MEN and women mingle in the palm-fringed courtyard of a beachside Broome hotel. They've come from all over the Kimberley, from towns like Kununurra and settlements such as One Arm Point. Shaded by frangipani trees and blossoming bougainvillea, they talk and smoke and prepare themselves for the afternoon ahead.
The people, mostly traditional owners of the Kimberley, are here for a meeting. Inside the hotel, in a cool, dark function room away from heat, a whiteboard faces clusters of tables and chairs. It is, on the surface, like any committee meeting . It doesn't look particularly important and it certainly doesn't look as though there are billions of dollars at stake.
In the courtyard, and at the meeting, one word keeps popping up - "gas". Gas, gas, gas. Do we want it? Where should it go? What could it mean? Who could it help? The word is shorthand for a potential liquefied natural gas processing hub somewhere on the pristine Kimberley coastline - an enormous undertaking worth billions of dollars - that would change the Kimberley and its residents forever.
Australia's mining industry has reshaped the landscape of disparate regions. Look at the Hunter Valley, Victoria's goldfields, central Queensland and Cape York. Mining's importance to the country was illustrated this week when Treasurer Wayne Swan forecast a budget surplus of $21.7 billion, fuelled by the mining boom and the ensuing boost to company taxes.
Now the momentum of development has swung the Kimberley's way, bringing with it many potential consequences. The Browse Basin off the Kimberley coast holds a huge amount of gas and, if it is to be extracted, it must be processed somewhere - on the coast, or even offshore. For the Aboriginal people of the Kimberley, the gas could mean jobs, training and a long-term source of money. It would also mean a change in the landscape, a sudden swelling of the population, and a rise in living costs.
The West Australian Government has pledged that development will not proceed without the full co-operation and "informed consent" of the traditional owners. The Kimberley people hold the fate of the multibillion-dollar development in their hands. They are in the middle of a consultation process, led by the Kimberley Land Council and its executive director, Wayne Bergmann.
"If we say yes, we are making our own decision for a change, and that is one of the most important things," says Irene Davey, a senior Bardi woman from One Arm Point.
These talks, involving all the region's Aboriginal coastal communities, come after a string of agreements in WA that, some hope, have raised the bar when it comes to land access deals.
From traditional owners, government and much of the mining industry itself, there's a growing call that the nation's most disadvantaged people ought to get a better deal from Australia's boom. There are many agreements between miners and native title groups that have proved advantageous to both sides, but most Aboriginal communities remain poverty-stricken, despite the recognition that they are, in some "traditional" way, the owners of the land.
"I think a lot of Aboriginal people recognise that this (boom) is a real chance," says federal Indigenous Affairs Minister Jenny Macklin. "This is a real opportunity for them to get out of poverty, to get off welfare, to have a better life."
As the people of the Kimberley reflect on their options, the Martu people of the mineral-rich East Pilbara are in negotiations with a company seeking access to their lands.
Their commercial adviser, Joe Procter, says the deal is likely to include substantial equity in the company and is "very close" to being signed. Continued…
