Madeleine King backs Roger Cook in row over greens infiltration

Federal Resources Minister Madeleine King has backed Roger Cook’s warning that environ­mental groups had infiltrated ­Indigenous groups.

Resources Minister Madeleine King. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Naomi Jellicoe

Federal Resources Minister Madeleine King has backed Roger Cook’s warning that environ­mental groups had infiltrated ­Indigenous groups, as she works to overhaul the regulations that have stalled two major oil and gas projects.

A prominent Indigenous leader who has been at the forefront of a long-running legal battle with iron ore heavyweight Fortescue Metals Group has pushed back on the West Australian Premier’s ­assertions, noting that Indigenous and environmental groups often had strong natural alignment.

Ms King on Wednesday expressed her support for Mr Cook, who earlier this week accused ­unnamed environmental groups of undermining Indigenous communities in an echo of the tactics previously used by mining ­companies.

“The Premier rightly observes the practices of the past which were detrimental to Indigenous communities. It would be unsavoury in the extreme to see them repeated in any way,” Ms King said in a statement to The Australian.

While Mr Cook declined to name examples, his comments come amid ongoing regulatory uncertainty around Woodside Energy’s Scarborough and Santos’s Barossa gas projects. Both those projects have suffered delays in recent months after Indigenous splinter groups mounted successful legal challenges.

Ms King has vowed to tighten the regulatory framework in the wake of those decisions.

“A range of recent court challenges has demonstrated the need to clarify consultation requirements under Australia’s offshore resources regulations,” she said.

“I am reviewing those regulations right now, with a view to injecting greater certainty and clarity into our existing regulatory regime. We want a regulatory system that enables genuine good faith consultation by the industry with local communities and ­traditional owners.”

Michael Woodley, the chief executive of the Yindjibarndi Aboriginal Corporation, told The Australian that while Mr Cook was right to identify how mining companies had undermined Indigenous communities, it was not necessarily fair to accuse environmental groups of doing the same.

The Yindjibarndi are in the middle of a long-running and historic legal action against Fortescue, who they say helped set up a breakaway Indigenous group when early talks between Fortescue and Yindjibarndi over the miner’s Pilbara plans broke down.

The Yindjibarndi have since been awarded exclusive native title rights over the area and are seeking up to $1bn in ­compensation.

Mr Woodley said there was a strong natural alignment between environmental groups and Indigenous communities.

“There is a case that you can make around mining companies obviously playing the dirty tactics in terms of dividing First Nations people, but I don’t know too much of it in the sense of the environment groups or the greens and First Nations people. I don’t see it and I don’t think it’s a fair comparison,” he said.

“Broadly speaking, I think everything that we stand for are exactly the same principles that the environmentalists have. I don’t see a misalignment.”

He said governments of the past had also engaged in the tactics Mr Cook is accusing green groups of using, noting the WA government of the 1980s had “leaned” on a smaller breakaway Indigenous group during its efforts to build the Harding Dam near Karratha.

“I would love for the Premier to just be a bit more mindful and caring and take regards of the rights of everyone,” Mr Woodley said.

“He’s the Premier for all of us, not just the resources industry.”