Bid to halt Woodside gas works extension heads to court
Conservation groups hope to put the brakes on the extension of a major gas mining project in a landmark legal showdown.
Hearings will begin on Tuesday for two groups’ Federal Court challenges to Environment Minister Murray Watt’s decision to extend the 40-year extension of Woodside’s North West Shelf gas hub in Western Australia’s Pilbara region.
The Australian Conservation Foundation and Friends of Australian Rock Art claim that extending the project would greatly contribute to the negative effects of climate change and damage the 40,000-year-old rock art.
They claim that the minister signed off on the extension of operations until 2070 without knowing the details of the gas project and what kind of pollution it would cause.
Lawyers for the Australian Conservation Foundation will claim the minister misjudged the economic benefits of an unapproved Eye gas project, a separate Woodside proposal to develop a gas field off the Kimberley coast.
The foundation says Senator Watt also did not consider the physical effects of climate change as an “impact.”
In their submission to the court, the minister’s lawyers argued that the grounds on which the groups objected to the decision were invalid and should be rejected.
Woodside will also take the floor during the hearings to defend the extension of the project, arguing that the approval follows a comprehensive and expanded evaluation conducted by both county and state regulators in accordance with due process.
Friends of Australian Rock Art said the challenge was launched following ongoing WA Supreme Court litigation challenging state approval of the North West Shelf.
Their lawyers argue that the approval for the center expansion is invalid because the minister failed to properly take into account the economic and social harm that would result from the ongoing damage to the Murujuga people’s heritage.
The extension of the North West Shelf project was referred to the federal regulator in November 2018 and has been under evaluation for about seven years, Woodside said.
According to the Australian Conservation Foundation, if it continues, by 2070 the North West Shelf Extension will produce approximately four billion tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions; This is approximately 10 times Australia’s total annual emissions.
