Jacinta Nampijinpa Price (NT, Country Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Indigenous Australians) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak to the latest issues regarding lawfare that is being used against development, particularly in relation to places supposedly significant to Indigenous Australians, following today's article in the Australian headlined 'Inside lawfare plot to block Santos's $5.8 billion Barossa gas project'. The exploitation of Indigenous people and cultural heritage in this country is fraud, and it needs to be treated as such. We're currently not taking this issue seriously enough. This fraudulent conduct is being allowed to fester and grow. Those who miss out most significantly from this fraudulent conduct are our most marginalised Indigenous Australians.

We're seeing more and more projects being shut down and land being locked up because we aren't willing to call out this behaviour for what it is. The McPhillamys gold mine in Blayney was just one demonstration of this kind of fraud that this government is supportive of. A billion-dollar project which would have contributed hundreds of millions of dollars in royalties to the local economy as well as hundreds of jobs was stopped because of this fraudulent conduct.

Let me look to the Barossa project now. There's already Indigenous exploitation happening at the hands of the Environmental Defenders Office in the Barossa project. The Federal Court itself found that the Environmental Defenders Office had acted improperly with respect to Indigenous witnesses involved with this case, but now we have more evidence of this conduct. Today's story in the Australian is a further indictment on groups like the EDO who are raging activists, hell-bent on antidevelopment agendas. They are willing to fabricate and stretch the truth all in the pursuit of their ideological agenda.

Reports today note that the cultural heritage report which underpinned the EDO's objection to the project was not just independently created. Dr O'Leary has got a fancy title before his name. He's been to university. He no doubt learned all about Aboriginal culture in his university degree. He was the cultural expert in this regard. He was in regular contact with Ms Antonia Burke, a lead campaigner for Stop Barossa Gas, and they prepared the report. This doctor, who referred to himself as 'just a whitefella', prepared this report. The two of them devised a sea country map identifying sacred locations of Mother Ampiji and Crocodile Man songline. This map and the report were both sent to the Environmental Defenders Office lawyers for editing before they met with Tiwi Islanders. The reports today note that the cultural expert, Mr O'Leary, was open to moving the location of the Rainbow Serpent to where it seemed most culturally appropriate. Good on him for interfering with traditional Aboriginal culture!

Seriously, this is disgusting. This is a place where we talk about respecting our First Nations people, traditional owners of the land, with all the virtue signalling that occurs from this government and from the Greens, who purport to be the champions for Indigenous Australians. Ultimately, you can just make stuff up. That's considered respectful conduct? I don't think so. It's deeply, deeply insulting. It's actually personal to me because yirrikipayi / jikapayinga (crocodile) is my personal Dreaming, from Milikapiti/Snake Bay in the Tiwi Islands. This is happening all over the place. It works for the government when they want to shut down progress and when they want to shut down development, when they're in bed with their Greens coalition, who are deadset against empowering the most marginalised Indigenous Australians in this country.

Political correctness is a weapon of this government and of the Greens. They utilise the EDO for this weaponisation. They know it is wrong, but they're not going to call it out. They will allow it to continue. Senator Cox, who's mentioned in this article, should know better than to have any kind of involvement with people or projects that are willing to engage in this fraudulent behaviour. Too often we see people like Senator Cox and Antonia Burke full of feigned outrage about the treatment of Aboriginal people in this country. We've seen senators concerned about racism in this building. For crying out loud, this is the ultimate act of racism! They're recreating Dreaming stories for the benefit of environmentalists hell-bent on pushing their own agendas. They're not one bit interested in empowering the most marginalised Indigenous people in this country.

People like Antonia Burke, Senator Cox and others—they're fine. They're not living in the same circumstances as those Tiwi Islanders. Their first language is English. They've had an education. They can get employment. They can make the most of the opportunities that are given to them by this country. We hear a lot about white privilege. What about the black privilege in this country? What about the Aboriginal people taking advantage of their own privilege to benefit their agendas and to benefit the agendas of environmental activists that want to shut down this country so that everybody suffers? Marginalised Indigenous Australians suffer. The average Australian suffers. We're seeing it with the closing of climbs, like what is happening in Mount Arapiles. There is no care from this government or the Greens about how that's going to impact communities in this country. This is why we had to say no to the Voice. Could you imagine—if we had the Voice in place, this stuff would be on steroids. It's already bad enough as it is. This is fraud.

The Greens are the party of absolute pretenders. The government knows this, and yet it continues with its coalition relationship with them. They should be utterly ashamed of their complicity in this fraudulent behaviour. The continued funding of the Environmental Defenders Office is completely unacceptable, as we see their conduct in the background exploiting Aboriginal people and Aboriginal culture. It is in stark contrast to all the virtue signalling that goes on in this place and around the country. Why do we bother anymore with welcome to country, with acknowledgement of country, with paying respects? Blah, blah, blah—it means nothing. It means nothing when we see this government continue to fund the Environmental Defenders Office. This Labor government cannot say that it is in favour of progress or development in this country when it continues to fund the Environmental Defenders Office. The only people they're supporting are cashed up environmentalists. They say they care about the environment, and yet they want to wreck the environment with this race towards renewables. They say they despise corporate Australia, yet the Greens are well behind their cashed-up greenie investors. They're going to make a killing out of this government's race towards renewables, an absolute killing, while destroying environments at the same time. It's such hypocrisy. It's hypocrisy at its highest. I don't want to hear about claims of racism in this joint when the Greens want to support this racist conduct to allow the exploitation of Indigenous Australians in this country.