Tanya Plibersek probes whether EDO ‘breached funding deal’

The Environmental Defenders Office was found to have confected evidence against Santos’s $5.3bn Barossa LNG project.

Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Martin Ollman

Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek has asked her department for advice on whether the Environmental Defenders Office breached its funding agreement after it was found to have confected evidence against ­Santos’ $5.3bn Barossa LNG project.

Ms Plibersek has also written to the chief executive of the EDO, David Morris, to make clear her expectations that the agency act ethically and professionally.

The actions were undertaken after a Federal Court judgment last month found the EDO had constructed evidence in making its legal case against the Santos-­operated Barossa gas project.

Judge Natalie Charlesworth offered a stinging critique of the case put forward by the EDO, including a “cultural mapping” exercise that she said involved “confection or construction” by the agency’s lawyers and a consultant. She also accused an EDO lawyer of “distorting and misrepresenting” the views of an Indigenous traditional owner, with the oil and gas sector later saying the agency had been exposed for using Indigenous people to prosecute its own ideology.

Government Senate leader Penny Wong told the upper house during question time on Thursday that “I understand the minister has written to the CEO of the EDO making clear that the expectation is that the office is to act ethically and professionally and that the minister has asked her department to ensure the EDO’s conduct is in accordance with their grant agreement.”

She also responded to interjections by the Greens, declaring that: “I don’t think anybody regardless of their political persuasion can suggest that some of the actions which were commented on by the judge are appropriate.”

Senator Wong was pressed on the government’s decision in the October 2022 budget to award the EDO funding of $8.3m over the forward estimates, with opposition environment spokesman Jonathon Duniam describing it as a “terrible, terrible waste of taxpayers’ money”.

Senator Wong said Ms Plibersek was expected to receive advice from her department on whether the EDO had breached the terms of its funding agreement.

Once the advice was received, Senator Wong said, “the government will consider that.”

At the end of January, the ­Coalition announced that it would cease the $8.3m in funding for the EDO committed to by Labor.

On February 1, Peter Dutton declared that he would defund the agency and that under a Coalition government, they would “no longer receive $1 of taxpayers’ money”.

“I think the Prime Minister should follow suit,” the Opposition Leader said at the time.

Senator Duniam told The Australian on Thursday that Ms Plibersek’s actions – in having asked her department to work out whether the EDO’s grant guidelines had been breached – represented a “major backdown”.

“The Albanese government should never have handed the EDO $8.3m,” he said. “This money has been used to endanger jobs and investment in industries and regions where we need it most.

“The government was warned many times by the Coalition and other Australians about the green lawfare and economic problems that this grant to the EDO would trigger, but they didn’t listen.

“And given that Justice Charlesworth found that the EDO confected evidence and coached witnesses, the government doesn’t need to go through a bureaucratic process like this to realise that it’s very clear that the EDO needs to be defunded immediately.”