The Greens MLC Sue Higginson made a speech in the NSW Parliament about the Native Title Tribunal decision and the NSW government position. The appeal hearing starts on Wednesday in Brisbane and should go for a few days. Events in Sydney and in Coonabarabran will coincide with the hearing. See Events

Ms SUE HIGGINSON (14:24): In 2012 the Gomeroi people in the State’s northwest lodged a native title claim over the Pilliga State Forest, the last remaining substantial intact temperate forest in Australia. Over a decade on, Gomeroi people are still fighting for their sacred lands while a native title claim is being determined. In December last year fossil fuel giant Santos was granted four future acts determination applications by the Native Title Tribunal, allowing it to develop 850 coal seam gas wells in the Pilliga. The Pilliga is sacred for the Gomeroi. It contains scar trees, songlines and living cultural mythologies. There are burial sites, stone arrangements and earthen circles, curve trees, rock shelters, rock art, grinding grooves, quarries, mounds, hearths and ovens, and sites of cultural significance that have been anthropologically verified. There have now been 22 toxic waste spills in the forest, creating dead zones that Santos has tried and failed to rehabilitate. This is before the project has reached the production phase.

Beneath the Pilliga forest is the Great Artesian Basin that Santos proposes to drill below to extract gas from the coal seam. The Great Artesian Basin covers 1.5 million square kilometres. It is 22 per cent of Australia. It generates $13 billion per year and has supplied water to First Nations people in dryland areas for more than 60,000 years. Across the entire basin, First Nations communities maintain cultural, social and spiritual connections with the springs and ecological communities that depend on this vital water source. A collaboration of unions is standing in staunch solidarity with the Gomeroi people in their fight for self-determination over their ancestral lands. They have called for Santos to withdraw its corporate bully efforts to override the Gomeroi. The calls were ignored and Santos’ applications before the Native Title Tribunal were successful.

Nearly two years on from the Juukan Gorge inquiry, New South Wales remains the only jurisdiction in Australia without standalone legislation for Aboriginal cultural heritage. The State of New South Wales took the position in the Native Title Tribunal proceedings that it did not admit the special significance of the Pilliga for the Gomeroi people, nor the obligation to care for country, nor that granting Santos a licence to exploit the Pilliga will contribute to environmental damage through climate change. It chose instead to argue for the economic benefits of the destructive gas field. The Gomeroi have not given up. Their appeal will be heard on Thursday in the Federal Court. Is it the position of the Government that it will still not admit these straightforward matters, that the Pilliga is special to the Gomeroi people and that the Narrabri gas field will contribute to climate change? We will be watching this Government.

NSW Parliament Hansard 2 August 2023