Bitter struggle in the Kimberleys

Vanguard August 2011 p. 12
Ned K.

People in the north west of Australia in the Kimberley region are waging a determined struggle against a plan by multinational company Woodside and the Western Australia government to build an industrial gas refinery at James Price Point, 60 kilometres north of Broome.

Recently a delegation of people from the region presented federal Environment Minister Tony Burke with a 3,000 signature petition opposing the refinery. They travelled to Canberra to meet Burke.

The people’s struggle is led by environment group, Environs Kimberley and the Goolaraboo people, the traditional owners of the land. Goolaraboo elder Joseph Roe is applying to have the area registered as a cultural site.

On 12 July, the struggle took on international proportions when a German backpacker tourist was arrested at a people’s blockade of a road being built into the proposed refinery site.

In early July a palaeontologist study discovered 130 million year old dinosaur footprints in the area of the proposed $30 billion industrial refinery, which intensifies the pressure on the federal government to block the project.

According to Environs Kimberley, the building of the refinery will mean:

• It will be the second largest LNG producer in the world
  


• It will cover 25 square kilometres, the equivalent of 20 MCGs
  


• The port area would cover 10 square kilometres of hump back whale calving area
  


• Result in a 50 square kilometre dead zone off shore from James Price Point, caused by dredging and blasting in the construction phase
  


• 30 billion litres of waste water generated at the refinery per year pumped into the waters north of Broome
  


• Potential damage to coastal water from oil spills
  


• 39 million tonnes per year of CO2, equivalent to 20% of WA’s current CO2 emissions from this one project!
  

If this is not cause for alarm, Environs Kimberley claim that WA government documents make it clear that if the project goes ahead, it will be the first step in wide scale industrialisation of the rest of the Kimberley, ‘the last frontier’ for rapacious expansion by international capital in Australia.

Ironically, one report in the WA press said that the carbon price would lower Woodside earnings (and profits) by 2.4%, and some of Woodside’s ‘partners’ were getting nervous and toying with the idea of piping the gas to the North West Shelf instead of building the new refinery at James Price Point.

Environment Minister Burke intends making a statement in mid August about the project. Meanwhile the people’s struggle in the North West continues to grow and gain more support across the country and internationally.

You can support the campaign by visiting the website, www.environskimberley.org.au