Pictures all taken approx 2km south of James Price Point, this morning

Attached are some pics from this morning.the 30th Dec 2009

Pictures taken from approx 2km south of Walmandam (James Price Point) and estimated rig to be max of 1km SW of me. Putting it in area the proposed jetty location.

Regards,R Hartvigsen
E: rod@murranji.com.au

Calculated feints, highlighted with theatrical performances

Traditional Owners and Law Custodians are threatening legal action to stop the proposed development of the biggest LNG precinct in the world, just north of Broome. Joe Roe, Goolarabooloo and Neil McKenzie from Jabirr Jabirr with representatives from Save the Kimberley traveled to Perth last week to meet with the Browse Basin joint venture partners.

The Kimberley Land Council (KLC) has been representing traditional owners in talks with Woodside and the WA Government over the proposed James Price Point LNG precinct. Over 200 TOs have signed a declaration claiming the KLC has no right to negotiate on their behalf.

Dissident traditional owner Neil McKenzie says he will do whatever it takes to stop the development. "There are a lot of issues that are of concern to us and we will challenge them in whatever way, if it's legally or whatever other challenge we can find we will use," he said.

Disgruntled at KLC, WA’s Department of State Development and Barnett’s modus operandi, the owners who are opposed met with Browse Basin joint venture partners to inform them that the propaganda continually alleged that this proposal is supported by the traditional people is totally misleading. (This issue is really about Land Rights vs Human Rights and I will elaborate of this topic in the New Year)

There have been several calculated feints, highlighted with theatrical performances like the reprehensible illegal signing of the Heads of Agreement at James Price Point. Genealogy for this Country is still sitting on the table.
How can anyone sign away anything, least of all negotiate a Indigenous Land Use Agreement, whilst the majority is still piecing together their blood connections to Country, dealing with all the regurgitated sorry business that is coming with it and trying to manage the knowledge of it all.



Apparently, all the joint venture partners were generally very surprised to hear that the majority of Indigenous people from this Country do not want this development. It was explained that many people have very strong heritage ties and cultural responsibilities for the maintenance, care and protection of Country.
In the coming New Year we will restate and action our commitment to saving James Price Point for the people and for the planet. We will continue to express our concerns about the highly questionable approval processes being employed and the current negotiations and social and environmental damages assessments that are currently being white washed for publication.

The state government is the proponent to this project; the state government decides which boxes to tick, the state government employs and pays the researchers and consultants to tick the boxes and the state government will approve all the ticks and will forward on, to get that one last big tick from the Minister Garrett.

Then we will all be ticked off

Cyclone Laurence is looking after Country

People of the Dampier Peninsula communities, in the north of Western Australia have grave concerns for their environment and their livelihoods and seek to keep the Kimberley and its coastline industry free. The Kimberley is one of the last great wildernesses in the world and many people within the region appreciate that they have moral and ethical obligations to ensure that this very small corner of the planet remains that way.

One accident, one tanker blown aground, one pipe that shoots a leak, a platform or two break their moorings, or LNG processing trains being picked up by category 5 cyclonic winds and tossed around like chop sticks could all be the reality of our changing climate. We do not what to tempt fate by opening the door to the proposal to build the biggest LNG precinct in the world on our community's doorstep, in our recreational backyard.

This Country, its landscapes and its coastal face has been shaped and sculptured into its present form by these natural events and this is a great part of its beauty. Man made industrialised zones are not as flexible or adaptable and have a tendency to blow away in the face of natural menaces.

This illustrative map shows how plausible these concern are.



There is a strong relationship between the depth of the snow that falls in the Himalayas and the amount of rainfall received in north Western Australia.

In late October the throughflow from the Pacific to the Indian Ocean, to the north west of Australia, slows, stops and may even reverse at times as the Indian Ocean Counter Current flows west to east into the Timor gap and "blocks" the throughflow.
This leads to a large raft of relatively still water to the immediate north west of Australia. This body of water begins to heat under the tropical sun.

As the sea surface temperature rises, evaporation increases and moist air from this region, thought to be the source of humidity and moisture, will eventually fall during the Australian monsoon (you only get monsoon systems where these static masses of water called warmpools form, not where the currents make the seas cool or cold).

