The Federal Court judgment in the Barossa gas project case is a lesson for lawyers “on what not to do” and a reminder that their professional obligations when eliciting witness evidence about intangible things such as Indigenous songlines are no different from dealing with more conventional testimony, experts say.

Lawyers will be forced back to the drawing board on environmental litigation based on intangible cultural heritage, after a damning judgment found solicitors for the Environmental Defenders Office “distorted and manipulated” Indigenous instructions in an effort to halt the construction of Santos’ Barossa gas pipeline.