For overwhelming economic, social, cultural and environmental reasons the LNG precinct proposed for Walmadany (James Price Point) should not be built…In sum, such a project is against the national interest.
This is what I concluded in my recent report, Law Below the Top Soil. But behind my report on the proposed LNG precinct at Walmadany/James Price Point near Broome is a story of what we in the European world might call synchronicity and stingrays.
It was through Professor Stephen Muecke that I first heard about the remarkable Paddy Roe, OAM, now deceased. Mr Roe collaborated with Stephen on two outstanding and remarkable books, Goolaburu and Reading the Country.
Mr Roe wrote the history of his country – particularly the 80 kilometre stretch of Broome coastline from Bindingankuny in the north to Roebuck Bay Caravan Park in the south – so it could be understood and preserved across cultures and for coming generations.
Little did I know that 30 years after meeting Stephen I would come to know the community and the remarkable country that Mr Roe worked so hard to preserve.
I gained an understanding of the significance of Mr Roe’s work as the National Secretary of the Indigenous Stock Exchange (ISX), where I met many significant national Aboriginal elders and leaders. It threw me into the complex issues around mining, Aboriginal economic development and prosperity.
In Arnhem Land I was adopted into a Yolngu clan group. Two years before I was invited to write Law Below the Top Soil by the old families of Broome, I was sitting with my adopted relatives at Mata Mata, about six hours drive from Nhulunbuy on the Arafura Sea, when I learned about the extraordinary significance of the stingray.
My relatives and I had a meal of stingray fit for kings and queens, cooked in a pot, served on corrugated iron, with dogs on hand for the titbits. It was a meal that I will never forget.
Stingrays entered my consciousness in a big way after that meal. I was astounded at the quality and delicacy of the meat, at the meticulous preparation, and at the importance of stingrays for my relatives. Tetsuya Wakuda could not have prepared a dish as delicate or as good for you, as the legendary Mata Mata leader, Batambil, and her sons, prepared that day.
Three months before I was asked to come to Broome to write the report I had an extraordinary experience. One evening I was walking on the beach at Wilsons Promontory, talking about the stingray meal I enjoyed at Mata Mata. I looked down into a rock pool and there was a giant stingray, trapped by the tide and looking up at me. It had an extraordinary face and eyes. It calmly flapped its giant wings, showing its underside, almost presenting itself to me. It was something I will never forget.
One of the things that Batambil said to me as we were eating stingray was: “If the miners want to come and mine my land here. Sure they can. But they will have to put a 303 bullet here", pointing to her temple, “and my backbone will be buried in this earth. They will have to shoot me and dig up my backbone.”
I then at least partially understood the significance of Aboriginal land and culture and stingrays.
I re-read Stephen and Paddy’s work Goolaburu: Stories from the West Kimberley. I learned that it was after spearing a fat stingray that Paddy, as a Nyigina man, gained custodianship of the Goolabaroo law of the Walmadany/James Point area. Paddy’s daughter Teresa and her children are the children of the stingray of the Walmadany/James Price area.
Stingray are very sacred creatures. The holes in the floor of the sea bed that you often see in the shallows are made by stingrays. They bite down into the sea and filter the mud for their food. They create clouds in the water; these are related to the cumulo-nimbus clouds that come with the storms of the wet season and cleanse the earth.
Stingrays are serene creatures. They glide through the water. They bury themselves in the sand. They bury themselves below the top soil.
But don’t be fooled by their serenity: sting rays are very dangerous. If you step on them, their poison will cause great pain. And as we know in the case of Steve Irwin, stingrays can even cause death.
Stingrays symbolise knowledge of the law beneath the top surface of the earth. We may find such thinking poetic, metaphoric and symbolic. But in the Aboriginal traditional knowledge this is a fundamental truth and law that no-one can deny. The way in which Mr Roe and his children and grandchildren came to know the stingray, mean that they were significant leaders who have strong power and knowledge of their country. For they, like the stingray, know of its deep qualities and what is beneath the surface of the land.
