Interview transcript (SKY NEWS), 18.09.2009
KLC CEO Wayne Bergmann speaks with Sky News journalist Kieran Gilbert after a busy week of meetings in Canberra. In a wide-ranging discussion, Bergmann discusses the risks and opportunities faced by Traditional Owners facing a gas precinct at James Price Point.
KIERAN GILBERT: There’s been much publicity over the massive Gorgon gas development off the WA coast, not as much surrounding Woodside’s Browse Basin proposals off the Kimberley. Of course, it is big news for the traditional owners there. Earlier, I spoke to the Kimberley Land Council chief executive, Wayne Bergmann, about the development proposals.
Wayne Bergmann, executive director of the Kimberley Land Council, appreciate your time. First of all, I want to start with why you’re in Canberra at Parliament House. You’ve been speaking to MPs and Senators. What’s been the reaction and what’s been your message to them?
WAYNE BERGMANN: Look, it’s been very positive. We wanted the Australian Government to understand that Aboriginal people in the Kimberley are really concerned about the social impacts from major development.
We’re currently involved with the Browse Basin negotiation with Woodside, and we need the Commonwealth to come along the journey with us to ensure the project delivers real clad iron commitments to make social change, employment training, jobs, participation in the economy, because we understand the history of development in other parts of Western Australia like Roebourne, Karratha, the North West Shelf development. Aboriginal people were not participants or part of that and had further been marginalised and we think as a result, end up with far more complicated social issues to operate in that community.
KIERAN GILBERT: Because Woodside – the agreements have been signed but not the specifics of them in terms of the legacy of the agreement and the benefits that might be accrued to the Indigenous people.
WAYNE BERGMANN: Yeah. We have a Heads of Agreement signed, which gives in principle support to the development at James Price Point about 60 k’s north of Broome, the details of which have to be negotiated.
There are some time lines. We haven’t yet had the opportunity to finalise the details of those negotiations, but in it we are seeking commitments also, not part of this package but part of the broader commitment from the Prime Minister’s Closing the Gap strategy to ensure that Aboriginal people will be better off from this development.
This is a huge development. Construction costs are, you know, up around $50 billion; royalties to the Commonwealth over the life, $50 billion to $65 billion depending on oil prices.
It is a huge economic project. You’d have up to 6000 jobs. We currently have about 7000 Aboriginal people unemployed on the Community Work for the Dole scheme.
This is the project, we think, that we can all jump on the same boat and create a positive legacy for…
KIERAN GILBERT: [Interrupts] So it’s far from just about money.
WAYNE BERGMANN: Yeah. Look, this has never been about money. This has been about minimising development. There are commitments in this agreement that will restrict the nature of LNG processing so you won’t have the nasty part of LNG development like chemicals to liquids. The commitment from the Premier is that this will be the cleanest LNG plant just focusing on liquids, processing the offshore gas into LNG.
So I think it’s really an exciting opportunity, but it also provides the ability for all the other Aboriginal traditional owners in the group to also protect some wider cultural values through parallel processes happening with the state about the science in conservation strategy that the new govern… current Liberal Government in Western Australia is talking about.
But also with Peter Garrett’s National Heritage listing process, it’s really opened us – opened things up to create a balance between making a compromise for a major disturb… you can’t make an omelette without breaking an egg. There are – it will have an impact, but we have to look at the wider benefits of improving the wellbeing of our people.
KIERAN GILBERT: And at the start of your relationship, I suppose, if you can describe it like that, with the Premier of Western Australia, Colin Barnett, it wasn’t so smooth but you’re happy with the way his government’s handled it and indeed, broader to that, the way that Woodside has been involved and that it has been an agreeable approach to it
WAYNE BERGMANN: Yeah. Look, there’s no secret that when the new government came into power, there was a lot of stone throwing. We’ve gone past that phase. Now it’s about making it happen, making sure the real commitments are there, and the same at Woodside. Everybody is going to stake their reputations on this. If the project can’t deliver real change, well then, there’s no point in having it.
So there’s been commitments by Jenny Macklin about a Closing the Gap strategy focusing on the Dampier Peninsula West Kimberley region to make sure Aboriginal people are on a level playing field to be active participants in this development, with housing – extra housing support, health and education. So there’s a lot of commitment about making this project work.
So yeah, if we can’t do – if we’re not going – if those commitments aren’t going to happen, then there’s no point in having a project. It cannot be development at any cost.
KIERAN GILBERT: Well, Wayne Bergmann, the – I suppose a recent example of that is the oil spill up off the north-west, which has been approaching the Kimberley coast. What’s been the reaction in your community to that environmental disaster?
WAYNE BERGMANN: Major concern. A lot of traditional owners have come to us, very concerned that why wasn’t it contained earlier, what were the conditions imposed on the project. Why – I think it’s taking something like two or three months before they’re going to start containing it and millions of litres of condensate have been just spilling into the ocean.
