Joseph and Paddy Roe
John Butler Trio & John Butler
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It's a new song, this next one
It's a song I've been really enjoying playing lately
And it's about something that's very close to my heart
It's a song called "Kimberley" and it's about all the humbug
That's gone up there in the Kimberleys there around Broomtown
I'm not too sure if many of you know, but I'm sure some of you do
It's a proposed LNG gas plant on one of
The most pristine coastlines on this planet
And one of the most untouched wildernesses
In our country and this globe
And our semi-elected premier
It's a whole other story that
But at least if you're gonna be in a coalition
Just let everybody know before they start voting
That's just my opinion, but anyways
I don't know, it's democracy, I don't know
Anyway, so he wants to build this big gas plant
And he wants to do it with a company called Woodside
And a good friend of mine for the last
Twelve years, his name is Mr. Joseph Rowe
He's the senior lawman and custodian of
That region that they want to build on
It's a place called James Price Point
And Joe was given that responsibility by his grandfather Paddy
And, you know, he's taken a lot of young men through law
And he's one of the chief, I guess
Holders, protectors of culture up there
And so all that matters to Joe is that he has his culture
And that his song lines are protected
And that the places that his ancestor buried are protected
That's what he does
And if he doesn't have that, then he doesn't have life
It might be different than the way you and I live
But his connection to country is
Intrinsically essential to his survival
And without it, there's no point
There's nothing that really kind of registers on
Any kind of scale to go, "Hmm, life is worthy"
So that's his job, to look after that country and protect
That land from, I guess, greedy people who don't really care
And having known Joe for the last twelve years, along
With my wife when she was living out there with him
And I've always been really right behind his struggle
And to me, it's not just his struggle, it's our struggle
It's our struggle to protect the things that are most valuable to us
'Cause I know when I go overseas or when I send postcards overseas
I don't send pictures of fucking refineries
I send pictures of like Uluru and the
Bush and places like that, places I love
Now there's this thing called the Browse Basin
Three hundred kilometres off the coast
There's a lot of gas there
I like gas, don't get me wrong, I cook with gas
I like eggs cooked with gas, it's cool
I don't have a problem with gas
We just have a big-ass gas refinery in the
Pilbara, about a thousand Ks to the south
It's all there, just pipe it
It's been done, they made it to the moon
Use a round cylinder
It should be pretty easy
But yeah, they wanna, they wanna, yeah
They wanna put it there because they want
The Kimberley to be the next twenty years
And to me, it's just not on
And to Joe, it's definitely not on