Akerman: Reliance on Dreamtime evidence for land claims and suits needs to be examined

Taxpayers should not be bankrolling organisations that rely on environmental activists in the bureaucracy and judiciary to accept faked evidence to underpin its claims, writes Piers Akerman.

Smug do-gooders have been firmly smacked by the federal court but more must be done to stop unconscionable environmentalists halting critical national development.

Only the most thorough scrutiny by Justice Natalie Charlesworth of an action brought against Santos by the Environmental Defenders Office acting on behalf of the traditional owners thwarted a bid by green activists to block the $5.3 billion Barossa LNG project in the Timor Sea.

The EDO received $10 million of taxpayers’ money as part of the Albanese Government’s $1.8 billion funding for Green-Left environmental bodies in the budget.

What should shock all taxpayers is the manner in which the EDO, a registered charity, based its case on distorted information and an unreliable witness, which threatened to derail our trade relations with two major international partners, Japan and South Korea. Other actions by Green-Left activists still threaten more than $16 billion of projects but all previous suits brought by the EDO must now be examined.

Natalie Charlesworth newly appointed Federal court justice in the Federal court building.

It wasn’t just the EDO driving the matter, as Judge Charlesworth noted in the final paragraph of her 246-page judgement before issuing orders: “I make it clear that I have not entertained any submission that EDO lawyers was the principal proponent of this action pursuing an ideological agenda. The substantive issues have been determined without reference to any such allegation”.

Reading her exhaustive judgement should be compulsory for all those who sought to change the Constitution as promised by Prime Minister Albanese’s Yes campaign in last year’s failed referendum.

UWA anthropologist Mick O'Leary.

The judge found that a cultural mapping exercised used in the proceedings and the related opinions expressed about it was confected and constructed such that “the related opinions expressed about it are so lacking in integrity that no weight can be placed on them”. The EDO’s expert witness, WA university anthropologist Dr Mick O’Leary, had also lied to Tiwi witnesses, she said.

O’Leary, who constructed a map and video purporting to show what the land looked like during the last Ice age, came in for strident criticism.

“Dr O’Leary’s independence and credibility are such that I would not accept his evidence as sufficient to establish any scientific proposition at all, even if his evidence had gone unchallenged and even if he possessed the appropriate skills, qualification and experience to express them,” the judge wrote.

“My conclusions about Dr O’Leary’s lack of regard for the truth, lack of independence and lack of scientific rigour are sufficient to discount or dismiss all of his reports for all purposes.”

Part of EDO’s case rested on a claim that oral history related to a sole witness indicated sacred sites along the proposed route of the submerged pipeline, but Judge Charlesworth expressed scepticism that any of the details presented could have conceivably been transmitted over 600 generations, let alone be held exclusively by a single Tiwi Islander and not by the other 23 Tiwi Islanders who gave evidence.

Tony Abbott, when prime minister, cut federal funding of the EDO with good reason but it also receives tax-deductible donations.

Federal funding should be stopped based on this case alone and the question of its charitable status examined with a view to cancellation.

Taxpayers should not be bankrolling organisations that rely on environmental activists in the bureaucracy and judiciary to accept faked evidence to underpin its claims.

The reliance on so-called Dreamtime evidence and Songlines for land claims and suits of this sort also needs to be examined.