Traditional owners in the Northern Territory have launched a legal challenge against an “unconscionable” decision to grant the territory’s largest ever groundwater extraction licence to a Chinese-owned agribusiness company, saying the decision failed to consider Aboriginal cultural rights to the water.
The NT government granted Fortune Agribusiness a free 30-year licence to extract up to 40,000 megalitres of groundwater a year from aquifers under Singleton station, about 400km north of Alice Springs.
It’s the largest private water allocation in the territory.
The licence was originally granted in April but was reviewed after a challenge by traditional owners before being re-granted in November with slightly different conditions.
The Central Land Council (CLC) on Wednesday filed a challenge against the decision in the supreme court on behalf of native title holders the Mpwerempwer Aboriginal Corporation, arguing that the decision contravened the NT Water Act and that minister Kate Worden failed to consider the Aboriginal cultural values.
It is calling for the licence to be quashed.
The CLC chief executive, Les Turner, said they would argue that Worden’s decision was “not even a proper decision because she left so many significant matters to be decided later”.
“This uncertainty means that what Fortune Agribusiness is eventually allowed to do might be very different from what it proposed in its licence application,” Turner said. “The water licence decision is unconscionable considering the impacts of climate change on highly vulnerable desert communities.”
The CLC has called on the NT government to halt all water licence allocations until the proposed review of the regional water allocation plan has been completed.
Turner said the government lacked sufficient data about the aquifers to make such a significant water allocation, and that requirements under the revised licence issued to Fortune Agribusiness – that they carry out further investigations about the water resources at the site and complete an assessment of the impact of the groundwater extraction on “identified groundwater dependent cultural values” – was not sufficient.
“We’re saying nothing should happen until the new plan is in place,” he said. “This includes Singleton. At the moment we need more knowledge and more science, more understanding of our aquifers and more respect for Aboriginal people. The government should not give away our water.”
The case is happening against the backdrop of a national push to provide greater recognition of cultural water rights and strengthen water use rights under native title laws.
Native title rights cover access to and use of water but do not provide water rights or use of water for commercial purposes. They are also extinguished by the granting of other commercial water licences.
Turner said providing native title holders with concrete rights regarding cultural water flows would address many of the concerns of traditional owners.
“There is all this talk about Fortune Agribusiness developing [the water resource] but Aboriginal people might want to develop it and produce stuff themselves,” he said.
Fortune Agribusiness plans to build a $150m, 3,500ha horticulture project growing food primarily for the export market. In November, chairman Peter Wood said the company wanted to work with traditional owners to create “genuine social and economic benefits” and that the project was expected to create 100 permanent and 1,300 seasonal jobs.
Fortune Agribusiness told Guardian Australia that it had received the notice of claim by the CLC on Wednesday and would be “cooperating with all requirements”.