Woodside, Premier Barnett and their supporters have messed with the stingrays of Walmadany/James Price Point. Mr Roe, along with many others, had ensured that this site was perhaps the most documented sacred site of the Broome area and perhaps of Australia.
The process through which Barnett and Woodside ended up with this as the site for a giant multi-billion dollar LNG precinct was blundering and foolish and indicative of desperate men. The voluminous documentation of the whole development of the LNG project is an exercise that completely disregards the significant Aboriginal customary law that lies with Mr Roe’s family and their relatives.
Of course, I might also mention that the economics of the project are not sound, that there are other superior alternatives to the LNG precinct for harvesting the reserves of Browse Basin Gas that lie off the Kimberley coast. The environmental, cultural and social effects of the project are undesirable and severe.
But Mr Roe would no doubt have said that all this is obvious: if you mess with stingrays, you end up with poison barbs in your leg.
James Jenkin
EFL Teacher Trainer
"For overwhelming economic, social, cultural and environmental reasons the LNG precinct proposed for Walmadany (James Price Point) should not be built."
The article makes a compelling social, cultural and environmental case for opposing the precinct.
I'm curious why Peter Botsman's report tries to make an economic case, however. Woodside aren't going to take economic advice from Save The Kimberley. Is the aim largely to convince the WA Government it won't lose revenue?
Peter Botsman
Principal Fellow, School of Social and Political Sciences at University of Melbourne
I make an economic case because it is a very clear and sound reason for not building the project amongst many other things. See the report http://www.savethekimberley.com/2012/10/11/law-below-the-top-soil-just-released/ As I note above I am far from a greenie and I as head of the Evatt Foundation directed several nationally significant economic research reports including the review of State taxation which led to serious consideration of a consumption tax by the Labor side of politics. If environmentalists…
Read morePhilip Dowling
IT teacher
https://theconversation.edu.au/profiles/peter-botsman-14767
A public intellectual. Such an impressive soi-disant title.
I failed to note any specific economic training, although I note much important successful work ... I would certainly advise people to seek your expertise in seeking various grants.
Marc Hendrickx
Geologist
Appealing to notions of "sacredness" is a distant second to sound scientific arguments. Suggest arguing from a more scientific and less passionate stand point without all the emotive guff may produce the intended conservation outcome.
Peter Botsman
Principal Fellow, School of Social and Political Sciences at University of Melbourne
Thanks for your comment this is just a short precis for a longer read try the 108 page report. I am not a conservationist or a greenie. In fact one of the principle reasons why this project should not go ahead is the same reason why the Wildnerness Society and the Queensland Wild Rivers Legislation was illegitimate. Both Woodside, Barnett and the Wildnerness Society have, in these instances, flouted the UN Convention on Indigenous Rights. As a geologist Marc you should also be aware of Dr Tony Thorborn's work http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0036208
It is about time that those of us in the mono-culture called academia recognised that the ancient lore and culture of Aboriginal Australia is almost always a wonderful beacon for serious, intellectual matters and not emotion.
Marc Hendrickx
Geologist
Thanks for your reply.
It is my understanding that there will be no impact on the sauropod tracks and their preservation is contained as part of the development approvals. Perhaps I'm wrong. Happy to be corrected if this is the case.
It is also my understanding that the overall footprint of the proposed development is very small and the potential economic gains are significant and extend to the Indigenous community.
Sounds like another case of NIMBYism.
Perhaps The Con can invite the developers to provide a statement.
Philip Dowling
IT teacher
So I presume that the indigenous people have dreamtime stories about the dinosaurs and the the tracks they left.
Philip Dowling
IT teacher
A tertiary educated person talking about a "short precis".
It says it all really about the intellectual capacity of those involved.
Peter Botsman
Principal Fellow, School of Social and Political Sciences at University of Melbourne
How very sad for you Philip. In your world of ones and zeros there is obviously no place for poetry, fluidity, and complexity; the same drab rules always apply. You must be the master of a tiny world. But thank you for your truisms and absurd logic. I guess they have their uses.
