Kimberley threatens legal action against TV stations over defamatory remarks
The Kimberley Land Council (KLC) has threatened legal suits against Foxtel, National Indigenous Television and Goolari TV for airing last week Julie Nimmo's film, 'Divided by Gas', alleging that it carries defamatory statements from former High Court Judge Murray Wilcox.
The film also includes interviews with KLC's Wayne Bergmann, Woodside chief Don Voelte and Western Australian Premier Colin Barnett.
Managing director Kevin Fong of Broome-based Goolari TV has agreed to stop broadcasting the film for now, citing that the council is under the impression that comments made by Mr Wilcox are defamatory and "we have complied by suspending the program for 14 days while the allegations are considered."
In a related development, Kimberley environmentalists have rejected suggestions that they were responsible for divisions within the aboriginal community over the building of the gas hub as Mr Barnett reiterated this week that the WA government is willing to acquire the land at James Price Point by the end of June, if the deal with Woodside fell through.
He said that 'anti-development groups' were deliberately sowing division between native title claimants, which resulted to a halt in the ongoing talks.
However, Kimberley member Rod Hartvigsen scored the WA premier for using green groups as a scapegoat, stressing that labelling their group as anti-development "is incorrect and also to infer we're possibly responsible for driving a wedge is not correct considering that we have as members both Indigenous and non-Indigenous people."