Noonkanbah fight moves to union front

Press, 14 August 1980, Page 6

Noonkanbah fight moves to union front

NZP.A Perth The Amax: oil-rig convoy rolled into the controversial Noonkanbah drill site without resistance yesterday, but its 2240 km trek may have been in vain.

Aboriginals and their supporters called off a last-ditch confrontation after learning that 15 key workers would refuse to work sthe rig. The aboriginals want ,to stop oil exploration at the site which they .say is sacred.

. A ■ • further set-back to Amax Petroleum came in Perth yesterday when the Trades and Labour Council placed a total ban on all the company’s operations and asked the Australian Council of Trade Unions to make the ban Australia-wide. The Trades and Labour Council also placed a ban on companies, , organisations, and individuals who took part in the convoy. ■ The rig’s, incident-free entry to the heavily protected drill site : came about 6.30 p.m, after Noonkanbah Aboriginals and their supporters were told the news of a ban on. the drill by the Australian Workers’ Union. . The convoy; was still mov.-|

ing through the station when the Noonkanbah community’s press officer, Stephen Haske, called a meeting and played a tape-recording of an A.B.C. news bulletin. Members of the community greeted the news with shouts of joy. The dramatic development left a question mark over the whole operation.

There was no indication from the. drill operators on how they would counter the ban on the rig. In Perth, a spokesman for C.S.R., which owns the rig, would not say whether overseas workers might be brought in. Amax Petroleum, which is the operator for a consortium of five companies in the project, would hot answer a question on whether it had changed an earlier policy to use only Australian equipment and workers. At the same time, the president of the A.C.T.U. (Mr Bob Hawke) claimed to have obtained an assurance from C.S.R. that it. would not call in other workers. Mr Hawke and the secretary of the West Australian Trades and Labour Council

(Mr Peter Cook), said that the action of the Australian Workers’ Union and C.S.R.’s statement meant drilling could not go ahead this year.

There would now be enough time for Amax, the Government, and the Aboriginals to negotiate an agreement about sacred sites, they said. Meanwhile, the West Australian Government has ordered the state’s Road Traffic Authority not to release the names of the owners of’ trucks in the Noonkanbah convoy.

“The Government will not release information on these truck drivers which would enable the bully boys,of the trade-union movement to harrass them,” the Minister for Police and Traffic (Mr Bill Hassell) said. The secretary of the Transport Workers’ Union (Mr John O’Connor) said that his office’s telephones had been “running hot” with people ringing, to give the names of the truck drivers and their companies. He said a black list of the drivers, and companies involved in the Nobnkanbah convoy would be circulated to unionists; soon.