob Brown, who is now part of the Sea Shepherd advisory board, said the gas hub project included the dredging of a 20 kilometre channel and the building of a two kilometre jetty to access the liquefied natural gas from an onshore plant.

"I'll be helping to draw attention to the fact this is not a good place for a giant gas factory, with huge ships coming to and from," Dr Brown said.

Ms Mitch Torres said it was fanciful for anyone to claim work on a scale such as proposed at James Price Point could be achieved without severely impacting upon the land and surrounding waterways.

"Woodside is going to build one of the world's biggest liquefied natural gas processing plants at Walmandan and that's 50 million tonnes of liquefied gas a year from the Browse, destroying pristine nature, marine habitats, whaling breeding grounds, and our cultural lands, let alone tourism."

"No-one believes it is possible for the expansionist project to protect the nearby rare dinosaur tracks.

"It won't happen, thoroughfare alone will damage them and the effects of dredging will encroach on the dinosaur footprints.

"You know the recommendations are sham when they claim a condition that marine life must be protected. How is this possible when all hell will be dredged in the waters and drilling and pumping and on top of this 1500 ships will be coming into a port to ship to the world the gas."

The Roe family, the Goolarabooloo, the residents of Broome, the environmental activists, the Sea Shepherd are winning the huge battle, and what at times seemed to many insurmountable, to save Walmandan, to save the whales – the nursery, the breeding waters – to save tens thousands of years of human history and cultural legacies, to save what once is gone will be gone forever. However the battle is not over and the campaigns continue. If indeed the battle is won, the State and Federal governments, and the oil, gas and mining companies should not abandon the peoples of the Kimberley and they should do for them what so far they have been denied – housing, health, education, equity. The Kimberley has the nation's worst homelessness rates. In 2006 homelessness was reported in the Counting the Homeless findings at 638 per 10,000, ten times the State average, fifteen times the national average, in other words nearly 7 per cent of the entire region's population – most of the homelessness Aboriginal. The Kimberley continues with one of the worst youth suicide rates in the nation, and in some communities 100 times the national rate – most of it Aboriginal – this in the tourist mecca and resource rich Kimberley where so many companies and Governments benefit from, just like they do from the heart of the mining boom, in the nearby Pilbara however there too Aboriginal peoples languish in various dire neglect and impoverishment.

The moral compass may well save Walmandan, marine life and the whales and rightly so, however our Governments need to look into the same moral compass that ordinary citizens have looked into and have been guided by in thus far saving Walmandan and the whales and they too - our Governments - need to start saving the human lives in the Kimberley that have become Australia's third world shame, and finally rack up real hopes for those poor souls who feel so alone, who endure broken lives, who leave tragic narratives and legacies damaging those who follow. We don't need more merit badge like reports and recommendations from Governments, it is not rocket science, it's whether there is the will.

LINKS:

YouTube of Walmandan's coral reefs and marine beauty
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_zKf64hCROo

http://nit.com.au/opinion/1775-saving-walmandan-and-saving-the-whales--m...

Hands off country
http://handsoffcountry.blogspot.com.au/2012/03/woodside-genocide-at-walm...

https://indymedia.org.au/2012/05/29/walmandan-tent-embassy-young-and-old...

http://www.nit.com.au/news/361-we-wont-leave-walmandan.html

http://indymedia.org.au/2012/05/14/police-amassing-at-james-price-point-...

http://nit.com.au/news/1517-roe-brothers-find-an-ally-in-battle-to-stop-...

http://nit.com.au/news/1613-gas-hub-opponents-look-to-sea-shepherd-and-b...

http://nit.com.au/news/1699-brown-offers-a-gas-hub-compromise.html

http://nit.com.au/news/1465-gas-hub-opponents-claim-epa-findings-are-a-s...

http://nit.com.au/news/1129-i-dont-want-gas-hub-money--i-want-my-country...

http://nit.com.au/news/1090-600-people-confront-barnetts-force-with-noth...