ENVIRONMENT MINISTER BACKS BURRUP FERTILISER PLANT

Around 80 Save Our Songlines supporters gathered near the site of the proposed Perdaman plant in protest last month. Credit: Supplied, Save Our Songlines.

Federal Environment minister Tanya Plibersek has knocked back an application from traditional owners to block a fertiliser plant on Murujuga at the Burrup Peninsula.

Minister Plibersek’s decision means work can begin on Perdaman’s $4.5 billion dollar fertiliser plant.  

Traditional owners from the group Save Our Songlines lodged an application under Section 9 of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Heritage Protection Act to protect five heritage sites within the footprint of the fertiliser plant, including three rock art sites that will be relocated to make way for the project.

Ms Plibersek told ABC Radio National she was confident that the Murujuga Aboriginal Corporation had given support to the relocation.

“Murujuga Aboriginal Corporation, which is the legally constituted and democratically elected Aboriginal organisation which represents the five traditional owners of the land, have agreed that a number of these rock carvings can be moved safely, and another site with a rock carving and some stone work can be protected on the site, even if the fertilizer plant goes ahead,” she said.

Save Our Songlines representatives Josie Alec and Raelene Cooper, who made the application, said in a statement they were disappointed with the decision.

“The Minister suggests the Murujuga Aboriginal Corporation is legally constituted to speak for traditional custodians but its own members and elders say they are gagged and cannot oppose or object to projects,” they said.

“The Minister wrongly suggests that the Murujuga Circle of Elders unanimously approved the Perdaman project but Elders repeatedly expressed opposition to relocating rock art.”

“Last month the whole community came together in the largest ever protest on the Burrup and marched to the proposed Perdaman site, where sacred rock art will be removed and desecrated. The community, the country and the whole world will be outraged if this leads to another Juukan Gorge because the federal government would not stand up to industry and protect sacred Aboriginal sites from further desecration.”

Greens Senator Dorinda Cox told Radio National that the destruction at Murujuga is '“Juukan Gorge 2.0”.

“I think we all know that manufacturing consent is happening all across this country,” she said.

Ms Plibersek said she was still considering a Section 10 application for broader protections of Murujuga from industrial development.