Future of North West Shelf a live election issue after Plibersek delay

The Coalition has promised to approve the gas project within 30 days and the Greens are demanding it be blocked.

Woodside Energy’s Karratha gas plant

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The Coalition will look to exploit the latest uncertainty over Woodside Energy’s $30bn North West Shelf extension in its bid to win back West Australian seats that could prove decisive in the upcoming election.

Federal Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek used the cover of budget day to quietly announce that her decision on whether to allow Woodside to continue operating the North West Shelf gas project out to 2070 would be delayed until after the election.

The latest deferral was labelled “extremely disappointing” by Woodside and “an absolute disgrace” by the Coalition, and ensures that the contentious project will be a live issue throughout the upcoming election campaign.

Earlier in March the Coalition promised to approve the project within 30 days of winning government; previously, the Greens flagged that they would want to see the North West Shelf extension blocked in the event of a minority Labor government.

Teal MP Kate Chaney also has called repeatedly for Ms Plibersek to reject the project.

Liberal candidate for Curtin Tom White already has used Ms Chaney’s positions on the North West Shelf and gas to portray her as a “radical risk to families” in campaign material distributed across the electorate.

The Australian understands the North West Shelf uncertainty also will be featured prominently in WA-specific Liberal advertising and materials during the upcoming election campaign.

Liberal insiders said ongoing doubts over the project – which was the nation’s first liquefied natural gas plant and for decades was the largest single industrial project in the country – would be used to portray the Albanese government as not acting in the best interests of WA.

“It’s a concrete example of federal Labor saying one thing, that they are Western Australia’s great friend, and then doing another,” one Coalition source said.

The North West Shelf is likely to feature alongside the Albanese government’s on-again off-again Nature Positive reforms and its ban on live-sheep exports as WA-specific targets in the campaign.

The materials for the WA campaign also may draw on criticisms of the Albanese government from recently re-elected Labor Premier Roger Cook, who earlier this year took aim at the Albanese government’s Nature Positive reforms.

In January Mr Cook was critical of what he described as latte-drinking federal Labor back­benchers when he called on the government to abandon those changes.

“Do not for a moment think that we will stand by idly and allow you to damage our economy because, ultimately, it will damage your standard of living,” he said at the time. The Nature Positive changes could be resurrected after the election.

The Liberals lost six seats in the west in 2022 and need to pick up at least three in WA to have any chance of winning government.

Ms Plibersek had been due to make a decision by the end of March on whether to allow the massive project to continue running out to 2070 but used her authority to reschedule her call to May 31.

A spokeswoman for Woodside – which has been waiting more than six years for state and federal approvals for the project – slammed the decision.

“The further delay in approval of ongoing operations of the North West Shelf beyond 2030 is extremely disappointing,” the spokeswoman said.

“We look forward to certainty for ongoing operations, which can support thousands of direct and indirect jobs, billions of dollars in taxes and royalties, and secure gas supply to Western Australia.”

The proposed extension of the North West Shelf – which would involve piping gas from the giant Browse gas fields almost 1000km away – has become a lightning rod for activists concerned about its impacts on climate change and the hundreds of thousands of ancient Aboriginal petroglyphs in the area around the gas plant.

The notice confirming the delay was published on Tuesday as much of the nation’s news media were in budget lock-ups with no internet access.

Opposition environment spokesman Jonno Duniam said the delay potentially could lead to the cancellation of the project if the Greens or teals were involved in a future minority government.

“This decision is purely political. The government have tried to bury it in a budget week so no one will notice,” Mr Duniam said.

“This is not the behaviour of a pro-jobs government that wants to responsibly balance the environment with sustainable economic projects, it is one of a government that is ideologically opposed to gas and, cynically, does not want to lose inner-city votes to the Greens.”

He said Ms Plibersek did not want to make a decision that would lose her votes to the Greens in her inner-city seat of Sydney.

His colleague, Liberal senator Michaelia Cash, described the delay as “an absolute disgrace and act of cynical political manipulation”.

“Anthony Albanese has prioritised getting Greens’ preferences at the upcoming election over approving a project vital for Western Australian jobs, our energy supply and our economy,” she said. “It is very clear that if Mr Albanese is re-elected he will not approve this project because he will be in debt to the Australian Greens for their electoral support.”