![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
miriam_eDammit! Every now and then giant corporations and government show themselves to be totally untrustworthy.
Oil and gas giant Woodside (along with joint venture partners Shell, Chevron, BHP-Billiton and BP) have been negotiating with the traditional owners to be able to use their land in order to build a 30 billion dollar gas processing plant. Negotiations have been proceeding, with some landowners agreeing, and some disagreeing. An "in-principle" agreement was signed last year, however a formal agreement hasn't yet been reached. The rich and powerful have now decided that negotiation is too slow when they can just steal the land, so West Australian premier Bartlett has announced that his government will do just that. They use bureaucratese-speak, calling it "compulsory acquisition", but it is really stealing the land (they will pay a pittance to the landowners so that they can pretend it isn't theft, but if you steal someone's car and leave them a few dollars it is still theft).
It seems that negotiations are fine only so long as the rich and powerful get what they want, as fast as they want it. No. They were never really negotiating.
We should be weaning ourselves off fossil fuels, not opening up more. But if we decide that we absolutely must extract this gas then we should have the decency to do it without trampling the rights of citizens.
Incidentally, the land the rich and powerful want to damage has items of great interest for the world scientific community, not just the local owners -- there is archaeologically important rock art that is probably more ancient than the famous cave paintings in Lascaux, France (imagine the uproar if miners wanted to destroy those), and there are paleontologically important prehistoric bird footprints dating back millions of years, perhaps hundreds of millions of years. Also the ecosystems of the region are pristine and fragile and exist nowhere else in the world. If these monsters get the green light to do what they want here they will just destroy anything in their path. We need to force them to tread lightly if the thing does end up going ahead. But far more important is that theft is just plain wrong.
Send a message to the crooks that Australians are angry:
http://www.getup.org.au/campaign/Homelands
Oil and gas giant Woodside (along with joint venture partners Shell, Chevron, BHP-Billiton and BP) have been negotiating with the traditional owners to be able to use their land in order to build a 30 billion dollar gas processing plant. Negotiations have been proceeding, with some landowners agreeing, and some disagreeing. An "in-principle" agreement was signed last year, however a formal agreement hasn't yet been reached. The rich and powerful have now decided that negotiation is too slow when they can just steal the land, so West Australian premier Bartlett has announced that his government will do just that. They use bureaucratese-speak, calling it "compulsory acquisition", but it is really stealing the land (they will pay a pittance to the landowners so that they can pretend it isn't theft, but if you steal someone's car and leave them a few dollars it is still theft).
It seems that negotiations are fine only so long as the rich and powerful get what they want, as fast as they want it. No. They were never really negotiating.
We should be weaning ourselves off fossil fuels, not opening up more. But if we decide that we absolutely must extract this gas then we should have the decency to do it without trampling the rights of citizens.
Incidentally, the land the rich and powerful want to damage has items of great interest for the world scientific community, not just the local owners -- there is archaeologically important rock art that is probably more ancient than the famous cave paintings in Lascaux, France (imagine the uproar if miners wanted to destroy those), and there are paleontologically important prehistoric bird footprints dating back millions of years, perhaps hundreds of millions of years. Also the ecosystems of the region are pristine and fragile and exist nowhere else in the world. If these monsters get the green light to do what they want here they will just destroy anything in their path. We need to force them to tread lightly if the thing does end up going ahead. But far more important is that theft is just plain wrong.
Send a message to the crooks that Australians are angry:
http://www.getup.org.au/campaign/Homelands
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2010-09-07 11:24 am (UTC)Shell, Chevron, BHPBilliton and BP are basically over a barrel and don't want to develop Browse LNG. They also probably don't want the hassle.
I'd prefer Browse Gas were piped to the Pilbara too.
no subject
Date: 2010-09-07 12:59 pm (UTC)Yes, the lowest impact method should be chosen. I wonder why Woodside and Barnett are so against the cheaper, less confrontational approach. And why the bully attitude with the landowners? It makes me really want Barnett and Woodside to get smacked down thoroughly... and I truly hope it hurts them.
no subject
Date: 2010-09-07 02:30 pm (UTC)Woodside is under pressure to develop the gas. Not only is there a limited window in which to develop it and secure the long-term contracts needed, but they've been sitting on Browse since the 1970s (IIRC it was Woodside's first North-West Shelf discovery), and Federal Labor has been pushing a 'use-it-or-lose-it' policy to stop natural resources being locked away.
This is the test case.
Woodside used this pressure, did a back room deal and wrote a series of licence conditions that put pressure on the other resource owners to either fall in or sell out. Either way, Woodside gets what it wants since the junior partners won't just give up their slice of 20 trillion cubic feet of gas, or whatever it is.
Woodside then gains first mover advantage in the area where, likely, only one development will go ahead. It then sets the terms for everyone else who wants to bring their gas ashore.
It is also competing in a tight labor market, so it can move its construction contracts and workforce from Pluto to Browse.
Barnett gets to keep the contract in WA (we lost Inpex to the NT), and has another ego monument (he has a thing about grand projects - the Oakagee Port at Geraldton is another one which is apparently ill-advised).
There's other stuff going on there I am not sure of.
On the Aboriginal side is blame too, with the various bodies playing silly buggers. By dragging the negotiations out the KLC and ALS are skimming off the cream. There are also suggestions they aren't acting for all traditional owners, some of whom are for this, some of whom aren't.