The Kimberley or Scott Reef? WA premier taken to task over fracking comments
Conservation groups have lined up to throw brickbats after Premier Roger Cook said WA may be forced to start fracking in the Kimberley region if Woodside’s Eye gas project is not developed.
In an interview with Australian Financial ReviewCook warned WA may be forced to start fracking in the Kimberley region if Woodside’s $30 billion offshore Eye project is not developed and the state faces gas shortages as a result.
Cook told AFR He said there was an “eye-sized gap” in WA’s future energy needs and no increase in renewables could replace the gas needed to meet demand from households and heavy industry
“We all need to be realistic about the idea that you can somehow reject Browse,” Cook said.
“We have other onshore gas basins, such as the Canning Basin in the Kimberley, that are the subject of a lot of public debate. But for Western Australia the question is not whether we can do it, but how we do it.”
But WA Greens MP Sophie McNeill said Cook’s comments were an indictment of the government’s tell-all leadership about its stance on climate and the environment.
“The Prime Minister has resorted to environmental blackmail,” he said.
“The idea that one of these beautiful places should be destroyed just because the gas industry wants to make huge profits is a complete lie.
“If the Prime Minister wants to fill an energy gap, he could start by ensuring gas producers in this state stop pointing out the gaps in our gas reservation policy to keep sending all our gas overseas.”
McNeill said West Australians were not willing to hand over either the Kimberley or Scott Reef to Cook and his “corporate gas buddies”.
Greenpeace Australia Pacific WA campaign leader Geoff Bice said the state did not need Browser gas to prosper.
“WA needs a government that will show leadership by supporting renewable energies for its future,” he said.
“If there is a gas shortage in the near term, Premier Cook should demand that multinationals such as Woodside contribute to the 15 per cent domestic supply they are owed, rather than the pathetic 3.4 per cent the Woodside Pluto plant has provided since 2017.
“As Woodside’s own modeling shows, Browse will delay the build-out of renewable energy in Western Australia. More gas will put billions of dollars of renewable investment at risk.
“Whether it’s fracking in the Kimberley or drilling at Scott Reef, West Australians will be short-changed if gas companies like Woodside are allowed to damage our environment, displace renewable development and ignore local gas supply obligations.”
Meanwhile, Environs Kimberley managing director Martin Pritchard described the prime minister’s comments as “outrageous”
“The government must understand that the social license for gas extraction has evaporated, as last year’s election results in Fremantle showed,” he said.
“They don’t have the social license to browse and they certainly don’t have it to break the iconic Kimberley.”
Speaking on the doorstep of the Australian Energy Producers conference in Adelaide, Federal Opposition Leader Angus Taylor said he supported extracting more oil and gas from underground.
“But I also support allowing state governments to make decisions on local projects,” he said.
“This federal government has decided to impose a set of environmental and other standards on state governments. We want the federal governments to get out and let the state governments get on with it.”
“Now it’s up to state governments to get the ball rolling. But let me tell you, there’s a huge amount of oil and gas that can be drilled in Australia, and we can get it now at Beetaloo, in the Taroom Trough, in the Glancing Basin.
“These are all areas where we want to see drilling and production happening as quickly as possible.
“We’ll leave it to state governments to deal with that, but they need to make those decisions quickly to give people certainty.”
