Albanese’s gas project extension is a mistake - but it’s not too late

The Albanese government’s approval of the North West Shelf gas extension to 2070 is not just a mistake – it’s a devastating blow; a blow to voters who so recently backed a renewable-powered future, to young Australians hopeful for change, to the traditional owners caring for the Murujuga rock art, and to Labor’s own proud tradition of acting for the benefit of all Australians.

“The Albanese government’s approval ..of the North West Shelf gas extension is a devastating blow.” Carmen LawrenceCredit: Monique Westermann.

This is the most polluting fossil fuel project approved in Australia in a decade – more polluting than any project approved under coal-loving Scott Morrison. It will unleash more than 4 billion tonnes of climate pollution, equivalent to a decade of Australia’s current emissions. It risks wiping out any climate progress this government has made and it tarnishes its legacy. This decision will cast a long shadow over the Albanese government.

Visionary Labor prime ministers have stood up against short-term vested interests to protect Australia’s environment: think saving the Franklin River; banning uranium mining at Coronation Hill; preventing oil drilling on the Great Barrier Reef. This decision does not fit with that proud history. It’s a capitulation to one of the most powerful fossil fuel companies operating in Australia today: Woodside. Voters rejected Peter Dutton’s gas expansion plan, yet the Albanese government is pressing ahead with it.

The justifications don’t stack up. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese keeps telling us this gas is needed for “firming capacity” or to support our neighbours. But the WA gas markets are completely separate from those on the east coast. There is simply no pipeline connecting them. That’s why the prime minister’s comments this week, linking the North West Shelf extension to the need for gas in the eastern states, were hard to believe. It’s frankly misleading to suggest this project will support energy reliability for most Australians.

In reality, only a tiny fraction of the gas will be used in WA, and none of it will be used on the east coast. Most will be exported. And even our biggest customer, Japan, is now exporting more gas than it imports from us. The global market is heading for oversupply. Australia doesn’t need this gas. The world doesn’t want it.

So who benefits? Not Australian households, who already pay the price for our over-reliance on gas. Not workers, whose skills should be helping build clean industries – not propping up a dying one. And not communities on the climate frontline – like flood-hit towns on the NSW coast or farmers battling drought in South Australia.

The only clear winners here are Woodside’s executives and shareholders. This is a company that has long leveraged its political connections and its deep pockets to keep its polluting projects in business and the Albanese government just handed it a new lease on life. It is plundering petroglyphs for profit and burning down the prospect of a safer future for the next generation of Australians.

Because this project is not just a climate disaster – it’s a cultural and diplomatic disaster in the making.

The gas infrastructure sits on Murujuga, in WA’s north-west, home to more than one million ancient rock carvings and one of the most significant Indigenous cultural sites on the planet. UNESCO has raised the alarm. Scientists have issued warnings. Traditional owners have asked for protection. But the Albanese government has waved through four more decades of acidic pollution from the country’s most climate-damaging gas plant, which experts say is already degrading this irreplaceable site. You cannot claim to care about cultural heritage or reconciliation while doing this.

Woodside, enjoying windfall profits fuelled by the war in Ukraine and presiding over record levels of climate pollution, will eventually move on. But every petroglyph destroyed on Murujuga is destroyed forever. It is no accident that successive governments have failed to protect this sacred site. It is not for lack of protest; many voices have been raised in its defence. But they have been consistently drowned out by the siren call of corporate profits – louder and more seductive in WA than almost anywhere else in the country.

Regionally, this decision undermines Australia’s credibility in the Pacific, where climate change is an existential threat. How can we expect our neighbours to trust us as climate leaders while we expand the very industries fuelling their destruction?

Economically, this project is a time bomb. The projected economic cost of its emissions will exceed $1.2 trillion, over three times its purported contribution to GDP. This is not sound economic management.

Labor came to government in 2022 with a climate mandate. Now, Australians returned this government with one of the strongest endorsements since World War II to go further and faster on cutting climate pollution. Instead, it has failed at the first test.

But it’s not too late to change course. Labor must fix our broken environment laws to ensure climate impacts are considered before projects like this are approved. It must end new and expanded fossil fuel approvals like the Browse Basin. And it must invest in a future that serves Australians – not gas giants who’ve had their way for too long.

Dr Carmen Lawrence is a former premier of Western Australia and a former federal Labor minister.