Was there ever anything more predictable, and more shameful than the detached and independent — and, of course, apolitical — decision by federal Environment Minister Murray Watt that damage caused to Aboriginal Australian heritage values could not weigh as heavily as the economic interest of Woodside’s Northwest Shelf project, worth billions of dollars, potentially trillions?

How could some mere rock art — even if it is crumbling from the existing chemical pollution already caused by Woodside — compete in importance with the public interest in the thousands of jobs, the hundreds of millions of mining royalties going to the Western Australian Government, and the potential company tax available to the federal government if, and when, Woodside’s accountants find themselves unable to avoid making a profit?

WA Premier Roger Cook provided several settings for Watt’s decision in the days leading up to the decision. First, he announced that a comparatively small sum of money was to be allocated to some elderly Indigenous sandgropers as compensation for having been Stolen Children before about 1970. (Though nothing for the many more Indigenous children put in institutions over the past 50 years.) So, we cannot but know that he has, as always, the interests of Aboriginal people close to his heart.

Second, he made some comments for Watt and the public’s edification about the completely independent and scientific nature of the findings of commissioned research into the heritage values of the rock art at risk. These scientific findings were not emotional or matters of the heart, but objective and scientific, he said. It might suit some grandstanders to emote or make a fuss out of their subjective feelings, but politicians such as himself (and Watt) had to make decisions based only on the science, he said. He dismissed claims made by some of those involved in preparing the reports that their findings had been misinterpreted, and, in some cases, amended to suit the case for overriding Aboriginal views. Whether such trivial point-scoring was true or not, he seemed to imply, the base metal of the experts’ report had now transmuted into gold, and it was not for non-politicians to second guess it. If they did, these activists were appealing to emotions, not facts.

Strictly, I am not so sentimental, foolish or unscientific as to think that the value of Aboriginal heritage art, even of this antiquity, must always override competing calls on the public interest. Indeed, I can conceive of circumstances where priceless cultural heritage could be reasonably regarded as inferior in value, perhaps in the case of an imminent danger to human life.

Is it relevant that Woodside’s pollution may make climate change significantly worse?

In this sense, it is possible that Watt’s decision was the right thing “in the circumstances”. And Watt, after all, has laid down some conditions focused on protecting the art, which he has claimed to be stringent, and which he has insisted will be enforced. That would set a great precedent, particularly for WA, where state governments, mining companies and other land developers routinely ride roughshod over Aboriginal heritage material without suffering any consequences.

The rock-art-doesn’t-matter-decision was only one of a sequence of decisions which Commonwealth ministers must make about the Northwest Shelf project. Only when all the hurdles are........

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