Murujuga traditional custodians demand government renegotiate original agreement facilitating Burrup

Murujuga traditional custodians have called for the complete revocation and renegotiation of ‘the BMIEA’, the original agreement by which the WA government extinguished native title, zoned the Burrup for industry and prevented traditional custodians objecting to industrial threats to the sacred Murujuga rock art for the past two decades.

Mardudhunera woman Raelene Cooper, former Chair of the Murujuga Aboriginal Corporation and a Murujuga traditional custodian, said:

“The BMIEA agreement is the original sin that has kept Murujuga traditional custodians coerced and co-opted by government and industry on the Burrup. For two decades we have been gagged and bound by this original state agreement that prevents us from objecting to industry and ensures the Murujuga Aboriginal Corporation is unable to object or intervene to safeguard our sacred Murujuga cultural heritage. As a Murujuga custodian with the cultural authority to speak on this issue, I have spent this year calling out the gag clauses in the BMIEA that give the government a free pass to greenlight industry at every step.”

“The letter from MAC CEO Peter Jeffries to the federal government that was released last week vindicates everything we have said from the start about how government and industry on the Burrup railroad traditional custodians at every turn. The BMIEA agreement has always given government and industry all the power in negotiations with traditional custodians where we cannot say no - it needs to be ripped up and rewritten to ensure that our sacred Murujuga rock art is protected by moving any more industry to the Maitland estate and not at the Burrup Hub.”