In January 2021, Andrew Starkey, his two brothers and a nephew were out documenting heritage sites near Lake Hart West on Kokatha Country, in South Australia’s Western Desert region. As Senior Kokatha Badu, or Lore men, they were conducting a site inspection of archaeological structures left by early European settlers and the Starkeys’ Indigenous forefathers when they built fences in the area in the 1930s. These campsites were often built close to one another. “These were interaction sites”, Andrew explained. “Those sites, for us, are very important”.

As they stepped around a small shrub, they suddenly came upon a 1.3-metre-high, high-tech anti-aircraft Saab missile, lying exposed and abandoned in the red dust. It was a moment of stunned disbelief. “We were taken aback by it”, Andrew recalled. “We were shocked, really, to think that in this day and age, something like that could lie out there unaccounted for”.

Despite being the Kokatha’s ancestral homelands for millennia, the region is contested by another territorial entity — the world’s largest land-based weapons-testing range, known as the Woomera Prohibited Area (WPA). The missile they had found was part of the ongoing threat the WPA poses to cultural heritage in the Red Zone, where weapons are tried and tested on Kokatha Country. The catch, however, was that this missile was found in an area where Defence said it does not test weapons due to its proximity to heritage sites.

Therefore, Andrew knew the fight to protect Indigenous cultural heritage couldn’t be fought via the usual channels of justice. Instead, the Starkeys took Saab Australia to the Australian National Contact Point for breaching the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises — and won.

This is the story of what this win means — not just for the Starkeys and the Kokatha people,  but for the global arms trade and the corporate actors operating on Indigenous lands. This is the extraordinary tale of how two brothers, Andrew and Robert Starkey, fighting for their cultural heritage and human rights, won against all odds and exposed the hidden faultlines of power within Australia and beyond. 

The Woomera Prohibited Area

To grasp the full weight of what Andrew and Robert were up against, one must first understand the scale and legacy of the Woomera Prohibited Area (WPA). Born from the ashes of World War II, the WPA was carved into existence in 1946 through the Anglo-Australia Joint Project, a military alliance between Australia and the United Kingdom that sought to push the boundaries of weapons technology. By 1947, the desert region, located about 450 km north-west of Adelaide, had been declared off-limits, and the first military trial echoed across its vast expanse.

But the WPA was never just a weapons range. In the decades that followed, it became a launchpad for the antipodes’ global and celestial ambitions. By 1957, it was a key site for space exploration, hosting rocket launches for the European Launcher Development Organisation (ELDO). At its peak, Woomera ranked second only to NASA’s Cape Canaveral in the number of rocket launches. The WPA was also home to the Joint Defence Facility Nurrungar, a space-based surveillance station that monitored enemy intercontinental ballistic missiles and other rocket launches, making it an essential component of American defences during the Cold War. Nurrungar’s strategic significance meant it was also ranked in the Soviet Union’s top ten targets for nuclear attack during this period. And in the 1950s and 1960s, British atomic weapons tests were conducted in the western reaches of the WPA at Maralinga and Emu Field, leaving permanent (and radioactive) scars on the landscape, causing irreparable harm to Indigenous peoples’ connection to Country.

At its largest, the WPA covered 270,000 square kilometres. Today, it spans 122,000 square kilometres —approximately the size of England — making it the largest land-based weapons testing range in the Western world.

Though its use waned after the Cold War, the late 1990s saw a resurgence in Defence activity, and with it, a renewed threat to the sacred sites and spiritual governance of the First peoples, whose connection to this Country runs deep. The WPA encompasses the traditional lands of six Aboriginal groups. Maralinga Tjarutja and Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yunkunytjatjara hold almost 30 per cent of the land in the west of the WPA as freehold title granted under South Australian legislation. Four other groups — Antakirinja Matu-Yankunytjatjara, Arabana, Gawler Ranges and Kokatha — hold native title over areas in the WPA.

