The Kimberley - Keep it ours

WA Premier Colin Barnett has made a decision to compulsory acquire 10000 hectares of land at James Price Point in the Kimberley region for a $30 billion gas project by Woodside Petroleum.

Indigenous Academic Mick Dobson has said “What I say to the Premier is be very careful about setting precedents like this, they can do more damage that you can ever imagine. I think compulsorily acquisition is, in a sense, another act of colonialism, it’s another theft of our land, it’s another invasion.”

The proposal for a major industrial complex on the Kimberley coast would introduce a range of environmental impacts and threats; compromise the sustainable economic future of the Kimberley (e.g. tourism, well managed fisheries etc.) and would act as a ‘thin edge of the wedge’ to trigger many other damaging developments in the Kimberley such as strip mining for bauxite and alumina refineries, and polluting fertiliser or ammonia plants.