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.  

Western Australia’s vast treasures of tropical landscapes, coral reefs and abundant marine life, and the forests of the south-west, shape our identity. The emphatic wins of the Australian Labor Party in WA come at a time when the challenges to the very things that are part of our DNA in this great State have never been greater.

West Australians and the nation issued a sweeping rejection of extreme right-wing politics, nuclear power and unrelenting attacks on nature. Instead, they have voted for action on climate change, real protection for nature and a clean energy future.

Scott Reef – coral wonderland at risk from oil and gas industrialisation. Photo: Alex Westover.

Meanwhile, climate change is in full force and sandgropers are paying billions of dollars to tackle the crisis. The lack of rainfall in the south-west is desperate. Another six months of low rainfall will be devastating for already parched rivers, creeks and aquifers. Perth doesn't have enough rainfall to reliably provide water to its 2.3 million people. Billions have been and are about to be spent on making seawater drinkable. Hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent on repairing flood-damaged roads, bridges, homes and infrastructure following the January 2023 floods in the Kimberley's Fitzroy Crossing. Forest collapse began in earnest after last year’s five-month dry spell in the south-west summer.

Fitzroy Crossing bridge collapsing in the biggest flood in WA's recorded history. Photo: Andrea Myers.

The science is unequivocal; emissions from burning fossil fuels are driving us towards an unrecognisable WA devoid of forests, coral reefs and tropical savannah, not to mention the increase in temperatures. More days over 35° and 40° are about to make life much more challenging, even dangerous, especially for the very young and old. According to the CSIRO and Bureau of Meteorology, Fitzroy Crossing is headed for 225 days over 40 degrees by 2090 if we keep burning fossil fuels at the same rate. The conservative International Energy Agency has said that no more new fossil fuel basins can be opened if we are to have a safe climate.

The Albanese government knows this is happening. The choice it faces now is whether to greenlight Woodside and unleash billions of tonnes of carbon emissions by extending the North West Shelf project to 2070, drill and kill Scott Reef, and frack the Kimberley, or have the courage to reject these retrograde industries to protect our climate. The wrong decisions would cause untold damage to our climate-stressed forests, reefs and water.

World’s most intact tropical savannah under threat from climate change. Photo: Damian Kelly.

Younger generations can see and understand what’s happening as they flock to political parties and candidates who vow to fight for the interests of a future climate that will render the world habitable, will Albo heed them?

Will his government keep our climate safe, reject the North West Shelf extension and invest in the biggest rollout ever of clean energy and green industries? With two terms of government ahead for an Albanese government, what will be the fate of future generations resulting from its decisions?

This is the week that will determine the Albanese government’s bequest to future generations.

This will be your legacy, Prime Minister.

Martin Pritchard has been working on conservation in Western Australia for 25 years and is the Executive Director of Broome based conservation group Environs Kimberley.