There was - and still is - only one story in town this week.

And only one man too for that matter - literally - as the federal government's new environment minister Murray Watt put his head into the lion's jaws and crossed the Nullabor to talk North West Shelf and environmental law reform. 

Arriving in the capital of Western Australia on Monday evening, Watt spent the next two days on a whirlwind round of meetings with among others WA premier Roger Cook, the Chamber of Minerals and Energy WA, the Association of Mining and Exploration Companies, Deputy Premier Rita Saffioti, Labor ministers Simone McGurk and Don Punch, environmental groups and First Nations representatives. 

What he didn't do was speak to Woodside or visit the Burrup Peninsula - the first to ensure the integrity of the decision making progress, the latter due to a lack of time.

Of the two issues on Watt's to-do list, on the face of it the decision on Woodside's application to extend the life of their North West Shelf project is a much easier proposition than trying to reform the country's environmental protection laws.

All he needs to do is absorb the brief from his departmental advisors, ensure Woodside have followed due process and ensure there's no legal impediment to making a decision. Then it's just a matter of sucking up the knee-jerk reaction from whichever side of the fence he upsets most with his final ruling. And if there's one thing politicians know well, is that you can't please all of the people all of the time.

And to be fair, until late Thursday evening it looked as though the newly crowned minister had done a pretty good job. He'd met most of the stakeholders he needed to and was legally allowed to meet, he'd made all the right noises to the press and importantly he and his department had overcome three significant hurdles in the form of requests for the whole project to be re-assessed. 

These requests were filed by Environmental Justice Australia in 2022 and by Greenpeace and the Conservation Council of WA earlier this year. The first of the three was assessed by the minister's department and was deemed to be a valid request and was given due credence. However, while it has yet to be publicly announced, behind the scenes the minister has declined the request. The other, more recent applications were deemed to be invalid and didn't even get off the ground.

And so - much to the dismay/delight of the two sides of the fence - it looked like Watt was well on his way to giving the North West Shelf extension plan the greenlight - cue champagne corks popping at Woodside towers.

However, into the fray steps traditional custodian Raelene Cooper - no shrinking violet and certainly not one to be scared of standing up to the top end of town. Cooper, it was announced via an embargoed press release sent out late on Thursday evening, had had a busy day, filing a section 10 application under the terms of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island Heritage Protection (ATSIHP) Act.

This act allows for any Aboriginal person or group to apply to the environment minister to make whatever order he or she deems necessary to protect a site of cultural significance. In Cooper's case, she is appealing for the world-famous Murujuga rock art to be protected from the damage that might be caused to it from increased and continuing emissions from Woodside's nearby operations.

Cooper originally lodged her section 10 in 2022 and - as it wasn't addressed by the former environment minister Tanya Plibersek or her recent replacement Watt - she's now gone to the federal court in an attempt to force the minister to consider her request.

Whether or not Cooper's last ditch attempt has the strength and heft needed to derail what is looking increasingly like a fait accompli is hard to say and is something lawyers for Cooper, the government and Woodside will no doubt be chewing over furiously in the next week.

So if that's the simple part of Watt's work over the next week, spare a thought for him as he ventures into the trickier task - cajoling industry, representative and peak bodies, politicians of all colours, environmental groups, state and territory governments and all manner of other stakeholders. All he needs to do is get them all to agree on an environmental framework which both adequately protects the environment and the planet's climate and yet doesn't stifle development and investment.

Simple, eh?

North West Shelf? Piece of cake. 

 

 

Yours, 

Russell Yeo