MP attacks 'bloody greenies

Australia’s first female indigenous MP has accused green groups of “colonising” Aboriginal people in their bid to block the Kimberley gas hub, saying the development was her people’s best chance of controlling their destiny.

In an impassioned speech in Parliament, which Premier Colin Barnett yesterday said was one of the best he had witnessed, Kimberley MP Carol Martin took a swipe at celebrity protesters using fame to drown out Aboriginal voices.

She said “people of advantage” who opposed the $30 billion project at James Price Point should first “check the headstones” of young Aboriginal people who committed suicide after concluding they had no future.

In one of her final speeches before retiring at the March election, Mrs Martin told the Legislative Assembly on Wednesday night the $1.5 billion benefits package tied to the development was wanted by most of Broome.

“Aboriginal people have been colonised so many bloody times,” she said. “First, by the British, second, by the do-gooders, third, by the missionaries, fourth, by industry and now by the bloody greenies.”

The Labor MP, elected in 2001, said Aboriginal people needed an “independent economic base” to keep practising their law and culture, which developing the Browse liquefied gas basin could provide.

She said she was disgusted at 14 “disgracefully behaved” protesters who heckled a 70-year-old Aboriginal elder carrying out a traditional smoking ceremony at the opening of proponent Woodside’s Broome premises in April.

“James Price Point was identified by traditional owners,” she said. “We can blame the Government as much as we want, but when it actually comes down to it, traditional owners actually do have the right to make decisions. This is a democracy.

“The Mabo dispute goes back to 1992 and we all thought it was a great thing but all it did was give us the right to hunt and gather — that’s it. We now have an Indigenous Land Use Agreement and a State Agreement Act that will give us benefits if it is successful.”

Mr Barnett said Mrs Martin’s speech “may not suit an essentially urban middle-class Australia”.

“Many of us in the community are more interested in talking about whales frolicking off the coast or the footprints of long-gone dinosaurs,” he said. “(Mrs Martin) told the people of WA something of the reality of life.”