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

Missy Higgins sings for the Kimberley

Article from: The Australian

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24789726-16947,00.html

AUSTRALIAN pop star Missy Higgins has given an internet-only performance from her new home town of Broome to highlight the threat to the Kimberley region from industrialisation.

Iain Shedden, Music writer | December 12, 2008

The award-winning singer from Sydney moved to Broome a year ago and says her new environment has inspired her songwriting.

Higgins, 25, wrote half of her second album, On A Clear Night, in her adopted home town.

``I know that there are plans for some serious industrialisation up in the Kimberley coast,'' she says in the seven-minute film clip.

On Thursday 500 local residents attended a Save the Kimberley rally in Broome to protest against WA premier Colin Barnett's proposals for the compulsory purchase of land in the Kimberley region for industrial development.

The previous day, Mr Barnett revealed to local business leaders his plan to forcibly acquire land from Aboriginal people in the Kimberley that would provide the site for a gas-processing precinct.

``We can't just let the oil and the gas companies come and destroy this beautiful land," Higgins says. "This is a criminal thing to do to this part of the country. It's just wrong.''

The clip also shows Higgins making her first public performance in Broome, singing her song Going North at a local bar.

She explains that the song is about going to Broome and also about standing up for what you believe in.

``The Kimberley has something really powerful and special about it,'' Higgins says.

``It gets under your skin. I felt a connection there to my country that I didn't feel in the city.

``It has taught me a real respect for the land and for my country that I never really apppreciated before.''

Higgins, who left Australia this week to perform in the US, has been expanding her career while in Broome.

She is one of the musicians with an acting role in director Rachael Perkins's film Bran Nue Day (should be Dae).

The feature film, starring Geoffrey Rush, Deborah Mailman and Tom Budge, is being shot in and around the town.

As Redhand has said before, there are around 34,000 people who live in the Kimberley, 15,000 who live in Broome and less than 2,000 who live on the Dampier Peninsula where North Head and James Price Point are located. We need help from around Australia and from around the world to protest the Western Australian State Government's planned compulsory acquisition of land for an LNG gas hub/precinct which will cause vast environmental damage and social dislocation of community.

Support from more people like Missy Higgins is needed - and appreciated.