Ignore local community protests, says Gina Rinehart CEO while standing in front of landscape community protests protected.
Kimberley residents protested outside the News Corp Australian Bush Summit event sponsored by mining billionaire Gina Rinehart. They called on Ms Rinehart to respect the region's nature and raised concerns about Ms. Rinehart's mining company, Hancock Prospecting, and its application for five mining exploration licenses on her Kimberley stations.
Instead of listening to the local community, CEO of Hancock Iron Ore Gerhard Veldsman used his presentation to castigate ‘Net-Zero’ as an “absurd energy policy” and dismissed “noisy, minority activists” as people who should be ignored.
Kimberley residents protest outside the Australian Bush Summit. Photo: Wendy Mitchell.
Environs Kimberley executive director Martin Pritchard, who attended the event, said:
“The Australian Bush Summit in Broome was clearly being used by Ms Gina Rinehart to platform her anti ‘Net-zero’ campaign. A video made by the right-wing Advance lobby group was played and there was a significant attack on renewable energy.”
“Ironically the backdrop to the speakers was a large photograph of James Price Point on the Kimberley coast where Woodside planned one of the biggest LNG refineries in the world which they abandoned in 2013 after 5 years of protests in a campaign driven by Broome locals,” Mr Pritchard said.
James Price Point, proposed site of Woodside's LNG refineries - abandoned after years of protests, backdrop to the Australian Bush Summit. Photo: Environs Kimberley.
“Ex-NT Chief Minister and Hancock Agriculture CEO Adam Giles was surprised when I told him that the only reason, they could use that beautiful photo was because of ‘noisy, minority activists’ who protested the gas refineries and forced Woodside to abandon the project there,” he said.
“I asked Mr Giles if he accepted the science on climate change and he said he did, but that he didn’t believe in net-zero. When asked what he thought could solve the problem of too many emissions, he could only say, ‘I’ve got my thoughts about it’. He dismissed CSIRO and BoM modelling showing that the Kimberley would be unliveable if the current emissions trajectory was maintained, by saying ‘that’s a load of shit’ and walked off.”
“Given that pastoral stations owned by Ms Rinehart in the Kimberley are likely to be significantly impacted by climate change, Mr Giles’ dismissal of temperature modelling appears to fly in the face of good business sense which would be to plan for foreseeable risks,” said Mr Pritchard.
Broome residents at the protest made it really clear there would be fierce opposition to Gina Rinehart opening up the Kimberley to mining.
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