So we – this is a point in question for Peter Garrett, who will do the final environment approval. Appropriate conditions need to be put on these developments to ensure that these risks are managed. They can’t happen. We can’t believe that there wasn’t any containment facilities right there stopping this spill.
So our mob have gotten very nervous because there’s no way we want that. We thought by having a hub we would be able to manage impacts, physical impacts, far more easier.
But it seems that there are other developments off the Kimberley Coast that are – I don’t know – I’m concerned whether they’re cowboy operations. And probably the most responsible thing to do is a review of all those environmental management plans they have in place because obviously what’s in place as the moment hasn’t worked and we certainly want environmental conditions imposed to prevent these kind of things happening in the future.
KIERAN GILBERT: So what’s the latest advice you’ve received about the environmental impact on the Kimberley coast? At last reports it hadn’t reached the coast but they’re worried about migratory birds and other species that might have detrimental impact to the wildlife there.
WAYNE BERGMANN: Yeah what’s – it hasn’t reached the coast but what we understand is a number of marine animals, birds, sea snakes, fish, turtles have swum through these – this oil plume and as a result been contaminated, and some have died. I mean this is just not acceptable in a modern economy that’s supposed to have some of the most sophisticated environmental conditions about protecting these kind of values.
I mean also it’s a point in question for the Browse Basin project is the environmental studies ain’t going to be completed for traditional owners to have a look at until March, May next year. So we are acting on – acting responsibly, so we’re telling the state and Woodside that we won’t be able to make a decision about how this project is going to be managed until we are able to see what those final reports look like, and what are the management conditions being put in place to deal with those impacts.
KIERAN GILBERT: Just one final question – one final issue I want to ask you about, and that relates to the indigenous representative body proposed by the Social Justice Commissioner, Indigenous Social Justice Commissioner Tom Calma. What did you make of his proposal; do you think it’s a good idea? It’s been described as the new ATSIC, an improved ATSIC, do you think that he makes some good points?
WAYNE BERGMANN: Oh look I think it’s absolutely necessary for Aboriginal people to have a national voice. That national voice has to come from a grass roots level and have the mandate and authority of Aboriginal people from various regions. We absolutely need one. If Aboriginal people are to take greater control over directing their well being then that has to have a body to be able to engage as equals with the Government about social policy because the alternative is that we sit back in our regions and wait for bureaucrats, politicians to tell us what’s for our own good, and I think there’s been 200 years of that. I mean ATSIC had a very short life, I’m sure the Commonwealth and State parliaments they have peaks and troughs, goes up and down, but we don’t throw the parliament out.
There was an opportunity really to re-mould ATSIC under Howard’s time to deal with some of the concerns they had rather than throw the baby out with the bathwater. So I think it has been a hard job for Tom to get the discussion, getting it happening. It’s no different to dealing with any society, how do you know what the society wants if you don’t have a conversation with them? And then who has the mandate to have the conversation with?
So I think it’s really timely that a representative body – and I think it’s cheap for people to keep throwing stones at the word ATSIC. At the end of the day the wider public and the politicians know that ATSIC never really had the responsibility to deliver health, education, housing, they only had top-up services to advocate for policy and play with social welfare money.
So I think if we wanted to throw it out – and I think the Government departments, Health, Education, Housing, they are the primary Government bodies that are supposed to deliver to its citizens, then the question should be why aren’t they delivering to their citizens? Maybe we need to sever pieces of them and throw them out with the bathwater and put someone new.
You know it’s just like running a business; if you have a non-functioning business unit that doesn’t generate outcomes or an income stream for you, you remove your management and put in place people to deliver. And I think that’s what needs to happen in Aboriginal Affairs, we need to be tougher on the people in lines of – who have responsibility to delivering these things, and they need to get their marching orders if they can’t deliver.
KIERAN GILBERT: Are you confident about the future and about the representation of indigenous people in Australia?
WAYNE BERGMANN: It has to happen. I think we have a – there’s a sense of a lull, but there has to be – Aboriginal people are very concerned about our poor social conditions. In the last 12 months there’s 12 or 15 suicides in the Kimberley, that’s over one a month. That’s an indigenous population of around 15,000. So that’s half the size of a federal electorate.
Can you imagine if there was someone suiciding in a federal electorate every month in one of the major cities – suburbs? It would be a national crisis, we’d be doing something about it today, trying to address it. And indigenous communities in remote areas and Aboriginal people around the place are being impacted on that. And so, I don’t know, I think there’ll be – leadership will have to rise out of the dust to work with Government to find the solution.
And it shouldn’t matter who’s in power, Labor or Liberal, it shouldn’t matter, these things are about the wellbeing of people, of human beings, you know? It’s about just a decent level of respect and making sure we’re all healthy participants in society. Because if we don’t get it right, the cost to Australia as a whole is going to be ongoing. And a lot of people have killed themselves over trying to make the effort to improve the social conditions, and I think through a national body we’ll be able to get our voice to influence some of the policies that directly affect us.
KIERAN GILBERT: Wayne Bergmann, appreciate your time. Thank you very much.
WAYNE BERGMANN: Thank you.
