More than 500 West Australians have rallied outside WA Parliament in Perth today, demanding the Roger Cook Government permanently ban fracking in the state’s Kimberley.
Community groups are calling on the Cook Government to urgently reject Texan company Black Mountain Energy’s 20 well “Valhalla” fracking project in the West Kimberley near Derby, which is undergoing state and federal environmental assessment.
“Valhalla” is the most progressed of any fracking proposal in the state and would involve the drilling of 20 wells in the West Kimberley. Black Mountain says it would then frack them in up to 70 stages each. This would require up to two billion litres of groundwater in total.
Today’s rally is the most significant show of opposition to fracking since the then McGowan Government permanently banned fracking in the Perth, Peel, South West, and Dampier Peninsula, but inexplicably not the rest of the Kimberley, in 2018.
Nuria Jadai Mangala / Martu Traditional Owner said, “We have a responsibility to look after our Country in the Kimberley. When the Country is alive, our culture is alive. The land means so much more to us than money.
“Fracking for oil and gas threatens everything that’s important to us, we do not want to risk our springs and waterways with toxic chemicals and radioactive wastewater and we don’t want to see our Country cut up and industrialised.
“The Labor government keeps saying there’s a veto for Traditional Owners, this is not true. There is no veto for test fracking and the government hasn’t put any legislation in place for a veto.
“We’re calling on the Premier Roger Cook to ban fracking on our Country in the Kimberley like his government has done in the southwest of WA. Are we not as important as the people of the southwest?”
Lock the Gate Alliance WA spokesperson Simone van Hattem said, “West Australians love the Kimberley: its stunning waterfalls, gorges, beaches, and its unique wildlife. People come from all around the world to visit the majestic Kimberley, generating hundreds of millions for a thriving tourism industry.
“Destructive gas fracking poses a serious threat to the Kimberley. Full scale gas fracking would mean thousands of gas wells, sucking billions of litres of water and risking catastrophic pollution contamination.
“We’re calling on the Cook Government to ban fracking in the Kimberley. This is the moment for Premier Roger Cook to protect one of WA’s greatest natural and cultural treasures from being transformed into a frackwell pockmarked wasteland like the gas and oil fields of Black Mountain’s home state of Texas.”
Environs Kimberley Executive Director Martin Pritchard said, “Premier Roger Cook and his Labor government know that opening the Kimberley to fracking is highly unpopular and we saw how that played out in the once safe Labor seat of Fremantle where Minister Simone McGurk scraped in with just a couple of hundred votes more than her rival who ran on a strong platform to stop fracking in the Kimberley.
“This is the opportunity to extend the Southwest ban on fracking to the Kimberley instead of risking the $500 million tourism industry and the region’s clean water and unspoilt landscapes.”
ENDS
Background:
The rally follows the release of the “Ngumpan Statement” (pronounced Noom-ban) last month by the five Aboriginal organisations representing the Kimberley. It states:
“Fracking threatens our Country. The risks to water, culture, and community are too great, and the protections too weak. Most of WA is already protected from fracking and the Kimberley should be no different.”
Black Mountain Energy's 20 well Valhalla project proposal would be the first fracking operation anywhere in WA since the WA Government lifted the moratorium on fracking in 2018. If approved, it could open the door to thousands of gas wells across the region. Black Mountain Energy is comparing the Kimberley’s Canning Basin to the Permian gas basin in the US. The Permian has more than 190,000 oil and gas wells. (see BME website here)
Rally partners:
The rally is organised by Lock the Gate Alliance and Environs Kimberley in partnership with Seed Indigenous Youth Climate Network, Conservation Council of WA, and the Australian Conservation Foundation.