10th September 2012 – THE END IS NIGH?
Two community members, Evan Dowlings and Frances Myles, have been sitting atop two Woodside drill rigs since 5:30 am this morning, at the site of the proposed gas hub at James Price Point, stopping work.

The two have refused move on notices issued by police at 8:00 am this morning.

The drill rigs are set to extract 35 million litres of water from the Broome Aquifer over 7 days, for testing, potentially putting at risk the town’s domestic, agricultural and industrial water supply, despite there being no in-depth study as to the effect this may have.

To make matters worse, the drilling is occurring within a listed Aboriginal Heritage Site.

Simultaneously, around 30 members of the Broome community and Goolarabooloo converged on the Woodside office for two hours, calling for a stop to the illegal work. Community members demanded an end to the illegal works, and presented copies of the Weekend Australian’s article which outlined Woodside’s requests for the government to suppress Aboriginal heritage information.

The protests have occurred in response to Saturday’s revelations that Woodside have actively sought to silence information around the heritage values of the site, and government’s repeated failure to enforce the Aboriginal Heritage Act.

Woodside wrote to the West Australian government, last year asking it to withdraw written advice about the possible existence of significant Aboriginal sites in areas disturbed by its proposed $30 billion James Price Point gas hub.

“Woodside and the Barnett government have been shown to be ignoring information about our Country’s Song Cycle,” Goolarabooloo man Phillip Roe said in a statement.

“They are ignoring the Aboriginal Heritage Act and showing no respect for my people and my culture.”