Peter Botsman
Principal Fellow, School of Social and Political Sciences at University of Melbourne
I don't think this is fair at all Mark. If you want to make an analogy that is at all meaningful. Imagine that the plans for the Royal National Park south of Sydney had been carefully prepared and planned by the landowners. We are talking about a similar body of land. Paddy Roe had intricately named all the special features of the land including the flora, fauna, Aboriginal ancestry, significance of the sea beds etc and had been acknowledged for his work with the highest award we can bestow on an…
Read moreMarc Hendrickx
Geologist
If the operation brings the long term prosperity of the Wollongong steel works then good luck to the operators and locals who will benefit.
I note the salient points above regarding the preservation of dinosaur tracks and the small footprint of the development remain unchallenged.
Philip Dowling
IT teacher
Peter You seem to be suffering from the same disease as Julia Gillard when she confused tenant and tenet.
Read moreDid you really mean principle or perhaps you meant principal. Could you please clarify.
It is standard practice for authors to have grammar and spell-checking turned on by default, when producing documents.
Did you do this?
I also did some very basic semantic analysis of your paper.
Given the number of people in Australia with an Asian heritage, I found it puzzling that this word was so…
Philip Dowling
IT teacher
Peter Botsman,
I can understand your comments. My kids always complain when I try to explain to them that the Harry Potter and The Pirates of the Caribbean series are not documentaries.
I suppose I should leave you to myth creations, after all it was quite successful for JK Rowling, but of course she was quite talented.
Kevin Smith
Business Adviser
I'll challenge them for you, Marc. There is no guarantee that the dinosaur tracks will be preserved, and the Environmental Protection Authority merely recommends that where they can't be preserved they be adequately documented before they are destroyed.
With regard to the size of the footprint, I suppose it all depends on your perspective - it is bigger than the existing town site of Broome, and would cover most of the Western Suburbs of Perth if located there. Small to some, huge to others.
As to prosperity, how many dollars will it take to make up for the loss of richness of culture, heritage and meaning for the traditional owners and custodians who have been sidelined and ignored in this flawed process?
Marc Hendrickx
Geologist
The footprints are subject to natural weathering. Their long term preservation cannot be guaranteed regardless of the development going ahead or not. Regardless according to the REF conditions..."Based on these findings, it is recommended that the precinct should not cross the shore within 900 metres of James Price Point to avoid fossil dinosaur footprints."
The development is 30km2. This would not cover " most of the western suburbs of Perth". The Perth metropolitan area covers 5,386.4 square kilometres (2,079.7 sq mi).
The price? Some reports suggest $1.3 billion flow on to local communities.
Peter Botsman
Principal Fellow, School of Social and Political Sciences at University of Melbourne
Thanks Kevin. Marc what is your point? Perhaps we could take plaster casts and send them to Melbourne to preserve them. The dinosaur footprints are a sentinel for the significance of this region. It is one of the most documented Aboriginal sacred sites with great significance for the people of Broome and for the region's biodiversity etc. Why, given all this, would you want the development to go ahead when there are superior alternatives and which allow the significant gas resouces of Browse to…
Read moreMarc Hendrickx
Geologist
Peter,
The REF indicates the development will not affect the dinosaur impressions.
The development footprint is small.
There are enormous benefits for the local population.
In regard to your slur regarding my source of income and interests. It just so happens I have not derived any income from the mining industry throughout my career, having worked for state governments and for the construction/infrastructure sector. Where you get the figures of a "significant amount" from is beyond me and amounts to defamation. I have not earn't a penny from the mining industry throughout my career. I suggest you withdraw and apologise for the comments. It seems the only self interest in this is your own.
Peter Botsman
Principal Fellow, School of Social and Political Sciences at University of Melbourne
Well Marc how could anybody not derive this understanding that you derive a significant sum of income from the mining industry when your website Marc Hendrickx and Associates says I quote "Marc Hendrickx and Associates Pty Ltd Specialist geological services to the construction and mining industry." I certainly would not have interpreted that to mean that you have worked only for government and that you have not earned a penny from the mining industry throughout my career. So if I have made a mistake it is a mistake than anyone would make who goes to your professional web site. If nothing else it perhaps indicates where your ambitions lie.
