Tanya Plibersek weighs Burrup fertiliser plant fate

Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek has spent the week touring WA’s Burrup Peninsula as she nears a decision on whether to extend orders pausing construction on a $4.5bn fertiliser plant.

Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Gary Ramage

Federal Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek has spent the week touring Western Australia’s Burrup Peninsula as she nears a decision on whether to extend orders pausing construction on a $4.5bn fertiliser plant in the area.

Ms Plibersek spent Monday and Tuesday meeting stakeholders in the region, home to both the world’s largest rock art collection and some of Australia’s largest industrial projects.

The visit points to the minister nearing a decision on whether to grant a Section 9 application that would force privately owned chemical company Perdaman to stop work at its under-construction urea project for 60 days. Perdaman would also be required to seek additional approvals and develop another management plan.

The Section 9 application was lodged by Save Our Songlines, a group of traditional custodians from the Burrup Peninsula opposed to the project.

The Australian revealed last month that Ms Plibersek had instructed Perdaman to pause work at the site while she weighed up whether to grant the extended stop order. In a statement, Ms Plibersek said she was carefully considering the application but had not made a decision.

“I am visiting the Burrup Peninsula … to meet directly with parties involved,” she said. “This trip is … to listen to groups involved in, and potentially affected by, any decision I make. I will not be making further public comment.”

Save Our Songlines says the footprint of the proposed Perdaman plant overlaps with four petroglyphs, including one site featuring an anthropomorphic figure described as sacred.

Ms Plibersek’s visit is believed to be the first to the Burrup by an incumbent federal environment minister. The Burrup is shaping up as the key testing ground for the government’s commitments on cutting Australia’s emissions and improving the protection of Aboriginal heritage.

The region is home to the massive North West Shelf liquefied natural gas plant, which is in the approval process for works that would extend its life to 2070, as well as the Yara fertiliser project and Perdaman’s urea project. Woodside Energy is also adding a second train, or processing line, at its Pluto LNG plant, to be fed from the Scarborough gas field.

Environmental activists say those developments will hurt Australia’s emissions profile and are at odds with the commitment to reach net-zero emissions by 2050.