TOs have launched a last-ditch effort to block Territory gas project

Tiwi Islanders have blindsided Santos and the NT government with a direct appeal to the federal government to stop the $6bn Barossa gas project from going ahead.

Tiwi Islanders have blindsided Santos and the NT government with a direct appeal to the federal government to stop the $6bn Barossa gas project from going ahead.

Despite supporting pipeline infrastructure being 7km from the Melville Island coast and a processing plant about 140km offshore, Tiwi Islanders through the southern-based Environmental Defenders Office have made a last-ditch appeal to federal Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek to have the project stopped.

Islanders are using the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Heritage Protection Act 1984 –

the same legislation recently used by Larrakia elders to stop the 800-home Lee Point housing development – to sink the Barossa project.

Aerial shot of Milikapiti (Snake Bay) on the Tiwi Islands.

Project developers Santos have spent hundreds-of-thousands of dollars consulting with Tiwi Islanders since the Federal Court ordered the company back to the consultation table in January, claiming regulator NOPSEMA had granted the original approval in error.

Since then the company has consulted extensively with Tiwi Islanders including $100 individual payments to residents who attended consultation meetings.

The Environmental Defenders Office said on Tuesday six Tiwi elders had submitted an “urgent application” to Ms Plibersek “to protect sacred Tiwi cultural heritage”.

A statement from EDO said the island’s culture and heritage “is at immediate risk of desecration from the construction of a pipeline for Santos’s Barossa gas project”.

“Tiwi people have now appealed to Minister Plibersek to exercise her powers to grant urgent protection over the area,” the statement said.

“Tiwi people have taken this step to try to ensure that their sacred areas, and the spiritual beliefs and ways of life associated with them, are protected.”

Jikilaruwu elder Molly Munkara, who said she speaks for the “Sea Country”, said the stories she holds have been “passed down from our ancestors since time began”.

Tiwi Islands Barossa project opponent Molly Munkara.

“If Santos puts that pipeline where it has said, it will destroy our sacred sites and our ancient burial grounds. This will impact our spirituality and destroy our health, our home and our lives.”

Santos chief executive Kevin Gallagher said the company had completed the underwater cultural heritage assessment required prior to pipe laying at Barossa and had notified NOPSEMA that it plans to commence pipe laying activities on Barossa after complying with the regulator’s requirements.

“In response to the general direction issued by the regulator, the independent expert concluded after extensive research and interviews that “there were no specific underwater cultural heritage places along the planned Barossa pipeline route that may be affected by the activities’ covered by the pipeline environmental plan.”

NT Mining Minister Nicole Manison said Santos had conducted extensive negotiations with TOs and Tiwi Islanders.

A spokeswoman for the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water confirmed it had received applications for “emergency and ongoing protection of Tiwi cultural heritage” from the impacts of the Santos Barossa gas project.