It Is Not Going To Happen

“the land is more important than the LNG gas plant, simply because of our culture, our history, our traditional ways, and our people in the generations to come” Lorna Kelly

The reality is that the proposed LNG precinct, like all other simpler precincts around the world will be a huge ogre that will overwhelm all the other existing industries. It will use all our precious ground water, pollute the cleanest of air and destroy the links to a sustainable food sources. It will leave the land pillaged, it will be viewed as an utter environmental catastrophe, and furthermore the local population, in the most part will still be unemployed and abandoned to make do with the clemencies of climate change and social disparity.

Thousands of people all over Australia and the world are also very strongly committed to working to ensure that the industrialisation of the Kimberley coast and hinterlands never happens. Climate change will be viewed and acted upon seriously, human rights and the rights to inform consent will be upheld, peoples heritage and cultural connections will be maintained and people will exercise their democratic rights to protest, object, obstruct and question. The old ways of doing things is over; it is not going to happen.

Barnett and all those involved should be forced to rectify and resolve the prevailing social, economic and environment devastation that is currently being experienced in the Pilbara. This needs to be done, well before they try to import and impose these deplorable and appalling predicaments into the Kimberley. Lets see how Gorgon will be managed.

Get it right, fix it in the Pilbara first before you even assume that you can come into the Kimberley with the same deceitful rhetoric and think you are going to be believed or trusted.

Show us, one successful operation or project, anywhere, one precedent in Australia or Overseas, where local communities, their employment ranks, their health and education or their social standing has improved when multinationals have come into their country or region, promising the world and delivering just more social, economic and environment marginalisation.

There never has been a sincere review or genuine investigations into how Dampier Peninsular communities and Broome residents judge their living environment, what their core values and their life dreams are and how they perceive the proposed KLNG project will affect their life qualities. People have never been given the choice.

DSD officials and their chosen social assessors came into the Broome community with the message that the proposed Kimberley LNG was inevitable and they continually pushed this line. So, right from the start, people were asking what the point of all the assessments when public government officials’ idea for community consultation is a sales pitch to sell the aspirations of the state?

KLC are still conducting the Aboriginal Social Impact Assessments and the Indigenous Land Use Agreement (ILUA) is still in its infancy, environmental surveys are still being conducted and we all wait with baited breath for Vol 2 & 3 of the Social Assessments Reports.

The media releases continually coming out of the Barnett’s office are predetermining the outcomes of the process and fuels people’s subsequent justified mistrust of the current Approval and Assessment Processes. Totalitarianism does not nurture public confidence, it totally undermines peoples; rights to objection, their opportunities of reply and their faith in the system.

Lives have already been greatly affected by this proposal and they will continue to suffer all the calamities of big money- big business invasion.

Kimberley Land Council tokenistic approach and the establishment of the Traditional Owners Negotiations Committee TONC have effectively locked out many Native Title Claimants.

A bird doesn't sing because it has an answer,

it sings because it has a song.

It is not the Governments or the multinationals right to presume that they can come into Country and manage heritage sites and secret business. You break Country, you break the very last connection people have with themselves. Traditional Owners do not have the authority to sign off on Law, or cultural heritage issues; this is the jurisdiction of the Cultural Law Bosses. People of the Law would never sign away the Law, the Culture and the Country, so promptly, so proudly!

The Lurujarri Songline is just that, a song line. It is not heritage sites dotted around, its a cultural moving living corridor, a walking museum, a Songline, with its own rhythm, its own chorus, its own beat and its own instruments. Across Australia Songlines are connected.

You cut the song in half with a proposed 14 trains LNG processing site, the biggest in the world, twice the size of Qatar, (which currently operates 7 trains) and think you can still sing? The rhythm is broken. People forget the words and the songs, the stories, their connection to country, its fruits, its seasons, its medicines.

The proponents want this precinct as far south as they can push the boundaries, so they can save Walmadan (JJP) tableland for future expansion. And we do not want it at all.

They need access to deeper water! But so do the whales, turtles and dolphins, bringing them close into the shore. Deep water troughs are also very important for marine life as they act like corridor assisting marine creatures to move freely, feeding along the fringing reef systems, whilst working with the tidal movements.

No habitat, nothing to monitor. And if by some chance monitoring tests show that the sediment deposition and turbidity was causing the corals and reef system to die and seagrasses are being suffocated and there were invasive species and terrestrial introduce pests, what would the government really do? CLOSE THE PRECINCIT? I think not.

What is the point of trying to make the site less visible from the ocean when the light emissions, the huge tankers, the jetties, the berths, and the breakwaters, the pipelines, the flares, the smell, the noise and vibrations, sediment deposition and turbidity, groundwater abstraction, atmospheric emissions and the dust emissions will be all encompassing and all consuming?

According to DSD Map, the LNG main operations will be place directly over the most substantial community of remnant rainforest (Vine Thickets) within the area. They wish to tuck their operations in behind the Holocene sand dunes in order to shelter from the prevailing winds, however once they start their proposed vegetation/habitat clearing and excavation of the Remnant Rainforest, the Holocene sand dunes with become highly unstable and will eventually blow away.

This proposed processing plants will need – 1000 hectares, Infrastructure and facilities 500 – 1000 hectares, land and Water for plants – 1000, Workers accommodation and light industrial areas 200 – 500 hectares giving us a total of 2700 – 3500 hectares which would be fenced (known as the Exclusion Zone) A similar area of about 3000 hectares around this fenced area would be set aside as a Statutory Buffer Zone.

The precinct features will included: 14 LNG Trains, Acid-gas removal unit, Fractionation unit, Jetty spur, up to five loading berths, methanol processing fertilizer plant, water desalination plants & distribution, sewage treatment plant, concrete factory, groundwater pumping stations and their own power generation facilities.

According to the Map, this supply route will only take you as far as to Walmadan (James Price Point), access to Pidirakunbunu, Kulmukarakun, Flat Rock, Kurakaramunjuno, or Minarringy will be completely blocked off.

The community is dubious about the whole SIA process and currently has no expectations that the impending subsequent volumes of reports will signify the truth.

Hands Off Country, Standing Up for the Planet