Environment Centre NT and anti-fracking protesters turn out for NT Resources Week
Protesters gave the hundreds of delegates attending the NT Resources Week conference a rowdy welcome.
Anti-fracking protesters have given the hundreds of delegates attending the NT Resources Week conference a rowdy welcome.
The protesters were in full voice after the revelations of a methane leak spanning some 20 year at Santos Wickham Point facility.
On Wednesday protesters chanted and sang from the ‘protest pen’, a security barricaded area 20m from the entrance of the mining industry event at the Darwin Convention Centre.
Environment Centre NT senior climate campaigner Bree Ahrens saying the closed door nature of the $3000 per person, event should concern all Territorians.
“There are heads of government, heads of industry in there talking about the future of the Territory … but the community is locked out of those conversations,” she said.
Ms Ahrens said the past 12 months had seen the roll back of environmental regulations in the Territory, adding “we weren’t starting from a particularly good place”.
The start of NT Resources week coincided with the revelations that the Santos facility at Wickham Point has been leaking methane for the past 20 years, with no action taken by Territory or Federal regulators.
A speech by Santos chief Kevin Gallagher at the Wednesday conference was cancelled last minute due to airline issues.
Ms Ahrens said it was disappointing that Territorians would not be able to hear from the Santos chief about “this scandal”.
On Tuesday NT Environment Protection Authority chair Paul Vogel said it was not responsible for monitoring and regulating the release of greenhouse gases, saying this was the responsibility of the Federal Clean Energy Regulator.
However he said the leak was not determined to be a risk to human health or the environment, and there was low explosive risk.
Ms Ahrens said this explanation was “completely inadequate”, with the both levels of government needed to step up their regulation of environmental hazards.
“Federal oversight of fugitive methane emissions is intended to ensure that Australia meets its national climate targets,” she said.
“But the Territory has a very different set of expectations, and that’s to protect the people of Darwin and Palmerston … from the risks associated with an unmediated methane leak,” she said.
The NTEPA estimated that the accidental methane release was the equivalent of 1 per cent of the total greenhouse gas emissions from that facility alone — and represented 0.01 per cent of the NT’s total emissions.
However Ms Ahrens said this was an entirely avoidable hit to the already struggling climate, adding that in the United States a leak of this magnitude would be considered a “super emitter event” requiring urgent action.
The same day as the protests, Mining and Energy Minister Gerard Maley welcomed a new report by the Minerals Council of Australia, which estimated that mining contributed $430m in royalties to the government in 2023-24, with a $1.38bn in direct spending to the economy through wages, capital expenditure, and lease payments.
IN PICTURES: Anti-Fracking protesters outside NT Resources Week
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