The station was the scene for an intense political dispute when the government of the day allowed exploration company AMAX to drill for oil in sacred sites. The mining boom experienced in the 1970s led to hundreds of resource tenements being pegged on the pastoral station in the Kimberley, but an anthropological report found the land covered by the station had spiritual significance for the Yungngora community. Western Australia's Premier, Charles Court, was adamant that the exploration should go ahead regardless – and a convoy of 45 non-union drilling rigs and trucks left Perth protected by hundreds of police on 7 August 1980. Violent confrontations between police and Noonkanbah protesters ensued, culminating in the drilling rigs forcing their way through community picket lines onto sacred land.