There will be no more industrial development on the World Heritage-nominated Murujuga site, also known as the Burrup Peninsula, beyond a $6.4 billion fertiliser plant that starts construction today.
Murujuga, 1,500 kilometres north of Perth, is home to more than one million rock art petroglyphs, which are thousands of years old and cover a 37,000-hectare area, but also large gas and ammonia facilities.
West Australian Premier Mark McGowan announced at a sod turning for Perdaman's new urea plant that it would be the last facility of its kind built on the peninsula.
He said several other industrial sites slated for development would instead be added to the existing Murujuga National Park.
"So we think we got the balance right," he said.
"This project will use the existing infrastructure corridor that was put in place in 2003, which provides some water and other access through to the port."
From Thursday, three pieces of rock art will be relocated to make way for the urea plant.
A group of traditional owners against the plant previously lodged an application under section 9 of national Aboriginal heritage laws to stop the removal of the petroglyphs, but the move was knocked back by Federal Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek.
Difficult time for Aboriginal elders
The Murujuga Aboriginal Corporation (MAC), representing five language groups, has freehold title to the national park next to the Burrup industrial land.
MAC was created out of an agreement between traditional owners — who were unable to stop development even if they withheld consent — and the state government if they gave up native title rights over the peninsula.
Part of the deal allowed for further industrialisation of the Burrup as well as a second site to the south — the Maitland Industrial Estate.
MAC chairman and Wong-Goo-Tt-Oo representative Peter Hicks said, as the cultural authority for the area, it advocated strongly for the protection and the promotion of heritage and culture.
"Although [Perdaman's] engagement has resulted … in avoidance of a significant amount of heritage, it is almost impossible for that to have not had an effect on some of this stuff," he said.
"It's been a difficult time for our elders, the MAC board, directors, and members of the broader Aboriginal community.
"It is therefore a significant outcome that the state government has agreed that the Perdaman project will be the last large-scale greenfields industrial program within the Burrup Strategic Industrial Area."
Perdaman chairman Vikas Rambal said the plant could not be built at the nearby Maitland estate because it was not ready for such developments yet.
"We will be using Maitland as a renewable hub, which is the right thing to do," he said.
"You don't waste taxpayer money to create infrastructure for one project."
Kuruma Marduthunera traditional custodian Josie Alec was angered by the news that rock art would be moved while a federal investigator undertook an assessment to address claims that rock art in the area was at risk.
"The free, prior and informed consent has still not been given to Perdaman to remove these rocks — not all traditional custodians have been consulted on this," she said.
"We, as traditional custodians, are still in the process of setting up a meeting with Perdaman, which they have tried to arrange for next week."
WA's Environmental Protection Authority recommended conditions be placed on the Perdaman project, which will mean it has to prove that any emissions created do not accelerate the weathering of nearby rock art.
Project to create construction, ongoing jobs
An estimated 2,500 jobs will be created during the construction of the facility and 200 operational jobs on an ongoing basis.
The plant will produce 2.3 million tonnes of urea per year, about 2.4 million is imported into Australia annually, using about 130 terajoules of gas per day from the neighbouring Woodside operations.
Perdaman has a gas supply deal for 20 years from when the plant is commissioned in 2026 or 2027.
Woodside says its under-development Scarborough project, which will add 225 terajoules of domestic gas supply per day to the Karratha Gas Plant, will be the primary source of gas for the urea plant.
Mr Rambal said he did not like having a fly-in fly-out workforce but they would be used for construction.
But he said he would build 105 homes for operational staff to be based out of Karratha.
Perdaman also has a commitment to MAC to employ Aboriginal staff and train them to work at the plant.
Mr Rambal said the project was about having food security, especially after seeing international borders close around the world because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
"So we are free from Asian market domination," he said.
"We can look after the farmers … and we are able to feed 90 million people. So three times [the population] of Australia."
The Rambal family is the major investor in the multi-billion-dollar project and has received investment from Global Infrastructure Partners to the tune of $2.12 billion.
Mr Rambal said the second-largest amount of money came from banks and about 60 per cent of that was from Europe.
