Activist set to pursue legal challenge to Woodside’s North West Shelf extension

Activist group Save Our Songlines has flagged that it will likely seek an injunction before the North West Shelf life-extension approval is finalised.

Indigenous woman Raelene Cooper, one of the founders of Save Our Songlines, pictured in front of the North West Shelf gas project.

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A court injunction application against Woodside Energy’s North West Shelf gas plant extension looks all but certain after the federal government confirmed it would give the Aboriginal activist fighting the project three days’ notice before issuing a final approval.

New Environment Minister Murray Watt last week gave conditional approval for Woodside to extend the life of the liquefied natural gas plant to 2070. Woodside has until Wednesday to decide whether to accept those conditions, which have not yet been made public.

Save Our Songlines founder Raelene Cooper, a former chairwoman of the Murujuga Aboriginal Corporation who has long opposed further industrialisation of Western Australia’s Burrup Peninsula, last month launched legal action against the government and Senator Watt.

The matter went before the Federal Court in Sydney on Friday, with Justice Angus Stewart setting a hearing date of July 14.

During the hearing, it emerged that the federal government had agreed to notify Ms Cooper three days before any final approval was issued. Save Our Songlines then said that commitment would give Ms Cooper an opportunity to consider filing an injunction.

Ms Cooper previously successfully secured an injunction against seismic work at Woodside’s Scarborough gas field, although that was subsequently overturned soon after.

The Woodside Energy Karratha gas plant. Picture: supplied

The current Federal Court action stems from Ms Cooper’s application under Section 10 of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Heritage Protection Act. Senator Watt’s predecessor as environment minister, Tanya Plibersek, had previously agreed to investigate Ms Cooper’s Section 10 application, which centred on whether heavy industry, including the North West Shelf project, was damaging the ancient rock art on the Burrup.

The full final report from that investigation was handed to the minister in June 2023 but no decision was made on whether to exercise the minister’s powers to order protection of the area. Ms Cooper and her lawyers argue that Senator Watt must make his final decision on her Section 10 application before he can hand down final approval on Woodside’s environmental application.

An executive summary of that Section 10 report found that while there was not sufficient evidence the rock art was under threat from industrial emissions, there was evidence of a threat to the area from proposed and future development.

“The reporter finds that there is sufficient evidence to support that the specified area is a significant Aboriginal area and that it is under threat of injury or desecration,” the report summary said.

The ongoing legal battles over the North West Shelf came as the lead scientist responsible for a highly scrutinised study of the Burrup finally broke his silence.

Rock art in the Burrup Peninsula, Western Australia, home to the world's largest collection of rock art, as well as a recently lodged application to have the area listed as a UNESCO World Heritage site. Activist group Save Our Songlines is opposed to more industrial developments on the Burrup. Picture: supplied

Ben Mullins, a professor at Curtin University’s Faculty of Health Science, was the lead author of the latest Murujuga Rock Art Monitoring Program interim report. That report was finally released by the WA government just days before Senator Watt gave his conditional approval for the North West Shelf extension, and opponents of the project have highlighted what they say are multiple issues in the way the report’s findings were summarised and presented.

A leaked email from one of the scientists involved in the project also expressed “grave concern” about “unacceptable interference” in the interim report’s summary.

But Professor Mullins on Friday defended the study on ABC’s Radio National, saying the air quality of the Burrup was better than any Australian city.

“The evidence is that the effects that we have measured – this increased porosity in some of the rocks – most likely happened in the past,” he said.

“But obviously we’re going to be looking into that to confirm those findings in the year three and four reports.”