Gomeroi Traditional Owners, unionists and representatives from Lock the Gate Alliance met with NSW MPs on October 25 to make the case to end Santos’ Narrabri coal seam gas project in the Pilliga Forest.
It followed a “Picket the Pipeline” convoy protest, earlier in the month, which travelled through the NSW northwest two weeks ago, holding events along the proposed pipeline route — Narrabri, Gunnedah, Scone, Singleton and Muswellbrook, ending in Newcastle.
Gomeroi Traditional Owners voted overwhelmingly in 2022 against Santos’ Narrabri Gas Project, which involves 850 gas wells across farmland and in the Pilliga Forest.
Later that year, the Native Title Tribunal ruled in favour of Santos. However, Gomeroi Traditional Owners challenged that decision in the Federal Court, which, in March ruled that the Native Title Tribunal should have considered the Narrabri Gas Project’s contribution to climate change when applying the public interest test.
Gomeroi woman Michelle Cutmore, from the New South Wales Nurses and Midwives Association, said the Santos gas project would destroy Gomeroi land and cultural sites. “It will be detrimental to the health and wellbeing of Mob.”
Peggy Smith, also from the New South Wales Nurses and Midwives Association, said Labor must “follow its own climate change act” and “develop a gas decarbonisation roadmap”.
They also addressed how they could play a role in the Native Title redetermination.
Gomeroi woman Karra Kinchella said Santos has no social licence and called on Labor to “back their promise from the election around climate and a just transition to renewables”.
Maritime Union of Australia Assistant National Secretary Thomas Mayo, who was part of the delegation, commended the organisers for bringing climate, union and First Nations’ justice concerns together.
“Coal seam gas will wreck the local environment, increase emissions and prevent the Gomeroi people from exercising their lawful claim under Native Title laws,” Mayo said.
“The NSW government should listen to the Gomeroi people, the science and the economic reality that the Santos CSG mining project will be more damaging than beneficial.
“Job and energy prospects from the nearby offshore wind farm zone that federal minister Chris Bowen recently announced are far more promising for the region’s future,” he said.
They also addressed how the government could play a positive role in the Native Title Tribunal (NTT) redetermination. The tribunal is expected to make a new determination early next year.
If the Gomeroi are successful, it will be only the fourth time that a Traditional Owner group has successfully overturned a major project approval through the tribunal, and the first time outside of Western Australia.
Santos acknowledged in a statement to the ASX in September that less than a quarter of landholders along the pipeline route have agreed to have the pipeline on their properties — meaning three quarters have not.
Santos CEO Kevin Gallagher also said in August he does not know when he will be able to make a final investment decision, saying that a number of projects would be competing for capital, including Narrabri, Dorado off the coast of Western Australia, Barossa north of Darwin and Pikka in Alaska.