During the wet season there are usually two or three major monsoon events. These events occur when the monsoon trough (a low pressure trough associated with intense rainfall) moves south over the landmass of north Western Australia.

The current level of oil and gas exploitative activities, the enormous increase in tanker and shipping movements and the thousands of kilometers of pipes that have been layered across the ocean’s floor during this insatiable seize of resources along the Western Australian coastline makes Cyclones a major concern for everyone.

Tropical Cyclone Laurence, Issued at 2:57 pm WST Saturday 19 December 2009. Refer to Tropical Cyclone Advice Number 65

I can feel a Cyclone Building

As the storm clouds gather with the approaching Cyclone Lawrence, the Goolarabooloo and Jabirr Jabirr people are also gathering in the Cable Beach Club for the creation of their own squall.

Kimberley Land Council is facilitating this meeting and has spared no expense, flying and catering for people from all over Australia in order to get the numbers up. Like all politics, it’s a numbers game. Unfortunately, indigenous politics in the Wild West is also heavily influenced by contaminated economic favoritism, is controlled by the hands on the resources and is supported by unadulterated and unquestioned nepotism.

Unfortunately, the ramifications of the stolen generations are still being echoed into the present. When children were stolen and raised away from Country, many of them never had any insight into their own culture, they were effectively cut off from their cultural roots and trained to carry the cross instead, adopted into an education system that devalued their very own and in most cases directly opposed the simply concepts of caring country, respect for law, understanding and maintenance of cultural heritage. The continued tribulations and the inherent confusion of this separation will be all too evident at today’s and tomorrow’s meetings.

It’s a simple story, the Goolarabooloo hold the Cultural Law for this Country and Jabirr Jabirr can talk for Country. Neither can survive, without each other. It's like having the words to the song but no music and definitely no collaborative choruses. No sincere concise determination will result in this matter because the value systems and the moral codes are totally diabolically opposed.

No matter how the agenda is driven by KLC or how the pressures of the State aspirations come into play, the injury, the dilemma, the distress and the hostility of intrusion is shredding the very last fragile threads of our common origin.

These are the proven deceitful strategies that are used all over the world, by governments, by the multinationals, keep the locals distracted with fighting with each other, while they get on with the business, of taking everything for nothing and leaving the mess.

One of the agenda intentions is the removal of Goolarabooloo from the original Native Title Application in order to submit another Application just under the Jabirr Jabirr name. If this is achieved, and (word is out that it has) KLC will no longer have to wait for Goolarabooloo signatures to sign off on the Indigenous Land Use Agreement, for the proposed development of the biggest LNG precinct in the world, at James Price Point.

Apparently, Goolarabooloo were asked to leave the meeting and Jabirr Jabirr then found the silent numbers to exclude Goolarabooloo off this new Claim altogether.
Tragic!, when you consider the facts that it has been the Goolarabooloo people who retain the law, who have continued connections to Country, who hold the stories and kept the secret Law business strong whilst the Jabirr Jabirr people dragged themselves out of the depths of perplexed bewilderment of disconnection.

People of Burrgurrgurra, it is not your right to sell Country; you are the custodians for the following generations. Big business with its big money talk is cheap and we will all pay in the end a price that can never be measured in dollars and cents. History will remember you, because it will be your children’s inherited consequence. Take the money and run! But where will you go. Country?

Chevron Kimberley hub a priority

By: ANDREA HAYWARD AND REBECCA LE MAY
AAP
Chevron says the Woodside Petroleum Ltd-led Browse joint venture is one of its top priorities but has not yet backed a proposal to process gas from the project at a hub in Western Australia's Kimberley region.

Woodside has chosen James Price Point near Broome for such a hub, but joint venture participants BHP Billiton Ltd, BP, Chevron and Shell have not yet ratified the decision.

And it is not the choice of 78% of long term Broome local residents, many traditional Owners and the majority of the Cultural Law bosses to have this polluting industry imposed on to us, onto our landscapes, into our environment and our community. The facts are that as a community we have never been asked if we want the biggest proposed 14 processing trains LNG precinct in the entire world nor do we as a community want to spend our working lives in service to it.

