Stop compulsory acquisition in the Kimberley

Just a quick note further to yesterday’s post about Colin Barnett’s land grab in the Kimberley region…

GetUp are helping out Indigenous leaders with a petition to Premier Barnett, protesting his unconstitutional attempt to simply take privately owned land and give it to oil and gas companies. Please show your support for us here in the West by signing it and sending it on to people who you think would be interested.

They’ve put together a video which explains the issue:

The topic has also been featured on Lateline: Barnett overrides land negotiations.

If the owners of the land decide to sell it to the fossil fuel companies, that’s their business, even though I think it’d be a crying shame. But they shouldn’t be bullied into it, and they should be fairly compensated. In the past, Barnett has offered the ‘carrot’ of police and medical and school services – but these things are basic infrastructure that we should all be entitled to, not some special gift for people who do as they’re told.

Barnett has decided that since the negotiations aren’t going his way, he’ll just do what he wants anyway. Luckily, the process takes 18 months! So although the situation isn’t good, we’ve still got time to help out.