Woodside blasts ‘distorted narrative’ as conservationists challenge North West Shelf’s 2070 extension in court
Conservationists argue Federal authorities had ‘apprehended bias’ favouring the energy giant when a decades-long extension of the North West Shelf gas project was approved.
Conservationists argue Federal authorities had “apprehended bias” favouring Woodside Energy when a decades-long extension of the North West Shelf gas project was approved, a landmark court case has been told.
The Australian Conservation Foundation and Friends of Australian Rock Art both launched legal proceedings challenging Federal Environment Minister Murray Watt’s decision in September to let the Pilbara operation run until 2070.
The groups fear the resulting industrial emissions will have a devastating impact on both the Burrup Peninsula’s World Heritage rock art precinct and climate change, and their case went on trial in the Federal Court in Melbourne on Tuesday.
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By continuing you agree to our Terms and Privacy Policy.Angus Scott KC, representing the ACF, told Justice Catherine Button that the green-light came after “an extraordinary level of engagement” between Federal authorities and Woodside.
Public comment was not sought, but the energy giant was invited to give feedback on proposed conditions, Mr Scott said.
“The engagement between the department and the minister with the second respondent went well above what’s required ... and an extensive opportunity was given to Woodside to comment on the proposed conditions beyond what’s required,” he said.
“... on the material .... what the department and the minister were concerned with were ensuring that any conditions that were attached to the approval were satisfactory to Woodside, and ... that the project would proceed.
“The minister met -- it seems in the briefing material -- with Woodside to speak about the conditions that were under discussion.”
Justice Button summarised the argument as effectively being that there was “reasonable suspicion” when a decision maker went “beyond the bare minimum”, but Mr Scott disagreed.
“I wouldn’t put it that way,” he said.
“All of this conduct is conduct which the minister and his officers were not obliged to engage in.”
Woodside is scheduled to make submissions later this week, with Mr Watt to follow.
In its written submissions, Woodside noted an email exchange between a staffer and a member of the department, including one reading: “If those mark-ups are acceptable and there are no other changes, the conditions would be implementable”.
A reply read: “We got there!”
“While those communications lack formality and suggest a familiarity between the human beings involved, they in no way suggest that the Minister’s decision-making process miscarried, particularly when the relevant chronology of events is understood,” Woodside’s lawyers argued.
“At the level of principle, the intensity and familiarity of the consultation process is not a fact that, of itself, gives rise to any inference of bias.”
The submission stated that the Minister did not invite public comment because he reasoned that “sufficient public consultation had occurred ... and that the views of the public were well understood”.
“The Minister did not owe a duty to afford procedural fairness to ACF,” the company’s lawyers argued.
“Secondly, the contentions on which ACF relies do not satisfy the tripartite test for apprehended bias.
“Thirdly, ACF relies on a distorted narrative of events, in support of both the sequencing and consultation limbs of its arguments.”
A Woodside spokeswoman said the approval followed a comprehensive and extended assessment by both Commonwealth and State regulators in accordance with statutory processes.
“As proceedings are before the court, we have no further comment,” the spokeswoman said.
Ministerial approval was a crucial step towards development of Woodside’s long-stalled, $30 billion Browse gas project, which is intended to be one of the sources that feeds the Karratha gas export plant.
A processing train in the plant has already been shut down as existing gas fields deplete, but the Browse project will need a separate environmental approval. Four trains remain online.
It is expected to involve the development of three offshore gas fields, the installation of offshore processing, storage and offtake facilities, and their connection to existing North West Shelf infrastructure near the North Rankin platform.
The North West Shelf began producing domestic gas production 42 years ago and commenced LNG exports five years later.