Today, the WPA is used continuously for weapons testing, with a massive surge in military activity. In 2024 alone, 430 tests were conducted. Alongside your more “traditional” tests, the WPA now hosts trials of emerging technologies, such as electromagnetic weapons and autonomous drones. BAE Systems and UK Defence tested the Taranis stealth drone there, and more recently, the Australian government has accelerated development of Boeing’s Autonomous Ghost Bat drone, committing $1 billion in investments. Drone tech and this huge amount of investment raise ethical concerns about modern warfare, but the development continues unabated and unscrutinised behind the legislative veil of secrecy. The WPA also hosts trials of Lockheed Martin’s hypersonic weapons and the notorious F-35 Joint Strike Fighter Jets.

For Andrew Starkey, this is sacred Country. The Red Zone where the weapons testing takes place —the segment of the WPA gazetted for continuous and exclusive military use and is off limits to civilians —also holds hundreds of sites sacred to the Kokatha people. Ancient petroglyphs and rock art complexes sit alongside archaeological structures, stone arrangements, artefact sites and important natural formations. They are part of the Tjukurpa (law lines) and other dreaming tracks that run right throughout the Western Desert. Despite recognition that these historical and contemporary military activities are occurring on Indigenous lands, and despite the commitment by Defence to protect the environment and Indigenous cultural heritage within the WPA, these precious sites and artefacts continue to be disregarded.

Within the WPA, there is a tenuous “coexistence framework” that aims to protect Indigenous cultural heritage from the various impacts of weapons testing and extractive industries like mining. In practice, this framework means Kokatha interests and cultural heritage are at the whim of the Defence Force, and historically this has not usually panned out well. As a noteworthy aside, the current chair of the WPA Advisory Board is Amanda Vanstone, who simultaneously sat from 2018 to 2021 on the board of Lockheed Martin Australia, the world’s largest weapons manufacturer and a beneficiary of the Woomera Test Range.

Paradoxically, however, the strongest protection against threats to Kokatha heritage is provided by the exclusive Defence use of the WPA’s Red Zone. It’s a precarious position, to say the least. Andrew calls it a “double-edged sword”. The Kokatha people have little option but to rely on the WPA’s Red Zone to ensure that threats from other industries are kept at bay, but they are at the behest of weapons testing, which also impacts these sites and, Andrew says, could potentially threaten lives. “I mean, the thing about it is that it’s good luck”, he says in reference to unexploded ordnance and weapons debris found in the WPA. “It’s not good policy or guidelines or anything like that, that no one has been killed or maimed by anything”.

So, when the Starkeys discovered the potentially explosive Saab missile — without a justification from Defence about how it ended up there, and in clear breach of its own “clean range” policy requiring all test debris to be identified and removed — they realised the usual channels for justice wouldn’t suffice. If they were going to hold someone accountable, they needed a different legal path.

A new arena for justice: the Starkeys vs the OECD

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) is an international soft-law mechanism originally established in 1961 to foster economic collaboration among industrialised nations. The OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises, though non-binding, carry significant monetary and reputational weight. They set expectations for responsible business conduct across borders, including respect for human rights, environmental stewardship, and cultural heritage. Each adhering country must establish a National Contact Point (NCP) to promote the Guidelines and mediate complaints.

Andrew was not unfamiliar with the OECD and the Australian NCP process, having already lodged and won a previous case brought against the multinational energy company ElectraNet for desecrating over twenty Aboriginal heritage sites during the construction of power lines in 2020. Among them was the Davenport Mythological Site, an area deeply embedded in Kokatha Dreaming tracks. Andrew explained that ElectraNet bulldozed sacred dunes to build its power lines — dunes that had long served as a meeting place for tribes from the western desert and central lakes. The site was rich in cultural heritage: stone tools and ceremonial artefacts scattered across the sand, and a cemetery desecrated during construction.

