The Politics of Overlaps

The Australian

March 22, 2000, Wednesday

Premier tripped by brother on Wik

BYLINE: ROGER MARTIN

SECTION: LOCAL; Pg. 8

LENGTH: 470 words



RICHARD Court's campaigning on native title has come back to haunt him, with revelations a land claim now known to be funded by his brother's steel company was used repeatedly by the Premier as a reason why the federal Government's Wik amendments should be passed.

Mr Court issued three press releases between August 1997 and June 1998 calling on Labor to support the Howard Government's 10-point plan and citing claims over the Pilbara township of Karratha as evidence of the unworkability of the original Mabo laws.

Mr Court said two claims were choking growth in the town.


But one of those claims was by the Yaburara people, which Kingstream Resources helped register by giving more than $55,000 to the claimants. Kingstream is chaired by Mr Court's brother and former federal Liberal candidate Ken Court, while the Yaburara's former lawyer was Liberal Party president David Johnston.

Mr Court would not comment directly on those media releases yesterday, but reiterated his belief that native title had held up development across Western Australia.

He told Radio 6PR he believed his brother had done nothing wrong by allowing Kingstream to fund the land claim.

"My brother is a person of the utmost integrity," Mr Court said.

"I have no difficulty at all in defending him publicly."

Kingstream Resources managing director Nik Zuks has admitted giving the Yaburara people more than $55,000 to help fund the 1996 land claim application.

The claim covers nearly 14,000sqkm of the Pilbara and does not affect Kingstream's own plans to build a $1.7 billion steel mill at Geraldton, some 2000km to the south.

But the claim does cover land on which rival steel proponent Mineralogy plans to build a $5 billion mine and mill, prompting that company to accuse Kingstream of commercial sabotage and threaten legal action.

Kingstream's funding of native title claims dominated state parliament yesterday, with Opposition Leader Geoff Gallop claiming Mr Court was in denial over the revelations.

He accused Mr Court of being too quick to jump to Kingstream's defence.

"We no longer have a Premier for all of the people of Western Australia, we have a defence counsel for his political mates," Dr Gallop said.

He claimed the Government had consistently refused to help resolve native title issues, and now friends of the administration had been exposed as causing many of the problems.

"The hypocrisy of the Government in respect of this issue is there for all to see," he said.

"It is their friends, their fellow travellers, stirring up problems in respect to native title in Western Australia."

Mr Court said Mineralogy's leases were not affected by native title, while Kingstream had interests in the Pilbara because it wanted to source its gas supply from the area.


SUBJECT: LITIGATION (90%); IRON & STEEL MILLS (89%); LAWYERS (78%); POLITICAL CANDIDATES (78%); POLITICAL PARTIES (78%); LEGISLATIVE BODIES (77%);

STATE: WESTERN AUSTRALIA, AUSTRALIA (94%);

COUNTRY: AUSTRALIA (95%);