Marc Hendrickx
Geologist
Peter,
It seems that whenever an academic runs into trouble losing an argument here, without fail they attack the individual and cast false aspersions on their motives, while ignoring their own vested interests. The case above is another classic example. You have failed miserably in providing a reply to any of the main points raised, so naturally you play the man.
You also chose to make assumptions about me based on the faintest skerrick of evidence. So the mistake you make in assuming a…
Read morePeter Botsman
Principal Fellow, School of Social and Political Sciences at University of Melbourne
Mark,
You have made no argument apart from the fact that you obviously do not care about anything other than the LNG precinct going ahead regardless of the manifold problems involved. I am sorry you think that making money from the mining industry and obviously wanting to get on to the mining payroll is an insult. I just think it explains where you are coming from. I think it is clear that your profession as a whole derives a great deal of income from offshore and onshore mining and drilling. Therefore it does not surprise me that you place significance. above all else, on supporting mining activities in whatever form it takes and you simply seem to trust the reports that have been written without a critical eye. So good luck to you.
Peter Botsman
Principal Fellow, School of Social and Political Sciences at University of Melbourne
I should have added you read the so-called impact reports on dinosaur footprints as if they are holy writ! Why do you not accept the views of those who are the experts on these matters? Also please follow the court cases against the WA Dept of Environment and others who worked as consultants on this development. It really is a good case study for people like you who aspire to work for the mining industry and for the mining executives who manage these complex projects. The lesson is don't cut corners. Dont get consultants to tell you what you want to hear. If you are going to Indigenous consultation then follow the UN protocols and do it properly. See my latest article http://theconversation.edu.au/more-than-diamonds-in-the-rough-resource-struggles-in-the-kimberley-10319
Freya Mathews
Adjunct Professor, Environmental Philosophy at La Trobe University
I have read the report and am extremely grateful to Peter Botsman for piecing together such a complex and meticulous narrative of the Walmadany issue over the past several years. This is a truly invaluable update. But I am left wondering what is the legal redress against the abuses of process that have occurred in the matter of Indigenous consent - abuses that have been perpetrated both by the WA government, with its flagrant disregard of Indigenous Free Prior Informed Consent (IFPIC), and by the Kimberley Land Council, with its sidelining of the most important Traditional Owners in the case. The report details and exposes these abuses very thoroughly, so isn't there now some kind of legal consequence? Is Australia a signatory to the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People? If it is, then isn't IFPIC legally binding? Can't governments and their agencies be held to some kind of legal account?
Linus Bowden
management consultant
UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People is not a law.
Peter Botsman
Principal Fellow, School of Social and Political Sciences at University of Melbourne
Thank you Professor Mathews. Mr Bowden is correct but the UN convention is something that should bind us. In a more positive situation than this we would be reviewing our native title law to bring it in accordance with the UN convention. in this case we have a Premier like Joh Bjelke Peterson who wants to take the law and convention into his own hands and do what he likes. it is one of the tragedies of this case that some Aboriginal men and women of even high degree feel that no matter what moral principles or laws are espoused they will always be unprotected and abused and that people like Mr Dowling above will always prevail. In so many ways this is our last chance to get the principles and our own morality as a country straight and true. My view, and no doubt my critics will howl, is that as a country we will gain far from upholding the rights of Indigenous people in a case like this than we would from building this 40 plus billion LNG Precinct.
Freya Mathews
Adjunct Professor, Environmental Philosophy at La Trobe University
Thank you for your reply, Peter. I don't need to be persuaded that we need to allow native title claimants the genuine right to say no to development proposals on their land and that we need to find sustainable alternatives to the current 'cash for culture' scenario. But I'm still wondering about possibilities of legal redress in the James Price Point situation. As you have documented so meticulously in your report, there have been many failures of process in the handling of, and attempt to fast…
Read morePeter Botsman
Principal Fellow, School of Social and Political Sciences at University of Melbourne
Thanks again Professor Mathews. There are some significant legal challenges a foot. So you can follow these here: http://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/sinosrch.cgi?query=goolarabooloo&results=50&submit=Search&mask_world=&mask_path=&callback=on&method=auto&meta=%2Fau
and here:
http://www.goolarabooloo.org.au/lurujarri.html
After some years with the Evatt Foundation I should be across the UN treaties and ratifications for Australia, but alas I am not. I wonder if our fellow bloggers might know about this.
