Speaker 1: I'm Nicole Johnston and you're listening to seven AM. A
Speaker 1: battle's brewing in Western Australia's unique Kimberly region. Beneath its
Speaker 1: red dirt is a vast reservoir of onshore gas. Now
Speaker 1: an oil tycoon from Texas wants to get it out.
Speaker 1: The Kimberlee is at the center of a controversial proposal
Speaker 1: called Project Valhalla, to drill fracking wells across it. The
Speaker 1: community is divided, somewhat the royalties, others want to protect
Speaker 1: the region's biodiversity and cultural significance. Today journalist Katherine Wilson
Speaker 1: on the fight over fracking in the Kimberley and the
Speaker 1: company trying to push it through. It's Monday, April sixth Kath,
Speaker 1: Could you start off by taking us to the Kimberly
Speaker 1: tell us about the place and why this idea of
Speaker 1: fracking is so confronting for so many people there.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So, the Kimberly region is renowned as the largest and
Speaker 3: most intact tropical savannah in the world. This is an
Speaker 3: area three times the size of England and almost half
Speaker 3: its residents are First Nations and this is important because
Speaker 3: there's an incredible intact culture with many traditional owner groups
Speaker 3: and their cultural practices have been intact for millennia, and
Speaker 3: the Kimberly catchment includes the Mattawara Fitzroy River.
Speaker 2: One traditional owner.
Speaker 3: I spoke with describes the river as a life vane
Speaker 3: where generations hunt and fish and she told me it's
Speaker 3: how our ancestors live back in the day. We still
Speaker 3: do that today. And other traditional custodian Albert Wiggan described
Speaker 3: the region as a garden of Eden.
Speaker 4: It's quite simple. There's nowhere else like it on the planet. Literally,
Speaker 4: there is no place like the Kimbles on the planet.
Speaker 3: And he described the song lines here as a kind
Speaker 3: of mapping flowing with the Fitzroy River and its tributaries
Speaker 3: and also its water holes and underground aquifers.
Speaker 4: As indigenous people in the Kimbleis, we've always revered water
Speaker 4: as being the source of creation.
Speaker 3: There's no other place like it on the planet, with
Speaker 3: not a single extinct local species.
Speaker 1: And can you explain for us exactly what fracking is
Speaker 1: in really simple terms?
Speaker 2: What does it involve?
Speaker 3: So fracking involves rigs that drill down between two and
Speaker 3: five kilometers into the rock and then forces megaleters of
Speaker 3: water and sand and chemicals under high pressure into the
Speaker 3: rock layers to fracture them.
Speaker 2: So this allows many gases to be.
Speaker 3: Collected, and it also involves millions of liters of contaminated
Speaker 3: wastewater to be managed on the land and in this
Speaker 3: case near important tributaries of the Fitzroy River system. So
Speaker 3: what's been proposed is an exploration project of initially twenty wells,
Speaker 3: possibly with a view of up to forty thousand wells
Speaker 3: in future. But these initial twenty wells are called Project Valhalla,
Speaker 3: and Project Valhalla covers an area roughly the size of Tasmania,
Speaker 3: and it covers the Fitzroy River catchment in the Canning Basin,
Speaker 3: which apparently has one of the world's last undeveloped large
Speaker 3: scale reservoirs of onshore gas. And it will also involve
Speaker 3: other infrastructure you know in kind of pristine country, like roads,
Speaker 3: processing plants, a pipeline and wastewater treatment and so on.
Speaker 1: Now, cath fraks been banned in Victoria, Tasmania and South Australia,
Speaker 1: and it used to be banned in WA as well,
Speaker 1: So why was that overturned.
Speaker 3: Yeah, fracking was banned in Western Australia after a state
Speaker 3: inquiry in twenty and seventeen found the economic benefits were
Speaker 3: slight and it found the environmental risks were beyond regulatory scope,
Speaker 3: but that ban was lifted.
Speaker 2: In twenty nineteen.
Speaker 5: The WA government decided to lift a moratorium on fracking
Speaker 5: after an independent scientific inquiry declared the practice safe.
Speaker 3: The West Australian government has said that it only opened
Speaker 3: up about two percent of the state to fracking, but
Speaker 3: frac three advocates say this is disingenuous because most of
Speaker 3: the state can't be fracked anyway, and the Project Valhalla
Speaker 3: itself covers roughly two percent of the state.
Speaker 1: Kath what's been the reaction from people in Kimberly about this?
Speaker 2: What are you hearing?
Speaker 3: The resistance to cracking is very widespread and it seems
Speaker 3: to cross all ideological lines, and there are various surveys
Speaker 3: of residents' attitudes to cracking.
Speaker 2: And these show that an overwhelming.
Speaker 3: Majority of Western Australians oppose it. And the bodies opposing
Speaker 3: it include Environs Kimberly, whose director explained to me how
Speaker 3: residents have been defending the Kimberly from mining since colonization.
Speaker 3: Several indigenous land councils and farmer alliances like Lock the
Speaker 3: Gate and from the First Nation groups voices for Kimberly.
