Trying to fathom Western Australia's Premier Colin Barnett's extractive policy as fair reasonable and moral requires a spin doctoring effort of which the Federal Labor Party would be proud.
Premier Barnett supports the protests calling for the cessation of Margaret River Coal Mining, for good reason-yet has initiated processes to confiscate aboriginal land at James Price Point in the States north east to enable a gas hub from which to distribute Gas from equally contentious offshore gasfields.
Both place considerable pristine environment at risk.The Margaret River area is predominantly white owned. James Price Point is Stolen Aboriginal Land,currently contested in a Native Title Claim.If the relative ownership demographic is coincidental,then what exactly does Barnett base this selective logic on?
Margaret River is not only 'white owned' but mostly owned or at least influenced by wealthy people who are 'friends' of Barnett and his party. They are ones most likely to invest in dubious projects such as the proposed gas hub at James Price Point in order to maintain their loss-making vineyards at Margaret River.
ReplyDeleteI don;t agree with coal mining Margaret River, but I agree far less with the illegal acquisition of land at James Price Point. Aboriginal or not, the land needs to be maintained without the blight of dangerous and dubious industry.