‘Not listening’: Traditional Owners ask Plibersek to hear them on water rights

Traditional Owners have bypassed the Northern Territory government and called on the federal environment minister to listen to them and revoke Australia’s largest fresh groundwater licence in the remote central Australian community of Ali Curung.

“I just couldn’t sit and wait around because there was nothing happening. I really needed to get support to my community,” Kaytetye Warlpiri woman Maureen Nampijinpa O’Keefe told Crikey.

“The thing is, this water extraction, it’s just too much. This is a free licence that the NT government just gave away without even consulting the TOs [Traditional Owners]. I really want her [Plibersek] to listen.”

In 2021, the Northern Territory government handed out the nation’s largest water licence at Singleton Station — 30km east of Ali Curung — to Chinese-owned company Fortune Agribusiness. The 294,000-hectare site was first acquired in 2015 under a pastoral lease, and the company has since outlined plans to transform it into 3500 hectares of “intensive irrigated” fruit and vegetable farmland.

The NT government’s allocation of a water licence to the lease will allow Fortune Agribusiness to drop 144 bores into the water table and extract 40 billion litres a year for production purposes.

“These are arid lands,” Nampijinpa said. “We need to keep our water. It’s the most precious resource for the people and the land, and they’re going to take it all. They’re going to leave us with nothing.”

She explained that even small drops in the groundwater table have an effect on sacred sites, soaks and trees. The Water Justice Project, directed by Nampijinpa, estimates that the water licence will cause a 50-metre drop in the groundwater table and destroy or damage more than 40 sacred sites.

“It doesn’t look good without water,” she said. “We’ve got songlines for that country, but everything’s going to die. We have very important trees that grow there. The white ghost gums; you can’t remove those trees, you can’t touch them, but they will die.

“It’s like history repeating itself all over again. The government is not listening to the people. They are just destroying everything.”

In an open letter published yesterday by the Water Justice Project to federal Environment and Water Minister Tanya Plibersek, environmental advocacy agencies Arid Lands Environment Centre and Running Water Community Press backed calls from Traditional Owners and community members of Ali Curung to revoke the licence.

The letter calls on Plibersek to meet community members and “listen to their collective voice saying No”. It also asks for her to expand and activate the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act’s water trigger to overrule the territory government’s decision and insist the NT government rewrite all water allocation plans in line with the national water initiative standards.

In a statement to Crikey, a spokesperson for the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water said that states and territories are responsible for allocating and managing water resources, reiterating that it’s on them to account for the needs of nature, communities and industries.

“It’s something [state and territory governments] signed on to do back in 2004 through the national water initiative and something that continues to guide water management decisions now,” the spokesperson said.

The NT Environment, Parks and Water Security Department would not comment on anything in relation to the Singleton Station water licence as it is the subject of a legal challenge. The project has been referred to the NT Environment Protection Authority and the water license is currently with the NT Supreme Court for juridical review.

Crikey understands the Singleton horticulture project also falls under national environmental law and is therefore required to present its plans to the federal department for review. No application has been received, despite the federal department sending written notification to the project outlining their obligations under national environmental law.

Traditional Owners and residents are imploring the federal government to do more.

“There’s a lot of communities around Ali Curung,” Nampijinpa said. “It’ll really impact the whole land and all those people. Shame on Australia.”