Traditional custodians opposed to a contentious $4.5bn fertiliser plant on Western Australia’s Burrup peninsula have accused Tanya Plibersek of “faulty reasoning” and drawing “false conclusions” about the views of local Aboriginal communities after she decided not to pause the development.
The environment minister decided work on the plant could go ahead after visiting the peninsula, in the state’s north, earlier this month. She said her decision was based on support for the development from the Murujuga Aboriginal Corporation, which she described as the “legally constituted and democratically elected group that safeguards First Nations culture in the Burrup area”.
Save Our Songlines, a separate traditional owners organisation, had asked the minister to stop the works to protect five culturally important sites, including petroglyphs. Three of the five sites are due to be moved during construction.
In a statement on Tuesday, Save our Songlines’ spokeswomen and Mardudhunera women Raelene Cooper and Josie Alec said it was a “very disappointing decision by a minister who clearly hasn’t done her homework”.
“If she had read through all the documents provided as part of the [application] she would not have made this decision, which is based on faulty reasoning and false conclusions,” they said.
They said while the corporation was legally constituted to speak for traditional custodians, some members and elders believed they had been “gagged” and could not oppose projects due to a 2003 agreement under which the WA government acquired land on the Burrup peninsula for heavy industrial developments. The government has denied the agreement is a gag.
“The community, the country and the whole world will be outraged if this leads to another Juukan Gorge because the federal government would not stand up to industry and protect sacred Aboriginal sites from further destruction,” the pair said.
Plibersek said she had decided not to grant the request for an emergency pause on the project – made under section 9 of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Heritage Protection Act – because it was not supported by the corporation and its circle of elders.
A separate cultural heritage assessment of the site is still being carried out under section 10 of the act.
Plibersek said the corporation was recognised “as the most representative organisation on cultural knowledge for the five traditional owner groups in the region” and had agreed with the multinational company developing the plant, Perdaman, on the appropriate cultural treatment of the sites.
“Traditional owners, like any group, can sometimes have different views,” Plibersek said in a statement on Monday night. “I am satisfied, however, that the [corporation] is the legally constituted and democratically elected group that safeguards First Nations culture in the Burrup area. The circle of elders holds the cultural authority for the area.”
Save Our Songlines was created after internal division within the corporation over support for industrial development on the peninsula. The corporation could not be reached for its response before publication.
Perdaman has said the plant would create up to 2,000 jobs and produce fertiliser for the agricultural industry. The company’s chair, Vikas Rambal, on Tuesday said he was pleased Plibersek had visited the area and met stakeholders. He said he hoped a final investment decision on the project would be reached in four to eight weeks. “The approval system stacked up,” he said.
The Greens said Plibersek had “failed to save the Murujuga songlines”. Lidia Thorpe, the party’s First Nations spokesperson, said the minister’s decision was “a clear violation of free, prior and informed consent” as defined in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People.
“When traditional owners are saying that there is no consent to destroy their heritage, this government needs to listen,” she said.
The Burrup hub has been described as a testing ground for Australia’s evolving stance on protecting Indigenous cultural heritage, and for how the climate crisis will be tackled under the Albanese government.
WA authorities are considering a 50-year extension to the life of Woodside’s massive North West Shelf liquified natural gas plant, which would allow it to operate until 2070 and process fossil fuels from new gas basins, including the proposed $16bn Scarborough development.
Nearly half of the Burrup peninsula is zoned industrial. The other half is national park and heritage listed. The peninsula and nearby Dampier archipelago are home to more than 1m culturally important sites, including petroglyphs, some of which date back tens of thousands of years. The area has been submitted for a Unesco world heritage listing.