Whatever the case may be there is no substitute for the hearts and minds of our local citizenry. I guess that is why we have to persist in blogs like this, and endure the ignorance and provocation when it comes.
Peter Botsman
Principal Fellow, School of Social and Political Sciences at University of Melbourne
Good to see this question from Broome on ABC's Q&A last night: DEMOCRACY IN BROOME
Jan Lewis in Broome asked: In several parts of the world people are fighting for democracy. Here in Broome, in several surveys, more than half and sometimes over 75% of people polled have been against plans to build a huge gas plant just north of our town. Yet our state and federal members refuse to represent our views to government. Is this how democracy is supposed to work?!!
Philip Dowling
IT teacher
Ern O'Malley did not require government funding to create a much more culturally important document.
Peter Botsman
Principal Fellow, School of Social and Political Sciences at University of Melbourne
Again a foolish, mischievous and ignorant analogy, read the report Mr. Dowling.
Philip Dowling
IT teacher
If the solution is yet more tourism, I would remind you that Tasmania has been trashing its industries with the claims that eco-tourism will be its saviour. It is now a mendicant state with the highest level of unemployment in the country, and a steady stream of youth leaving.
The South African and New Zealand examples that you quoted involve sums of money that wouldn't even fund a campaign for a temporary seat on the UN security council.
The high Aussie dollar means that the gray nomads can jet overseas rather than be limited to extended car trips in Australia.
Of course, a few of the newly wealthy Asian middle class might find it interesting to visit what they perceive as primitive cultures.
Philip Dowling
IT teacher
Peter,
I have discovered a great location for your next vacation.
http://www.bbc.com/travel/feature/20121015-autumnal-isolation-in-finlands-oulanka-park
I read this and I thought Las Vegas and Disneyland be damned. I'll be booking this for our next vacation. I am sure that my kids will start packing as soon as they hear the announcement.
Philip Dowling
IT teacher
I just told my children about this venue.
One opined : "Great idea, dad. Let me check."
Then she sent me back an even better idea.
http://www.rusnature.info/zap/06.htm
Peter, what do you think. You, me and the Griswold family perhaps.
I've started getting out last season's ski clothes already.
Suzy Gneist
logged in via Facebook
I fail to see how an indigenous worldview argument is in any way inferior to a Western academic view, Mark.
I agree there are other more lasting values than the transient economic ones.
There are perfectly adequate and more 'economically' to build on sites which aren't located at James Price Point - so why not just move the development there? I have respect for the cultural significance of the area to indigenous Australians - we have plenty of other spaces available for such a project.
Philip Dowling
IT teacher
Melbourne academics vs local indigenous politician ?
http://www.watoday.com.au/wa-news/kimberley-mp-lashes-gas-hub-protesters-20121025-28832.html
Kevin Smith
Business Adviser
Or perhaps "Retiring politician proves community member's point"?
From Q and A Monday 22 October 2012: "Here in Broome, surveys show that more than half and sometimes over three quarters of our community are against plans to build a huge gas plant just north of our town, yet our elected State and Federal members refuse to represent these views to Government. Is this how democracy is supposed to work?"
Peter Botsman
Principal Fellow, School of Social and Political Sciences at University of Melbourne
Transcript from Last Nights ABC Q&A is most instructive
DEMOCRACY IN BROOME00:40:20
JAN LEWIS: Good evening, Tony. In several parts of the world people are fighting to get democracy. Here in Broome, surveys show that more than half and sometimes over three quarters of our community are against plans to build a huge gas plant just north of our town, yet our elected State and Federal members refuse to represent these views to Government. Is this how democracy is supposed to work?
TONY JONES…
Read more