Voices from the Frontline of the Climate Crisis: The Northern Territory Roadshow 2024

Sunday 24 November

Koorie Heritage Trust, Federation Square, Melbourne

Naarm (Melbourne) has hosted two powerful community gatherings recently, where Traditional Owners and health and environment experts travelled from the Northern Territory to bring an urgent message to Victoria and the Federal Government:

to redirect the $1.9 billion fossil fuel subsidy from a massive gas project in Darwin’s Middle Arm to sustainable projects that will benefit Territorians

  • to stop fracking in the Beetaloo Basin and to rally support for the fight against gas expansion in the NT.

On Saturday 23 November 2024, there was a Town Hall Meeting in Coburg and on Sunday 24 November, a public meeting at the Koorie Heritage Trust, Melbourne. These important events were organised by Environment Centre NT and the Beyond Gas Network. PECAN members attended, along with members from the Yarra Climate Action Network, Lighter Footprints, Kooyong Climate Change Alliance, Glen Eira Climate Action Network, and Beyond Coal and Gas Macnamara.

Dr Kirsty Howey, Executive Director Environment Centre NT hosted the Coburg Town Hall event. And Mililma May, Danggalaba Kulumbirigin Tiwi Traditional owner and community organizer, hosted and facilitated the event at the Koorie Heritage Trust

Speakers at the event included:

  • Miliwanga Wurrben, Rembarrnga Traditional Owner, healer and artist
  • Adam Gaston, Mangarrayi man and advocate for Country
  • Dr. Louise Woodward, NT Pediatrician
  • Dr Kirsty Howey, Executive Director Environment Centre NT

Audiences were engaged and inspired by the deeply personal stories from Traditional Owners, and horrified by the looming construction of 6,000 wells planned to be fracked on Country. Attendees left with determination to do what we can here in Melbourne to pressure Victorian Federal Labor MPs to advocate against fracking. 

Fracking involves mixing vast quantities of chemicals, sand and water and pumping them deep underground at high pressure to extract gas. Fracking industrialises landscapes. Fracking produces large volumes of harmful wastes, which will be held in open tanks even during the wet season posing a major pollution risk to creeks and rivers.

Follow up action to support the NT Traditional Owners and activists is crucial.

We will be following these events with action to advocate to MPs that fracking must be stopped. It is now desperately important to meet with Labor MPs and discuss the following points:

  • The climate crisis is accelerating and action in Australia is increasingly urgent.
  • The Beetaloo Basin is a carbon bomb and action to stop imminent fracking is urgent and must be implemented without delay; 
  • Reinforce the Traditional Owners urgent message: to redirect the $1.9 billion fossil fuel subsidy from a massive gas project in Darwin’s Middle Arm to sustainable energy projects that will benefit Territorians;
  • Minister Plibersek must be pressured to implement the water trigger in the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act (EPBC.) The Federal government must use its powers under Federal Environment legislation to stop fracking in the Beetaloo Basin. 

It’s vital that we leverage the abundant energy and momentum raised in Melbourne by these events and pressure MPs to act.

Our requests of Federal Labor MPs:

  1. Urgently write to Minister Plibersek requesting the she use her power under the EPBC Act to call in for assessment the unconventional gas exploration and appraisal activities of the fracking companies in the Beetaloo Basin; noting that the report of the Independent Expert Scientific Committee tasked with reporting to the Minister on this matter is due by 31st December and that it cannot cover the vastly greater environmental risks from production from thousands of wells that will ensue if fracking is not stopped.
  1. Urgently write to Minister Catherine King requesting that she redirect the $1.9 billion subsidy from Middle Arm to sustainable projects that will benefit Territorians.

Follow-up action is vital. We need as many federal Victorian Labor MPs as possible to hear from us now before they take a break, so time is short!

In Macnamara, we call on our federal member Josh Burns to have the Federal Government redirect the $1.9 bill subsidy proposed for the so-called Middle Arm ‘sustainable Development Precinct’ to other much needed NT projects. He needs also to have the Federal government use its powers under Federal Environment legislation to stop companies fracking in the Beetaloo Basin.

Please call, write to and/or call in to your Federal Labor MP. If you don’t know your MP you can look them up on the Australian Electoral Commission website via postcode, electorate or suburb. Then click on your electorate — you’ll be given the name of your local MP and a link with more information on how to contact them and also the Australian Marine Conservation Society (AMCS) is helpful. The AMCS has great tips about calling here

Drilling has already started in the Beetaloo Basin and this may be the last opportunity to prevent full-scale fracking before it starts next year, bearing in mind that “exploratory” and “appraisal” drilling in preparation for fracking is well under way. Unless it is paused fracking will commence in the wet season with a greatly increased risk of contamination of surface water.

Sending a strong message to our (local) politicians that the Middle Arm gas and petrochemical hub proposed for Darwin Harbour, and fracking in the Beetaloo Basin, would have devastating consequences both for the health and wellbeing of local people and for the climate.