NT chief minister Natasha Fyles accuses teals of ‘breathtaking hypocrisy’

NT Chief Minister Natasha Fyles has criticised the ‘teals and trolls’ for attacks launched against the role of gas in the Territory and the Middle Arm Sustainable Development Precinct.

Northern Territory Chief Minister Natasha Fyles. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Martin Ollman

Northern Territory Chief Minister Natasha Fyles has criticised the “teals and trolls” for attacks launched against the role of gas in the Territory and the Middle Arm Sustainable Development Precinct, declaring it would “take a lot more than a couple of tweets” for the government to walk away from the project.

In a fiery speech to the ­National Press Club, the Chief Minister defended the Middle Arm Precinct, which has come under fire for involving businesses such as fracking company Tamboran Resources, and serving as a “key en­abler” for projects including the gas exploration at Beetaloo Basin.

“The opportunities for energy transition, exports and jobs are why we love Middle Arm. That’s why we are building it,” Ms Fyles said. “The teals and the trolls can spread their nonsense about it all they want but they should know it’s going to take a lot more than a couple of tweets for us to back down. The Territory is not for turning.”

Ms Fyles accused the teals and inner-city politicians of “bagging out a development that supports zero and lower emissions energy from places overwhelmingly powered by coal and oil”. 

“The hypocrisy is breath­taking,” she said, adding that the opposition to Middle Arm was part of the “same simplistic and misleading scare campaign” run against the role of natural gas in the NT.

“Natural gas is not our whole energy story, but it is part of the story,” she said. “And it’s critical to the Territory and the country’s energy security as we transition to other forms of cleaner power.”

Environment Centre NT executive director Kirsty Howey said the Chief Minister had “completely failed to read the Territory and national mood on climate, ­including growing opposition to massive new fossil fuel projects in the NT such as fracking the Beetaloo Basin and the Middle Arm gas and petrochemical hub”.

“It’s entirely appropriate for politicians and concerned citizens from inside and outside the Northern Territory to be concerned, and it’s outrageous for the Chief Minister to be shutting down scrutiny by retreating into parochialism and jibes,” she said.

“It’s breathtaking hypocrisy, not by ‘teals and trolls’ but by the Chief Minister herself.”

Ms Fyles’s comments come as the federal government is expected this week to pass reforms to the petroleum resource rent tax, which would affect a number of offshore gas projects – including the Japanese-owned Ichthys project off Darwin.

Kooyong independent Monique Ryan – one of the teals targeted in the Chief Minister’s speech – said Ms Fyles had engaged in “personal name calling” and “sledging” in her address.

“(It) does a disservice to the children and grandchildren of the NT, whose health is at risk due to the Middle Arm project and prospect of fracking in the Beetaloo Basin,” she said. “The NT Chief Minister should spend more time caring about climate change, and less time sledging highly respected Darwin doctors.”

More than 1400 medical professionals have signed an open letter calling for a halt to Middle Arm, with 80 NT doctors expected to descend on parliament house next week to ask the federal government to intervene.

While not having secured a meeting with Anthony Albanese, the delegation is due meet with a number of ministers and senior MPs, including Skills Minister Brendan O’Connor and Assistant Minister for Indigenous Australians Malarndirri McCarthy.