Support Broome Arts Say No to LNG

Australia's first Aboriginal musical film Bran Nue Dae had its glamorous Australian premiere in the town of Broome with several performances by the star studded cast. The original musical play by Jimmy Chi was inspired nearly twenty years ago and was the first to draw a national and international spotlight on Broome.



Film & documentary makers, writers, poets, artists and dancers have always found Broome to be a very rich source of inspiration because of it beauty, its colour, its history, its environment, its multicultural mix, it home grown music and its ambiance. Numerous British children’s programes have been filmed and produced in Broome. The Circuit is running it second series on SBS at the moment and it was largely filmed in and around Broome with all the extras being local Broome people. Mad Bastards, a film based on the Pigram Brothers is currently in the editing room and of course Bran Nue Dae, very much Broome's love child.



However, the Tourism Social Impact Assessment Report associated to the proposed Kimberly LNG Precinct which will be the largest in the world, operating 14 processing trains (36)kms north of Broome) made no mention or recognition of Broome’s Music, Arts and Film industries. No appreciation or understanding of how these industries contributed to the development of and totally underpinned Broome's tourist brand. It was these industries that first drew attention to Broome, it was these industries that projected Broome out onto the national and international stage. And it is these industries that continue to do so to this very day.

Why was Broome’s vital Entertainment Industry, a very valued contributor to the Broome tourism coddled into the Report under the section titled food providers/entertainment? This Report that has been released has illustrated that the consultants have no understanding of the social fabric underlays of the Broome community. The report does not acknowledge or have any insight into the people or the community that committed themselves and built a viable tourism & Arts industries, over many years, out of hard work and little to no support from the State Government. Now, just when the Broome Brand is branded they wish to dismiss all this effect and expense to impose the LNG industry that will completely destroy all this hard dedicated work and write off people’s personal and our communities dreams as inconsequential.

Hands Off Country and Standing Up for the Planet

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

Media Release - 4 December 2009

Media Release - 4 December 2009

Environs Kimberley

Conservation Council WA

The Wilderness Society

Door open for Kimberley gas hub legal challenge

Decisions by WA Premier Colin Barnett and Commonwealth Resources Minister Martin Ferguson to force industrial LNG development on the pristine Kimberley coast ahead of an environmental assessment demonstrate reckless disregard for environmental laws, and open the door for legal challenge, according to environment groups opposed to the plan.

“Today’s decision by Premier Barnett on the site for an industrial gas hub, and yesterday’s announcement by Commonwealth Minister Ferguson that joint venture partners would be forced to choose a development location for Browse LNG within 120 days have combined to set a D-day for the Kimberley” said Piers Verstegen, Director of the WA Conservation Council.

Josh Coates, Kimberley Campaigner with the Wilderness Society WA said that “Recently released research conducted by local whale experts clearly shows that the site chosen by Premier Barnett is part of one of the most important humpback whale calving and feeding grounds in the world.”

“Environmental assessments for the area have not been completed but the Premier and Woodside are so determined to industrialise the Kimberley they are prepared to disregard the intent of State and Federal agreements and environmental law, raising the strong prospect of legal challenge.” Josh Coates from the Wilderness Society said.

“The Premier has a made a huge mistake in trying to get this gas hub and industrial port built in the Kimberley; he’s in such a hurry that he’s forgotten about the need to follow commonwealth and state environmental laws.” said Environs Kimberley Director Martin Pritchard.

“This decisions by Premier Barnett, and yesterday’s announcement by Minister Ferguson that joint venture partners would be forced to choose a development location for Browse LNG within 120 days demonstrates that both State and Commonwealth governments have no regard for the environmental impact assessment process that is required under State and Commonwealth law.”

Conservation Council of WA Director Piers Verstegen said “The community has become used to the WA government overturing recommendations by the EPA, but here we have both state and Commonwealth Governments proceeding to force development before the required assessments have even been completed.”

“These reckless decisions can only open up legal challenges and the consequences of that are potentially years of court hearings, this is exactly the opposite of what potential investors and share holders want to hear.” Concluded Mr. Verstegen

Media Contact:

Martin Pritchard, Environs Kimberley: 0427 548 075

Piers Verstegen, Conservation Council of WA: 0411 557 892

Joshua Coates, The Wilderness Society WA: 0438 805 284