7.8.11

The Fed­er­al Min­is­ter for Envi­ron­ment arrived in the Kim­ber­ley the morn­ing of August 2nd as three arrests were made at the pro­posed James Price Point nat­ur­al gas hub site. The mas­sive new project is being forced on the com­mu­ni­ty by the Aus­tralian gov­ern­ment on behalf of Big Oil includ­ing Wood­side Petro­le­um, Chevron, Shell, and BP.

There have now been 29 arrests in protest to the pro­pos­al which would sig­ni­fy the begin­ning of the indus­tri­al­i­sa­tion of the Kim­ber­ley. Two weeks ago, 5,000 peo­ple attend­ed a protest at Cable Beach against the indus­tri­al­i­sa­tion of the Kim­ber­ley and the threat of turn­ing Broome into a min­ing town.

Envi­rons Kim­ber­ley Direc­tor Mar­tin Pritchard said: “An extreme­ly dam­ag­ing 30 year ‘for­est war’ is com­ing to an end in Tas­ma­nia and the Prime Min­is­ter and Envi­ron­ment Min­is­ter Tony Burke have seen first­hand how dam­ag­ing this has been envi­ron­men­tal­ly, social­ly and eco­nom­i­cal­ly. What we are see­ing here now is the begin­ning of the fight against large scale indus­tri­al­i­sa­tion of the Kim­ber­ley.”

 

“Min­is­ter Burke has to decide on what his lega­cy will be for this spec­tac­u­lar part of the world–industrialisation or the pro­tec­tion of the out­stand­ing inter­na­tion­al wilder­ness val­ues of the Kim­ber­ley… Wilder­ness areas across the plan­et are being destroyed and we are lucky here in Aus­tralia that we can make a choice to pro­tect the Kim­ber­ley. We are call­ing on the Aus­tralian Gov­ern­ment to step in and save this place.”

 

For more infor­ma­tion:

• Envi­rons Kim­ber­ley

• Kim­ber­ley Direct Action

• Sea Tur­tle Restora­tion Project/Turtle Island Restora­tion Net­work

Links to more news from Kim­ber­ley:

Arrests at gas hub site

Three women have been arrest­ed and charged with obstruct­ing police dur­ing a protest near a pro­posed $30 bil­lion gas hub site in the Kim­ber­ley.

Protesters urge federal minister to stop gas hub

Fed­er­al Envi­ron­ment Min­is­ter Tony Burke arrived in Broome this morn­ing to a rap­tur­ous recep­tion from anti-gas pro­tes­tors, who have pinned their hopes on him refus­ing to grant envi­ron­men­tal approval to the State Government’s pro­posed pro­cess­ing precinct at James Price Point.