Woodside Genocide at Walmandan (James Price Point)

Look, lets just be done with it! Really, why doesn’t the state government just declare that Woodside can make its own sovereign state? Woodside would delight in flying high their own flag, would love the concept of their very own anthem and the prospect of having people with a passport to access a visa to enter into Country.

Given the amount of amendments to Legislation; variations to Standing Orders; the modifications to the Regulations; the introduction of brand new planning procedures and just how far the current state government is willing to bend over backwards to accommodate Woodside, surely granting them their own sovereign state would be far easier, much more efficient and considerably cheaper.

Woodside’s ability to sidestep the law, their capacity to avoid any kind of financial consequence and their proficiency in making up their own rules, and laws as they go, clearly demonstrates that they have all the attributes necessary to govern, licence and approve their own permits.

It would save heaps of work for the public servants and would be a welcome relief for the Broome Shire. Woodside already have their own police force at their beck and call and a mercenary security thug force, who act like an army, so they are already half way there. They could even issue themselves a social licence to operate, they would not be forced to try and buy one and would save themselves a pretty penny.



The Barnett’s government who are the proponent for this project has spared no expense or provisions to ensure that this corporation (who acts as their little go between, and by doing so) gets what this corporation wants, without hindrance or question. They have been allowed to operate above the law, in fact all the state government department’s compliance and integrity units and even the law enforcers have all turned a blind eye ,to their statutory duties in order to work without fear of losing their favor.

The proof is in the pudding and just because it is quiet and comparatively peaceful in Country at the moment, be assured that the wheels of the underhanded are busy at work, planning their next strategies in their desperate attempts to create some form of legal and ethical legitimacy for the stealing of Indigenous lands, the locking up of Country and destroying our Cultural Heritage.

So if you thought the DAP documentation was worth throwing and the process highly dubious, then you will not be too surprised to see what Woodside and their government lackeys have cooked up now. To avoid at all costs transparency, consequence and monitoring they are basically seeking to excise out the land earmarked for the natural gas refineries, between James Price Point and Barred Creek and override the local Shire’s control with 4 new state controlled planning arrangements.

'In achieving a statutory plan for the Precinct, Woodside has requested the Minister for Planning to authorise the preparation of an improvement plan (Improvement Plan). The Improvement Plan will authorise the creation of a subsequent Improvement Scheme (Improvement Scheme) which is the statutory mechanism by which a structure plan (Structure Plan) will be prepared for the Precinct.'

The Tender to develop the improvement plan has been advertised and apparently already granted. The Tender documents are mainly a rewrite of same vomitus jargon:
'The location of the proposed Precinct in the vicinity of James Price Point was chosen via an extensive site selection process involving consultation with a broad spectrum of stakeholders and a collaborative review of a comprehensive set of technical, environmental, heritage, economic and social criteria.' Blah blah blah.

So let’s get this straight: first we are told that the Broome Shire has limited development planning powers and the Interim Development Order No. 4 (IDO) is inadequate. Then we are gagged and dragged through the Development Assessment Panel fiasco so the State (proponent) could grant a temporary site access to Woodside, for last year’s entire illegal front end engineering destruction. Now we have to endure an Improvement Plan which in turn creates an Improvement Scheme which leads the way to a Structure Plan.

If this parallel planning processing and enforced escalation policy is supposed to increase efficiencies by reducing approval timelines and clearances, then someone needs to tell them “they’re dreaming”. The only thing these four separate processes will accomplish are procedural nightmares that will eventually tie them up in knots, drown them in paper work, swallow them whole in meetings and it will all end in tears, if not the Courts.

There is certainly no procedural fairness, no transparency procedures and certainly no natural justice ingrained within any of these four state driven planning strategies.
Outwardly, the State and Woodside are trying to treat the new NOITTs as a mere formality. So, why it is taking them months and months to: finalise the configuration that defines clearly the footprint of the proposed precinct and reissue the Notices of Intention to Take (NOITTs)? There is a broomer that the NOITTs will be issued within days.

The Contractor who won the Tender must assess 'the constraints on the land area of the Precinct and the limits to its use as defined within the Native Title Agreements. Good luck!

KLC is a member of the 'working group' however, given the decision made on 22/02/2012 to legally separate the two Native Title Claimant, it not only calls into question KLC’s position on the 'working group' but also all the Browse LNG Precinct Native Title Agreements ever signed. All is highly questionable whether the state or Woodside wish to acknowledge it or not.

The status the SAR is really not mentioned in great detail within the Tender documents. But it does go on to state that: 'It is expected that Woodside will be in a position to make a final investment decision (FID) by mid-2013, and process first gas from 2017. This is interesting because Minister Ferguson's office has still not mentioned if the milestone extension has in actual fact been granted.

Woodside is dressing up their refineries, so bring on the marching band, play up the anthem, hoist up their flag and get your visa application ready. Woodside is invading our community , country and culture , in a vain attempt to make it their own.