Pressure on Murray Watt to make call on North West Shelf gas project

Environmental groups say the election results show that Australians on both the west and east coasts held concerns about the growth of gas

Environment Minister Murray Watt at the swearing-in ceremony in Canberra on Tuesday. Picture: NewsWire / Martin Ollman

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New Environment Minister Murray Watt has a mandate to block Woodside Energy’s gas plans, environmental groups say, as the Cook Western Australian government urged him to make a call on the $30bn North West Shelf gas plant extension as a priority.

Senator Watt was one of the biggest winners from Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s new cabinet appointments, and on Tuesday was officially sworn in to replace Tanya Plibersek in the portfolio.

While his appointment was warmly welcomed by industry groups, who believe they will get a better hearing from him than they got from Ms Plibersek, environmental groups on Tuesday told The Australian they had high hopes the new minister would knock back Woodside’s massive gas plans for northwestern WA.

Australian Conservation Foundation climate campaigner Piper Rollins said the election results showed Australians on both the west and east coasts held concerns about the growth of the gas industry.

Then opposition leader Peter Dutton had committed to approving Woodside’s North West Shelf plans within 30 days of forming government but lost both the election and his seat, while teal independent Kate Chaney – who previously labelled Woodside’s plans “unacceptable” – increased her margin after a campaign in which her Liberal opponent targeted her over her opposition to gas. Another teal candidate, Kate Hulett, came within a whisker of winning the ultra-safe Labor seat of Fremantle after running a strong anti-gas campaign.

Ms Rollins said West Australians had unequivocally said no to a “pro-gas agenda”.

“The federal government needs to recognise that not all West Australians are pro-gas and in fact there’s a large and growing group of West Australians who want our natural environment to be protected from unfettered fossil fuel development,” she said.

The regulatory path for Woodside has been further complicated by the WA Environmental Protection Authority’s decision on Monday to reopen public consultation over Woodside’s proposed Browse development. Gas from the Browse fields near Scott Reef in the Timor Sea will be piped almost 1000km to Woodside’s North West Shelf gas plant, keeping the facility running to 2070.

The EPA argued that the unusual step of reopening consultation was necessary given the scale of the changes to Woodside’s plans since the initial round of public feedback.

Woodside, according to the EPA, has amended its plans to no longer overlap with shallow water habitats around Scott Reef and avoid green turtle habitats.

Those amendments have done nothing to reduce environmental opposition to the plans, with Ms Piper saying it was still a “no-brainer” for Senator Watt to reject Woodside’s proposal.

“If we can’t stop oil and gas fields from opening up next to a pristine, ancient 15 million-year-old reef, then what are we protecting?” she said.

“There is no way that this project can proceed without having impacts on endangered and migratory species at Scott Reef, it’s just the nature of drilling for oil and gas in this setting.”

Greenpeace head of nature Glenn Walker said Scott Reef represented an opportunity for the Albanese government to follow a similar path to that taken by other Labor governments in the past.

Mr Walker noted that Labor governments had helped protect the Great Barrier Reef, the Daintree, Antarctica and Kakadu, and could add to that by protecting Scott Reef.

“There’s a real opportunity here for this government to be bold and leave a lasting legacy of strong environmental protection in this country,” he said.

WA Deputy Premier and Treasurer Rita Saffioti, meanwhile, on Tuesday said she wanted to see Senator Watt make a decision on the North West Shelf “as soon as possible”.

WA Deputy Premier and Treasurer Rita Saffioti. Picture: Getty Images

“We have a lot of confidence that that project will be supported,” she said.

“This is an important project for the state, it’s an important project for supporting decarbonising of our trading neighbours. We see this as an important part of our economic future as we transition into renewables, but also in supporting the rest of the world as they attempt to decarbonise their energy systems.”

A Woodside spokeswoman said that processing gas from Browse through the existing North West Shelf infrastructure could support thousands of direct and indirect jobs, generate billions in taxes and royalties, and help secure gas supply to WA.

“Since we referred the Browse project to environmental regulators in 2018, we have continued to collect scientific data and monitor advances in industry best practice environmental measures,” she said.

“This work has informed the amendments to the proposal, which demonstrate our commitment to further avoid and minimise potential environmental impacts from the proposed development.”