North West Shelf Approval Exposes Broken Environmental Laws (28 May 2025)
MEDIA STATEMENT
28 May 2025
Independent Member for Curtin, Kate Chaney MP, says the conditional approval of the North West Shelf gas extension exposes Australia’s outdated environmental laws and their failure to consider the climate impacts of major fossil fuel projects.
“We haven’t yet seen the proposed conditions that Minister Watt says will protect the 40,000 year old petroglyphs at Murujuga. These conditions will need to be exceptionally strong, especially in light of UNESCO’s advice to the Government to ’prevent any further industrial development’ near the Murujuga Cultural Landscape.”
“It’s also absurd that the climate consequences of extending gas processing for another 40 years weren’t even considered. That’s a broken system.”
“We’re approving pollution until 2070 using laws written in 1999, ignoring everything we’ve learned in the past 25 years about climate change and its devastating impact.”
Ms Chaney has consistently argued that extensions of major fossil fuel infrastructure must only proceed if they can be justified across three key areas: environmental impacts, cultural heritage and climate change.
“We know climate change is devastating for nature, yet our core nature protection laws ignore it entirely,” she said.
“This decision locks in huge carbon emissions until 2070 and gives Woodside a free pass to keep polluting, even after its existing gas reserves run out,” Ms Chaney said.
It locks in approval for the pollution, even before we know where the gas is coming from. That means future governments won’t be able to properly assess new projects like Browse. And the rest of the economy will be left picking up the slack to meet our emissions targets.”
“If a fossil fuel project is truly in the national interest, it should be able to stand on its own merits, not benefit from loopholes that favour polluters.”
Ms Chaney noted that both environmental and business groups agree the EPBC Act is no longer fit for purpose, a conclusion echoed by the Samuel Review delivered to the Morrison Government in 2021. The Albanese Government promised to fix the Act but has yet to legislate.
“We need a regulatory framework that reflects the world we live in now, not the one we lived in 20 years ago,” Ms Chaney said.
“Of course, we need a smooth transition and gas has a role in that, but approving a long-term carbon bomb like this, with no climate test and no emissions limit, makes no sense.”
She called on the Government to take a precautionary approach and consider short-term approvals tied to a clear net-zero transition pathway.
“When making decisions that shape the next 40 years, we need to ask what’s going to be in our best interests at the end of that timeline - not just at the start. We owe that to our children and future generations.”
