Labour pledges to halt drilling on sacred site

Press, 25 August 1980, Page 7

Labour pledges to halt drilling on sacred site

NZPA Perth The Australian Federal Opposition leader, Bill Hayden, has vowed to prevent oil drilling on sacred Aboriginal grounds at Noonkanbah in the remote northwest of Western Australia. With a national election possibly six or seven weeks away, Mr Hayden spoke confidently of victory and pledged that a Labour. Government would immediately introduce a land-rights bill to protect sacred grounds. Such a move would be the final showdown for the Western Australian Government, which has been exerting all its influence to get ’drilling under way on a site regarded by the Western Australia Museum as within the “sphere of influence” of a sacred site. Mr Hayden gave the keynote speech to Labour’s state conference and he elevated Noonkanbah alongside high taxes and the personality of the Prime Minister (Mr Malcolm Fraser) as the main election issues.

In his comments during and after the speech, Mr Hayden made it clear that he was referring to the 4ha site at Noonkanbah on

which an American-backed organisation, Amax, wants to drill for oil. Mr Hayden said after the address that the amendments to the Constitution in 1967 gave the Federal Government “comprehensive and exhaustive” authority to pass laws in relation to Aboriginal people. Labour would pass a Federal land-rights bill to provide effective protection for the sacred grounds of Aboriginal people, and would pass anti-discriminatory legislation, Mr Hayden said.