The AusNCP found that ElectraNet had failed to meet its due-diligence obligations, particularly around stakeholder consultation and cultural heritage. Crucially, the ruling affirmed that Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) must extend beyond formal legal entities to include custodians with cultural authority. ElectraNet’s refusal to engage in mediation or provide documentation only deepened the breach. The Independent Examiner concluded that the company had failed to comply with its remedial responsibilities, setting a precedent that international standards can, and should, exceed domestic legal thresholds when it comes to Indigenous heritage. A follow-up statement in 2022 revealed that ElectraNet had taken no substantive action to address the OECD’s recommendations.

However, despite this finding, when the Starkeys first raised their complaint, ElectraNet was firmly in foreign hands. At the time, Malaysia’s YTL Power held a significant 33.5 per cent stake. That changed when YTL sold its share for more than $1 billion to a consortium of Australian managed funds through Australian Utilities Pty Ltd. This deal tipped the balance, lifting the Australian ownership to a majority of 53 per cent. It was a quiet, but consequential (and expensive) shift: with majority local ownership, the company has slipped out from under the OECD’s international guidelines. In other words, the ruling directly affected the company’s ownership.

The case revealed a profound gap between Australia’s heritage laws and international human rights norms. But the Starkeys didn’t stop there.

When the brothers found the missile, frustrated with the lack of transparency over the circumstances by which this ordnance came to be where it was discovered, and with its protracted removal, they lodged a second complaint — this time against Saab Australia, Saab AB and Saab Bofors Dynamics. The weapon was later identified as an RBS 70 short-range anti-aircraft missile, potentially used in the late 1990s or 2000s. However, the presence of the ordnance prevented the Starkeys and other Traditional Owners from safely accessing or practising culture on Country due to the safety risk until it was eventually removed a year later, in January 2022.

In addition to the missile being found within 100 metres of early Aboriginal structures, the area encompasses an important Kokatha mythological zone. This area holds artefacts, rock art and sacred features, including myall (Gadaja) trees. Traditionally, these trees offered shelter for women giving birth, provided timber for tools and weapons — bowls, spears, nulla-nulla — and served as places to store sacred objects. While no physical damage occurred, firing a missile in such a region carried a serious risk of harm to sites that embody deep cultural and spiritual heritage, not to mention a threat to human life. “We could have been maimed and killed”, Andrew unequivocally stated. “Defence was unsure whether or not it was a live round or not”.

The AusNCP found that Saab had failed to conduct adequate due diligence and assess risks to human safety, and urged to consult Traditional Owners when assessing the impacts of weapons testing on Country. The ruling extended corporate responsibility along the supply chain, asserting that even if Saab did not directly deploy the weapons, it bore a duty to understand and mitigate impacts — even long after their sale.

Saab was not required to provide remedy, as it had not directly caused the harm. However, as the ordnance was manufactured and supplied by Saab, the enterprise was directly linked to the adverse human rights impact of preventing Kokatha Traditional Owners from their cultural heritage practices. The OECD Guidelines made it clear that companies with direct links to adverse impacts must use their leverage to influence those responsible. In this case, Saab was expected to pressure the Australian Government to prevent, mitigate, or remediate the downstream harm caused by its products.

For the Starkeys’ lawyer — international human rights expert John Podgorelec — the significance of the Saab and ElectraNet cases for Indigenous cultural heritage shows the limits of domestic law. “A clear message has been sent that comprehensive due diligence will be required when dealing with indigenous groups. Only dealing with the Native Title body is not enough”, Podgorelec explained. “It startlingly illustrates that the OECD guidelines offer better protection for indigenous heritage than the existing domestic legal framework”.

Where Australian heritage statutes failed to protect sites or provide remedies, the OECD mechanism provided public accountability and international scrutiny. The Saab and ElectraNet cases confirm that Indigenous cultural heritage is not merely archaeological, but a living human right, which has forced multinational corporations — and, by extension, the Australian government — to acknowledge their duty of care.

