ANZ Bank and 11 other Australian and international banks are facing human rights grievances from seven traditional owners that have lodged complaints through lawyers in the latest battlefront to emerge around Santos’ $5.8 billion Barossa gas project in the Timor Sea.

The traditional owners – six from the Tiwi Islands and one of the Larrakia people – are being assisted by Equity Generation Lawyers, the legal firm behind strategic climate actions such as the Sharma case opposing Whitehaven’s Vickery coal mine expansion in NSW and the REST superannuation case.