LETTER TO EDITOR

Letters To The Editor
The West Australian
GPO Box N1027
Perth WA 6843


Dear Editor
REGARDING YOUR EDITORIAL ‘PROTEST SHOULD NOT DELAY GAS HUB PROJECT’ (THE WEST, FRIDAY JUNE 17, 2011)
With respect, I wish to take you up on several points in your editorial. I am fully in agreement with your statement about the rights of protesters to make a stand against the industrialisation of “this picturesque and unspoilt section of the Kimberley coast”. I am less convinced by the “compelling reasons” put forward about why it should be allowed to proceed. Yes, there’s money to be made but at what cost?
Aboriginal people should receive “crucial benefits in education and training and jobs” without having to do a deal that threatens to undermine their culture and destroy land (remember the threat of compulsory acquisition that hangs over the heads of the negotiators even now).
The project will do more than reshape the economy of the region; it will reshape the physical landscape – the “environmental cost” cited in the editorial and then dismissed as though it were a mere inconvenience – and erode the very thing that makes the local community great and admired around the nation.
If the project goes ahead, Broome will not be able to rely on its vibrant tourism industry. To suggest the LNG industry is sustainable is just wrong; this project is set to massively increase WA’s greenhouse gas emissions, and when the gas runs out all that will be left is the detritus from an industry that has moved on.
The protesters are not there merely to make a point; they are there to turn around a decision that will lead to the destruction of all they hold dear. Rather than vilifying the protestors, we should be listening to their alternative vision for a region that many – including the Premier who has described the Kimberley as being of international significance – agree is too precious to plunder.
Yours sincerely


 


The Hon Robin Chapple MLC
Member for the Mining and Pastoral Region
17th June 2011
 

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