Speaker 3: One traditional owner, Albert Wiggin, told me that there's anxiety
Speaker 3: and mistrust and genuine.
Speaker 6: Fear in Western Australia. There's such a mining orientated state,
Speaker 6: you know, and it has such a significant input into
Speaker 6: our national economy, and so it has a lot of
Speaker 6: influence and power, so to speak, industry and when it
Speaker 6: comes to what the future of Western Australia is going
Speaker 6: to look like.
Speaker 2: And.
Speaker 6: You know, for Indigenous people, I don't think our aspirations
Speaker 6: are necessarily on the cards as well.
Speaker 2: And so but still, Project vel Hella has.
Speaker 3: Secured land agreements with a couple of Indigenous communities and
Speaker 3: this influenced the EPA decision. Other Aboriginal communities in the
Speaker 3: lease area oppose Project vel Heller, especially downstream communities who
Speaker 3: say they haven't been consulted. And Albert Wiggin told me
Speaker 3: about the impacts to downstream communities beyond health and environmental risks.
Speaker 3: He said song lines would be disrupted and so would
Speaker 3: access for some of the traditional owners. He calls Project
Speaker 3: vel Haller the end of my people.
Speaker 4: Really, it kind of defines that the end of my
Speaker 4: people and their ongoing connection, their ongoing relationship with this
Speaker 4: incredible environment.
Speaker 2: So as you can imagine Nicole.
Speaker 3: This has caused a split among First nation groups and
Speaker 3: also within families. Albert says some traditional owners are vulnerable
Speaker 3: to being exploited by promises of fracking royalties because they
Speaker 3: need the financial support that the company.
Speaker 2: Is offering them in return for agreement.
Speaker 1: Coming up the Texan oil man with the Kimberly in
Speaker 1: his sights, Kath, could you tell us about the company
Speaker 1: that is actually behind this project, Black Mountain.
Speaker 3: Yes, so, Black Mountain is the company behind Project Valhalla.
Speaker 3: It's founded and chaired by Ritt Bennett, who is a
Speaker 3: Texan oilman in his mid forties who comes from a
Speaker 3: Kentucky coal family.
Speaker 7: Originally from Kentucky, I grew up in coal country, so
Speaker 7: different part of kind of post fuels. But my family
Speaker 7: had had continuous coal mining operations since nineteen twelve.
Speaker 3: So when the state lifted its fracking band, he bought
Speaker 3: an exploration permit over the Canning basin.
Speaker 7: We can stand up twenty riggs and drill a boatload
Speaker 7: of all and gas wells within six months and really
Speaker 7: gross meaningful production and that responsiveness just doesn't exist the mining.
Speaker 3: This seemed like a brave move because so far the
Speaker 3: Kimberly community has fended off al CoA origin Mitsubishi, but
Speaker 3: Red Bennett is persistent and Black Mountain has now spent
Speaker 3: around forty million on Project Veelhaller, much of it fighting
Speaker 3: through regulatory obstacles. For example, it managed to get an
Speaker 3: exemption to laws forbidding export.
Speaker 2: Of inland gas.
Speaker 3: It repeatedly deferred its required meant to conduct seismic surveys.
Speaker 3: The company claimed Project Valhalla would run with net zero
Speaker 3: carbon emissions, but in twenty twenty three ACID fined it
Speaker 3: for greenwashing and said its sustainability claims had no credible basis.
Speaker 5: The Australian Securities and Investment Commission yesterday announced that it
Speaker 5: issued three infugement notices to Black Mountain Energy for greenwashing.
Speaker 5: The finds relate to AX announcement, including one which claimed
Speaker 5: greenhouse gas emissions associated with its Valhalla project I Fitzroy
Speaker 5: Crossing were net.
Speaker 3: Zero, and then the Federal government's Independent Expert Scientific Committee
Speaker 3: also found the company's claim that downstream water resources wouldn't
Speaker 3: be impacted weren't substantiated, and it also found the company
Speaker 3: had not proved that vulnerable species weren't at risk. These
Speaker 3: include fish, lizards, and mammals that have huge significance to
Speaker 3: indigenous residents. And there's also Ret Bennett's eyebrow raising past
Speaker 3: comments that suggest a climate skeptic mindset.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I guess there would have been volcanoes, et cetera.
Speaker 7: Just the natural cyclicality of the Earth, which I sometimes
Speaker 7: think we're presumptuous and thing like humans are driving kind
Speaker 7: of off every kind of climate event that occurs.
Speaker 3: But after all these setbacks and regulatory roadblocks, the West
Speaker 3: Australian EPA found the risks from Project val Heller were
Speaker 3: insignificant and recommended it for ministerial approval with conditions that
Speaker 3: the company is happy with. So this suggests to some
Speaker 3: people that the company has friends in government.
Speaker 2: The project.
Speaker 1: It's now at this stage where it needs approval from
Speaker 1: both the federal and the WA Environment ministers.
Speaker 2: Do you think that's looking likely? It's hard to tell.
