Forrest family company lose appeal in WA Supreme Court for BTAC docs ahead of Aboriginal water serpent fight

WA’s Supreme Court has blocked the Forrest family’s attempt to uncover details of a meeting at an Aboriginal Corporation — details that could kill a mythological water serpent claim. Forrest and Forrest Pty Ltd, a pastoral business owned by Andrew and Nicola Forrest, has been denied access to minutes of a meeting conducted by the Buurabalayji Thalanyji Aboriginal Corporation in March this year. The Forrests were seeking to understand how a decision was made by BTAC in the wake of that meeting to oppose the construction of 10 weirs on the Ashburton River to irrigate parcels of parched land neighbouring the vital waterway in WA’s north. This latest legal blow was delivered by the Court of Appeals at the WA Supreme Court and comes less than a month after the State Administrative Tribunal dismissed a bid by the Forrests to access a royalty deal between Mineral Resources and BTAC. The billionaire family have claimed the weirs drawing more water to Minderoo Station would not materially obstruct the flow of the river. Opponents believe the effects will be “spiritual” in nature. “Our people believe that human interference with the natural order of the river will have harmful spiritual effects upon Thalanyji country and Thalanyji people,” a BTAC spokesperson reportedly said last year. The 680km Ashburton River runs through Mr Forrest’s treasured Minderoo Station and is a registered Aboriginal Heritage Site — the Thalanyji people believe it hosts the spirit of a water serpent called Warnamankura. SAT in April 2023 knocked back a bid by the Forrests to overturn a regulatory blockage of the Minderoo irrigation project based on Aboriginal Heritage Act grounds. But the Forrests won an appeal in the Supreme Court last year by successfully arguing there had been procedural errors during the SAT case. The Supreme Court on Friday ruled that access to unredacted minutes of BTAC’s meeting before the SAT rehearing on November 3 could derail proceedings which have already had a “long and unfortunate history”. According to its most recent set of financials, BTAC made a net profit of $4.2m from $35.6m of revenue for the 2024 financial year. The Aboriginal corporation produced a net profit of $2m from $22.1m of revenue in the prior financial year.