Key figure in NT’s fracking implementation underwhelmed about future projects

It took seven years to reach a point where fracking would be allowed in the NT. A key figure in the implementation process gives his view on the impact of Beetaloo if it goes ahead.

Dr David Ritchie, the independent officer appointed to oversee the implementation of the Pepper Inquiry into fracking the Beetaloo, originally signed to the project for 12 months in 2016.

Yesterday, seven years later, the government released Dr Ritchie’s implementation report into development of an on-shore gas industry at Beetaloo Basin.

Dr Ritchie’s wife, renowned Darwin historian and curator Mickey Dewer, was in Victoria being treated for incurable motor neurone disease when the call came to sit on the Pepper Inquiry.

“She said to me I might want to do something else as well as focus on this so I agreed for a year,” he said.

Chief Minister Natasha Fyles and deputy CM Nicole Manison announce fracking can proceed in the NT

To highlight the enormity of the project, if Dr Ritchie had been a public servant he would have been eligible for long-service leave by the time his Pepper commitments concluded.

Dr Ritchie is proud of the work the Pepper Inquiry conducted and the rigour it put into the probe.

“What differentiates that inquiry from pretty much any other inquiry on this across Australia is the emphasis of community views on what constitutes risk,” he said. “It’s that lens I bring as independent overseer to my final report.

“The notion of what’s an acceptable risk depends on what’s acceptable to the people of the Northern Territory. And it’s the role of government to represent the views of the people of the Northern Territory in assessing that acceptability.

He said the original focus when the inquiry began was on water. Along the way it shifted to greenhouse gas emissions which is currently driving the debate.

“The original terms of reference did not include a specific remit for greenhouse gas emissions because that’s where were back in 2016,” he said.

“That was done because of the pressure from community and consultations that we undertook.

“That was where recommendation 9.8 arose, largely from meetings we held across the Northern Territory.”

Origin’s Kyalla well drill site.

Recommendation 9.8 of the Pepper Inquiry seeks to ensure there is no net increase in “the life cycle greenhouse gas emissions in Australia from any onshore shale gas produced in the NT”.

And while offsets should cover most of the Beetaloo Basin gas produced and used in the Territory, Dr Ritchie admitted issues around so-called Scope 2 and 3 emissions resulting from NT gas being used interstate required a Federal government solution.

“Up until very recently the Commonwealth didn’t give it any priority. The current government has given it a priority and that’s evident in the legislation recently passed reforming the safeguards mechanism, but it’s too early to tell how all that will play out.”

Authorities say Traditional Owners will have right of veto.

He said he wanted the implementation to include a “clear line of sight” where people can see where reductions in one area of the economy are being used to off-set new emissions.

He backed the government’s assertion that TOs will be able to veto fracking projects on Aboriginal land not under the Land Rights Act, despite claims to the contrary from Aboriginal groups.

“Native Title land there’s no veto but there’s a need any time there’s a change of tenure it’s a future act so the creation of an exploration license over a pastoral lease is a future act so then there has to be an Indigenous Land Use Agreement for exploration to take effect.

“Similarly, if you then go to a production license that’s another different change of tenure again and so there has to be another negotiation and another Indigenous Land Use Agreement.”

He was down-beat on the potential for future fracking operations in the NT beyond the Beetaloo, although didn’t rule out the possibility entirely.

“I think that the community is getting less and less comfortable releasing fossil carbon, that has been locked away, into the atmosphere because it stays there and it has to be offset in some way otherwise we have the problem addressing greenhouse gas and therefore increasing warming of the planet.”