A legal precedent set

Whilst the OECD is typically seen as a soft-law instrument and cannot impose legally binding penalties or fines, its findings are far from symbolic. According to Podgorelec, they could trigger financial repercussions through banks and insurers, inflict reputational damage, and introduce investment risk for OECD member countries.  “What the independent examiner has found is that Saab and the Australian Defence Department have failed to meet their human rights obligations under the OECD guidelines”, he explained.

The examiner’s recommendations are clear: Saab must broaden its human rights assessments to consider the potential for its weaponry to be deployed in the WPA and remain on Indigenous lands. Furthermore, Saab is urged to engage meaningfully with Indigenous stakeholders and use its influence to encourage the Australian government to prevent future incidents in the WPA. “Strikingly, even though Defence use the missiles, SAAB, as is Defence, is expected to engage with the indigenous stakeholders to help curb misuse”, Podgorelec stated. “If misuse continues, SAAB are to consider withdrawing sales to Defence”.

This marks a significant shift. The enterprise (in this case, Saab) is expected to consult with stakeholders whose end use of its products may be impacted. In other words, a multinational weapons manufacturer needs to consider and engage with people whose rights are affected by their products’ use. Direct engagement might not always be possible, but meaningful indirect engagement and ongoing human rights due diligence are expected. Otherwise, obligations under the OECD can  — and will  — be triggered. The fact that export control permits alone were not sufficient to shield Saab from human rights scrutiny was a key finding for the OECD.

Podgorelec emphasised the gravity of this moment: “Due to international jurisdiction of the OECD and the huge amount of multinational arms manufacturers operating today, the potential for precedent is profound”. For the first time, a weapons manufacturer has been told that export permits are not enough —  that the end use of its products carries human rights implications. That customer misuse, even by a government, can link a company to human rights harm.

The implications of this case will be closely watched. Podgorelec believes this is the first ruling of its kind, one that could set a powerful precedent and reshape the global arms industry, impacting how arms companies approach due diligence. There is potential global reach of this ruling, particularly in relation to multinational weapons companies selling arms to Israel and used in Gaza, or other conflicts where there are serious risks of human rights violations. Podgorelec cautioned that the ruling sends a clear message: “It says unless you do your due diligence, customer misuse of your product can link you to human rights harms”.

At a time when global institutions are crumbling and countries routinely neglect their human rights obligations, the OECD might become a critical mechanism to hold power to account. Breaching OECD Guidelines may not result in an immediate fine or criminal conviction, but the broader implications are immense. Companies can suffer operational, regulatory and financial consequences, potentially being legally exposed if similar conduct continues as due diligence laws harden. “This, through aligned banking policy, can lead to limiting finance options. And taking it to the next step outside the OECD jurisdiction, in extreme cases, may even lead to corporate executives facing international criminal law sanctions”, Podgorelec warned.

As for the implications for governments, Podgorelec explained that, to maintain their position as OECD member nations  — which in itself offers many economic benefits, such as a credit rating  — they are expected to set policy and practice to uphold those same standards. “So in this case, both Defence and SAAB have been found to have fallen short of the required standard”.

Holding the line

Nearly five years after that moment in the desert, Andrew Starkey reflects on what it means to win, not just once, but twice. “It’s a David and Goliath-like scenario”, he said. “When you think all has failed and it’s a hopeless case, you just gotta keep the faith. It’s one of the things that we’ve learned from our mentors and our old people; you’ve got to be patient. And that is a hard thing to say when the things around you are being desecrated”.

And whilst the missile was removed, the red dust still carries the stories of a sacred Country indelibly marked by militarisation. But now, there’s something new written into the global record: that the custodians of Kokatha Country held the line, and in doing so, changed the rules of accountability for multinationals everywhere.

“It has been a long, drawn-out process”, Andrew determined. “We’ve maintained our strength and unity and solidarity around staying together over this issue, and it’s turned out for us in the end”.

All images by the author.