Pro-development Territory TOs were in Canberra to lobby for Barossa gas project

A large number of Territory TOs who support gas projects on coastal lands travelled to Canberra only to be declined meetings with key figures.

Traditional Owners in favour of gas development in and on Aboriginal coastal waters slipped quietly into Canberra this week to advocate for development in their communities.

About a dozen members of the Top End Aboriginal Coastal Alliance were in the capital meeting with members and senators to put forward their case for resource development.

The visit comes as frustration grows at repeated court delays to the proposed Barossa gas development which, if approved, is expected to bring billions of dollars in royalties to the Northern Territory during project life.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and members and senators from the Greens declined to meet with alliance members, prompting a blistering attack from South Australian Liberal Senator Kerrynne Liddle.

Top End Aboriginal Coastal Alliance members in the Senate chamber.

“I see you, I hear you and so do my colleagues,” Senator Liddle said.

“I respect that you support gas projects in and offshore in the Northern Territory. Your views are however invisible to the Labor Party, the Greens and some independents because you do not fit their ideological narrative.

“You’re right to be gutted that despite travelling so far from the Top End, the Prime Minister, the Greens and some independents did not meet you. You aren’t the elite, self-appointed leaders those opposite celebrate.

Senator Kerrynne Liddle.

“You hold so much important knowledge as remote community elected leaders with cultural authority to respect and represent your communities. Yet the Greens and Labor and some, though not all the independents, are happy to trample your aspirations, your dreams and your inherent rights and legislative rights and interests.”

Shadow Resources and Northern Australia Minister Senator Susan McDonald said alliance TOs wanted the investment and jobs that went with gas.

“The group came to Canberra so they could speak directly to politicians about their support for Santos’s Barossa offshore gas project and make them aware that statements opposing it are not shared by all traditional owners,” Senator McDonald said.

Senator Susan McDonaldPicture: NCA NewsWire / Martin Ollman

She said she was told by one TO of his concerns around the poverty his children faced in remote NT communities.

“It is a fact that most remote and regional First Nations peoples of the Northern Territory are living in poverty,” she quoted the TO.

“The Barossa Project presents a desperately needed opportunity for us to improve our living standards and to close the gap.”

He told her TOs were supporting the Barossa gas project because “they are supporting us”.

Santos is sweating on the outcome of a Supreme Court hearing into an application by Tiwi Island resident Simon Munkara seeking to stop the company laying the pipeline.

Hearings will begin in the Darwin Supreme Court on December 4.