Perdaman has been asked to pause work on its $4.5 billion urea plant on the Burrup Peninsula in Western Australia due to cultural heritage concerns.
On Monday, Traditional custodians of Murujuga, also known as the Burrup Peninsula, wrote to the Federal Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek and Indigenous Affairs Minister Linda Burney, demanding immediate intervention following works approval for the Perdaman fertiliser plant on the Burrup including the removal of several sacred rock art sites.
The letter, sent by Murujuga custodians Raelene Cooper and Josie Alec, requested the Ministers to:
- Contact Perdaman immediately and request that the company does not commence any works until the Minister has determined the outstanding section 9 application;
- Use their ministerial powers to stop ‘the serious and immediate threat of injury or desecration’ to our cultural heritage through Perdaman’s completely inappropriate project.
- Immediately appoint a section 10 reporter to consider overall industrial impacts to our cultural heritage on the Burrup as requested in the application of 9 February 2022.
Murujuga traditional custodians first applied for emergency assessment of cultural heritage impacts under Section 9 and Section 10 of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Heritage Protection Act (ATSHIPA) on 9 February this year, more than five months ago.
Section 9 of the Act provides for a 60 day moratorium on any works while Section 10 of the Act allows the appointment of a Reporter to assess cultural heritage impacts of industry.
An initial stop work order was issued to Perdaman to allow Ministerial consideration of the emergency Section 9 application which was rejected in March on the grounds that Perdaman were unable to commence work on the fertiliser plant within 60 days without works approval and management plans.
Following the Federal election, custodians again wrote to new Environment Minister and Indigenous Affairs Minister renewing the Section 9 application and requesting the appointment of a Reporter to assess the cultural heritage impacts of industry on the Burrup, as per Section 10 of ATSHIPA. They received no response to either request.
On 14 July, the WA Department of Water and Environmental Regulation granted final works approval for the Perdaman Fertiliser Plant on the Burrup, which includes the removal of three rock art sites and impacts multiple other sacred sites within the footprint of the proposed plant.
Murujuga traditional custodians spoke earlier this month at the United Nations in Geneva about industrial impacts on sacred Murujuga rock art.
Tootsie Daniel, senior Yindjibarndi elder and member of the Murujuga Aboriginal Corporation Circle of Elders cultural advisory group, said:
“We don’t want any of our rock engravings to be removed, or the sites to be removed from their original places – it’s their homeland.
“We want to protect Murujuga for our own children, our family, because our children need to learn from it, because Murujuga is like a Bible.”
Mardudhunera custodian Raelene Cooper, the former Chair of the Murujuga Aboriginal Corporation, said they had presented an open letter at WA Parliament and addressed the United Nations in Geneva explaining how government and industry are recklessly ignoring their rights as Indigenous peoples on Murujuga.
“We organised the largest protest the Burrup has ever seen last weekend, with 100 custodians and Elders marching out on Murujuga to the proposed site of the Perdaman fertiliser plant.
“Less than a week later we get the news they are going ahead anyway. At no point have the government or industry listened to traditional custodians of Murujuga.”
“I’m just really really concerned that this cultural destruction could happen any time. They’ve been calling Murujuga the Juukan Gorge in slow motion. Well this could be Juukan Gorge tomorrow if the Minister doesn’t act right now. And we won’t let that happen.”
Perdaman has plans to convert gas, supplied by Woodside’s Scarborough project, into an estimated two million tonnes of urea fertiliser each year. Urea is a form of fertiliser widely used in the production of food. Perdaman has secured natural gas for 20 years from Woodside under the Gas Supply Agreement signed in November 2018.