2025-09-24
The North West Shelf Approval: A betrayal of Country, Climate and Our Kids Future
By Sophie McNeill and Dr Brad Pettitt, WA Greens MLCs
It’s pretty confronting to stand under the massive flares at fossil fuel giant Woodside Energy’s Karratha Gas plant, as the flaming stacks spew a continuous stream of carbon dioxide and methane into our climate.
This ginormous gas processing facility is one of the key reasons why Western Australia is the only state where emissions are rising, up 17% since 2005 levels - while the rest of the country has reduced their emissions by 26%.
It is a major contributor to Western Australia’s status as the world’s third largest exporter of Liquefied Natural Gas, supplying 12% of the globe’s total supply of this deadly fossil fuel.
And this monstrosity of a facility sits among one of the most stunning physical landscapes we have in Western Australia - at Murujugua, a sacred place of enormous cultural significance to the Ngarda-Ngarli people.
Home to more than 1 million ancient stone carvings in the rocks known as petroglyphs, Murujuga has one of the most dense and diverse concentrations of this kind of rock art anywhere in the world, dating back more than 50,000 years - including the earliest known depiction of a human face.
Which is why the Federal and WA governments’ recent approval of this facility to continue operations until 2070 - 20 years past our net zero target - is a betrayal of Country, climate and our kids’ futures.
Federal Environment Minister Murray Watt’s conditional approval in May, six months after WA Labor gave it the green light, came faster than even Peter Dutton promised he would grant it.
This approval came in the wake of disturbing revelations that the WA government had manipulated and interfered in the findings of a major study that examined the impacts of industrial emissions on the ancient rock art.
The recent final approval by Minister Watt came just days after Pacific leaders warned that the Northwest Shelf extension could be in breach of the landmark International Court of Justice ruling, which found that all states were legally compelled to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and address the adverse impacts of climate change.
Mardathoonera woman and Murujuga traditional custodian Raelene Cooper described the approval as a "betrayal" to Aboriginal people.
"I have already instructed my lawyers to put the Minister on notice that this decision may have breached his statutory duties and international legal obligations," she told the ABC.
Federal and WA Labor’s complete capture by Woodside is plain to see. This approval paves the way for the fossil fuel giant's massive Burrup Hub project—the biggest new fossil fuel project in the Southern Hemisphere—which would generate more than 6.1 billion tonnes of emissions over its lifetime.
The Burrup Hub project includes development of the Browse gas field on top of the stunning Scott Reef, to feed the hungry North West Shelf processing plant’s insatiable appetite for more gas for the next fifty years.
So while Watt’s final approval of the North West Shelf extension is a devastating betrayal by Labor, we can still stop the dirtiest, most polluting part of Woodside’s plans at Scott Reef.
The WA Environmental Protection Authority is currently assessing Woodside’s Browse development and the impacts that it would have on Scott Reef’s threatened and endangered species like the green sea turtle and the pygmy blue whale, as well as the risk of an oil spill on the delicate reef ecosystem and the Kimberley coast.
We must come together to ensure that Woodside’s Browse project never sees the light of day.
We need a strong national movement to push back against Woodside’s capture of state and federal Labor and stop the immoral gas cartel from running our national agenda.
The Greens are the only party calling this out - we still can and we must stop Woodside.