The Western Australian Government recently acquired 3414 hectares of land at James Price Point, near Broome. It is the latest move in the continuing saga to develop the Browse Basin's liquefied natural gas (LNG), reserves that are now likely to be processed offshore. This controversial story is being played out on the national stage by heavy hitters from Indigenous and environmental organisations, the state and industry.
On the other side of the country, the building of four LNG processing plants on Curtis Island, off Gladstone, Qld, is proceeding more smoothly. Yet, while the traditional owners of James Price Point have received international attention, Gladstone traditional owners have barely been heard.
In WA, the land use agreements struck between the Goolarabooloo Jabirr Jabirr people, the state and Woodside Energy were worth at least $1.5 billion, including land packages and funds for health, education and training. In Gladstone, the equivalent agreements are 'crumbs off the master's table', say traditional owners.
Walk through Gladstone and you feel the LNG industry's prominence: from the multiple shopfronts of gas companies including Santos, Origin and Arrow, to the lack of discussion about the negative impact that dredging is said to have on the Great Barrier Reef.
The local Indigenous people claiming ownership of Curtis Island are known as the Port Curtis Coral Coast (PCCC) people, an amalgam of the Gooreng Gooreng, Gurang, Bailai and Bunda peoples. All four LNG projects have negotiated land access agreements with this group, none of which are publically available. However, the snippets of information that I hear about them are telling.
Tony Johnson, a PCCC traditional owner, tells me that 'the four of them ... do not total $10 million. It's obscene. I couldn't honestly say that we got the best of a bad lot.' I ask a manager from Santos' Aboriginal Engagement whether he has seen the Browse agreements. They are 'very generous' he replies. I ask him whether any of the Gladstone agreements are in the same ballpark. 'No,' he says, they are in 'a different stratosphere'.
In Broome, discussions between traditional owners, Woodside and the state took years to complete, and cost at least $40 million. The Kimberly Land Council was funded to employ lawyers, media advisors, scientists and LNG industry consultants. In contrast, engagement with the PCCC was perfunctory and short. Santos had a negotiation period comprising just five meetings, prior to which the company had already worked out a reasonable 'jump-in' point for compensation.
I ask the Santos manager whether any groups are able to push past that initial offer. 'They try to,' he says. Do they ever succeed? 'No, not really.'
There are many reasons for these disparities. The Kimberley is iconic and its Indigenous owners — people like Wayne Bergmann, Pat Dodson and Peter Yu — have political clout. Gladstone just doesn't have the same profile.
Another difference is the strength of native title rights at the two sites. At James Price Point, the land has only ever been owned by Indigenous people. Around Gladstone, traditional owners were booted off their land early in the colonial history of Queensland: a loss of connection to country means that native title rights are diminished.
Andrew Fraser, the former Queensland treasurer, says that this explains the gulf between the compensation being offered in Gladstone and Broome. Yet, as the former CEO of Woodside Don Voelte pointed out recently, the Browse package was not only about paying for land, but also 'sharing the rewards' of the LNG project. Indeed, when the land at James Price Point was commercially valued it was said to be worth just $6–7 million.
Another difference between the two projects is how much traditional owners were funded to negotiate. In Gladstone, they had only legal advice, paid for by the LNG companies. They asked for more help from Queensland, but this was refused. Fraser says the role of governments in these negotiations is to 'set the rules of the game', however 'the idea that government needs to be [traditional owners'] agent in a negotiation is paternalistic'.
Yet, the government did play a role. As Johnson observed of his negotiations with the companies: 'When we were digging our heels in on any particular issue, including protecting significant cultural sites, we would always find ourselves in a meeting with the deputy director coordinator general ... and they would bring out the old compulsory acquisition stick.'
Indeed, Queensland is a major beneficiary of these projects. The day after a 'shut up' deal was signed with Santos, the PCCC learnt that the state would be receiving $200 million annually in royalties from that company. Several people travelled to Santos headquarters in Brisbane and burnt an effigy of the manager I have been speaking to. He says this did not bother him, that none of the publicity about the protest had gone 'mainstream'.
Lily O'Neill is a lawyer and PhD student researching the Indigenous land use agreements for the Browse and Gladstone LNG developments.