Dorinda Cox (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In the recent estimates sessions, the chief of Australia's Navy apologised for not consulting with First Peoples about the construction on Meandup / Garden Island, the home of HMAS Stirling in my home state of Western Australia, which is less than five kilometres off the shore in the Derbal Nara, the Cockburn Sound. A subsequent meeting with the Navy was cancelled and we are still waiting for a rescheduled meeting. First Nations people have not been given a chance to be heard, and yet the work on this project continues.

This is an indication of how AUKUS is causing issues across the country already. The nuclear waste dumps are sure to follow, and I will lay odds that the proposal for waste dumps on First Nations land is coming soon. We know this history all too well. You only have to look as far as Maralinga. The costly AUKUS deal binds us to the US military-industrial complex and brings with it all the disrespect towards First Nations land that comes with it—destroying our land and sea country.

I want to see the 65,000 years worth of songlines—the songline of the Mamang, the whale, that goes right through this area—and the other tangible and intangible cultural heritage that litters the place around Garden Island and around the Derbal Nara protected from these types of projects. I've met recently with community members who are calling for a stop to this, but their calls are falling on deaf ears, as Labor do not listen. I don't want to see land that's been ravaged and destroyed returned to First Peoples; I want to see Labor's promised cultural heritage laws brought forward, and I don't want to see exceptions to that that made for military bases and waste dumps. AUKUS is about US subs. There's only a small chance of Australian ones. Don't talk about sovereignty when you're handing it away under a deal.