Traditional Owners Arrive at High Court to Challenge NT’s Gift of Two Sydney Harbours’ Worth of Groundwater to a Cattle Station Turned Fruit Farm

Six native title holders from the Mpwerempwer Aboriginal Corporation have travelled to the High Court in Canberra to challenge a Northern Territory government decision to hand one of Australia’s largest ever groundwater licences to a private horticultural company – a licence granting the right to extract 40 gigalitres of water every year from Singleton Station, 390 kilometres north of Alice Springs, for the next three decades, free of charge.

To help readers understand the scale of what was quietly gifted to Fortune Agribusiness, officials confirmed 40 gigalitres is equivalent to two Sydney Harbours, or 8,000 Olympic-sized swimming pools, though neither Sydney Harbour nor any Olympic pool is located near the 40-odd groundwater-dependent sacred sites Traditional Owners say are directly at risk.

“Finally, someone is listening” said Mpwerempwer director Dawn Swan, marking the first time this particular phrase had been uttered in relation to this case in four years of legal proceedings, one dismissed NT Supreme Court challenge and several meetings with people who were technically listening but demonstrably not hearing.

The NT Government and Fortune Agribusiness maintain the environment will not be impacted. An independent report commissioned by the Central Land Council found the company’s claimed economic benefit of $100 million a year was, in the report’s words, “largely illusory” – though the 40 gigalitres of water, experts confirmed, would be entirely real.

The High Court is expected to hand down its decision in due course. Traditional Owners said they would continue to care for Country regardless of the outcome. The ancient aquifer had no comment, though sources described it as “under pressure.”