Speaker 3: There have been an unprecedented number of objections to the
Speaker 3: EPA's decision in the Kimberly community. Now that community consists
Speaker 3: of only around forty thousand people, but there were more
Speaker 3: than eight thousand formal objections appealing to the EPA. Many
Speaker 3: of these objections came from outside the state, and groups
Speaker 3: like Environ's Kimberly as saying that their campaign really needs
Speaker 3: nationwide mobilization.
Speaker 8: Everyone understands how special the Kimberly is and it's completely
Speaker 8: unacceptable to have industrialization through oil and gas fracking.
Speaker 3: I spoke with Environ's Kimberly director Martin Pritchard, who told
Speaker 3: me that people are absolutely aghast and that they see
Speaker 3: the Kimberly as a sacred cultural and environmental landscape and
Speaker 3: they can't understand how the EPA made this recommendation.
Speaker 8: Today we've had the outrageous news that the West Australian
Speaker 8: EPA has recommended that fracking could go ahead in the Kimberley.
Speaker 8: This is the worst decision the EPA's made in years
Speaker 8: in Western Australia.
Speaker 1: What is it that Black Mountain is promising to the
Speaker 1: local community in return for this access.
Speaker 3: So, among other things, Black Mountain is promising a couple
Speaker 3: of traditional owner groups, possible royalties, football team sponsorship, laptops,
Speaker 3: community funding including science classes. Among people objecting, there's a
Speaker 3: strong belief that the bulk of financial benefits, though, would
Speaker 3: go offshore, especially as gas said sports are being taxed
Speaker 3: in Australia. There aren't easily access details of Black Mountain
Speaker 3: employment and financial projections, but of course there would be
Speaker 3: some employment involved in fracking and building infrastructure, and locals
Speaker 3: do argue that this would be more than offset by
Speaker 3: damage to the tourism industry, which trades on the region
Speaker 3: being in a pristine state. So it's a bit tricky,
Speaker 3: and of course the damage to indigenous culture can't be
Speaker 3: quantified in financial terms.
Speaker 1: And cas do you think that the community at the
Speaker 1: end of the day can actually win the fight here
Speaker 1: or the odds really stacked against them in terms of
Speaker 1: being able to defeat an oil company and possibly even
Speaker 1: the state government on this.
Speaker 3: We'll have to wait for the appeals process to complete
Speaker 3: sometime this year to see if the state's Environment Minister,
Speaker 3: Matthew Swinburne will accept the EPA recommendation. But the interesting
Speaker 3: thing about this fight is that the majority of the
Speaker 3: labor government, the state labor government itself seems to oppose fracking.
Speaker 3: The Western Australian Labor Party Conference was held in November
Speaker 3: last year, and its members vote to ban fracking, so
Speaker 3: that's really confusing and for those fighting, the next step
Speaker 3: might involve electoral pressure, with Labor having already seen damage
Speaker 3: in seats where fracking.
Speaker 2: Has become an issue.
Speaker 3: Martin Pritchard from Environs Kimberly told me the safe Labor
Speaker 3: seat of Fremantle was nearly lost last election to an
Speaker 3: independent who took up the Kimberly fracking cause. And he
Speaker 3: also warned that the Labor Party suffered the near loss
Speaker 3: of its prize Kimberly seat in twenty thirteen to the Greens,
Speaker 3: and this was amid the fight against Woodside's proposed gas refinery.
Speaker 3: So based on past victories, it would seem a no
Speaker 3: win scenario for Black Mountain, especially as the company had
Speaker 3: to delist from the Australian Stock Exchange after failing to
Speaker 3: attract investment capital. The fracking issue and mining issues generally
Speaker 3: in Western Australia have generated the most extraordinary galvanization and
Speaker 3: mobilization across the country. Most of those objections to the
Speaker 3: EPA didn't come from the Kimberley itself. It came from
Speaker 3: outside West Australia and Australia wide, so I think this
Speaker 3: is really quite an extraordinary story of grassroots mobilization against
Speaker 3: big companies, a succession of big companies who have a
Speaker 3: lot of clout and government and yet you know, still,
Speaker 3: this is an extraordinary story of people power that has
Speaker 3: seen this whole region kept in its pristine state.
Speaker 1: Cath thanks so much for joining us.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Nicole.
Speaker 1: We'll be back tomorrow with an episode on the first
Speaker 1: e Safety report on the government's teen social media ban,
Speaker 1: with kids getting around it and reporting the same level
Speaker 1: of online abuse. The early results are not looking good.
Speaker 9: I think it's a red flashing light for the policy.
Speaker 9: It confirmed how much circumvention there is of the ban.
Speaker 9: About seventy percent of them said they still had them
Speaker 9: after the ban. That is very, very widespread. They said
Speaker 9: their number of reports about cyber buoying and image based
Speaker 9: abuse on those platforms that have been banned from teens
Speaker 9: in the age group that were meant to be banned
Speaker 9: had not changed.
Speaker 1: So is it a failure or is the government right
Speaker 1: to ask for more patients. I'm Nicole Johnston and this
Speaker 1: is seven AM.
Speaker 2: Thanks for listening.