Tiwi Islanders and green groups have accused gas company Santos of leaving out important information about environmental risks during community consultations about its planned $4.7 billion dollar offshore Barossa gas project.
Key points:
- Tiwi Islanders say Santos failed to disclose the pollution potential of a Barossa gas project
- The Federal Court ruled the initial consultations were inadequate
- However, Santos says its attendance at the consultations was welcomed and the sessions were positive
Tiwi elder Therese Bourke said she told Santos executives at the consultation in Pirlangimpi earlier this month that she opposed the project.
But she said as she listened she became even more concerned about the company’s planned $4.7 billion gas field, 300 kilometres north of Darwin, and its planned pipeline, which would pass within seven kilometres of the Tiwi Islands.
“I feel like they don’t really care about what we think and what we’re feeling about this threat to our home,” she said.
“I felt they were more or less wooing us, sweetening us up, because they were talking about going into partnership, doing stuff with the Pirlangimpi people.
“They said they would help to pay for things.”
In its Environment Plan application, Santos said there was a low to medium risk a condensate oil spill could pollute waters from the Tiwi Islands to Indonesia and harm endangered dolphins, whales and sharks.
It said it would try to prevent this by building high integrity wells and quickly responding to any spill.
Therese Bourke said that information was not given to them by Santos at the meeting.
“We did ask ‘what will happen if there’s some kind of oil spill?’,” she said.
“The people from Santos were assuring us they only use this light oil which would not have much effect on the marine life.”
Her niece, Antonia Burke, attended two of the consultations and accused Santos of not being transparent about risks from the project.
“They told everybody that they are experts in drilling for gas and they have a clean track record,” she said.
“They told everybody that if they thought there were going to be any impacts on the environment at all that they wouldn’t do it, and they did not list one potential risk to the environment at all, they omitted everything.
“And when they were asked about what would happen if there was an oil spill, they told people that you don’t need to worry about that because we’re drilling for gas.”
Santos had started drilling the Barossa field after getting federal government approval, but it was required to stop and redo consultations after the Tiwi Islanders won a federal court case which found the first round was inadequate.
Environmental groups concerned
Naish Gawen from the NT Environment Centre, who attended two of the Tiwi consultations, said he found them inadequate.
He said Santos should have revealed dolphins died after condensate spill at its WA Varanus Island facility last year.
“I was concerned that Santos was minimising the potential impacts of the Barossa project,” he said.
“I’m shocked that Santos did not disclose the WA spill at the meetings on the Tiwi Islands.”
The ABC asked Santos whether it revealed environmental risks or offered inducements.
It replied with a statement saying 400 people welcomed the company at “positive” sessions “with high engagement”.
It said many community members were pleased Santos came onto the islands and were looking forward to more consultations.
Therese Bourke said some Tiwis who attended the meetings, including one of her nephews, were satisfied with the consultation process.
But she said she was worried the project would go ahead even if a majority of locals opposed it.
“I said to Santos ‘we don’t want you mob to be putting that thing out there and we don’t want that pipeline, so all these things that you’re saying you want to do with the Tiwi people, is this your means of getting to your end result?'” she said.
Consultations processes ‘need improvement’
Australian National University Professor Sara Bice has researched many consultation processes with communities across Australia, where there are foregone conclusions before the process even starts.
She said there was now a widespread realisation among many governments and companies that consultation needed to improve.
Professor Bice said this could help prevent delays from protest and court action.
“In our research we’ve seen there’s more than $30 billion of project losses contributed to by stakeholder opposition and by community protests,” she said.
She said being honest about what changes are possible was most important.
“We recently surveyed over 5,000 members of the Australian public, many in areas where many projects are being planned, and the majority have said what they want to know most is what can be changed in a project and what’s locked in — what just cannot be changed,” she said.
“In project world we call these negotiables and non-negotiables; and many times communities enter consultations without knowing what genuinely can be changed and what cannot.”
Tony Clark is the chair of the consultants’ peak body, the International Association for Public Participation.
He said they were also trying to encourage an improvement in consultation processes across the country.
“Different governments have different views about engagement, but there is clearly a very significant trend of increased engagement,” he said.
“We’re lobbying governments to get engagement embedded into legislation because good engagement equals good outcomes.”