A window of opportunity has been opened—possibly inadvertently—which could lead to a serious delay in any final approval on Woodside's application to extend the life of their North West Shelf project.  

In a court hearing this morning brought by Mardathoonera woman Raelene Cooper to compel the environment minister Murray Watt to formally consider her section 10 application for the protection of the Burrup Peninsula's Murujuga rock art, it emerged Watt has agreed to give Cooper three days' notice of his final decision on Woodside's application. 

"That gives me the opportunity to consider an injunction to prevent the minister from making a final decision to approve the North West Shelf extension before determining my Section 10 application," Cooper said after the hearing. 

The threat of an injunction echoes the scenario in October 2023 when opponents of Santos' Barossa project successfully sought an injunction just two days before the gas giant's work was due to start in the Timor Sea. 

Today's brief, procedural courtroom face-off came three years after Cooper, a founder of Save Our Songlines and a former Chair of the Murujuga Aboriginal Corporation, first filed her application, leveraging the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Heritage Protection Act 1984 (ATSIHP Act).  

This legislation enables any Aboriginal person or group of Aboriginal people to apply to the environment minister to seek a declaration for the preservation or protection of a specific significant Aboriginal area from injury or desecration. The Act allows the minister to make a declaration if they believe the area is not adequately protected under State or Territory legislation. 

In a 20-minute hearing today, lawyers for Cooper and the environment minister set out the high-level parameters of the matter and agreed to reconvene next month for a one-day hearing to decide it. 

Speaking after the hearing, Cooper said: "I originally brought this application in early 2022 when I learned how my cultural heritage would be affected if industry was allowed to continue expanding on Murujuga, including Woodside's North West Shelf extension. 

"That was three years ago. For their entire first term, Labor ignored my application while the devastation to my cultural heritage has continued on Murujuga.  

"I am sickened that the minister would make such a decision without even paying us the respect of coming here to meet with the Custodians of this place, and without even seeing the incredible Murujuga rock art with his own eyes."  

During the hearing this morning, the government's Crown solicitor Tom Sherman said that a decision on Cooper's application was due to be made "in the coming months" irrespective of the court proceedings.  

He said the delay happened for several reasons. These include changes to the law since February 2022, needing to consider the rights of other groups or people, making sure the plan fits with state laws, and also because of a recent report about how industrial pollution might be harming nearby Aboriginal rock art. 

He added that the government's position was that the outcome of Cooper's application had no bearing on the recently announced proposed approval of Woodside's North West Shelf application. 

"We don't accept that there's any interdependency between this decision and the EPBC Act decision…we're dealing with two parallel statutory decision-making frameworks,' said Sherman. 

Protest 

Today, opponents of the Woodside plan and the environment minister's proposed approval protested outside Watt's constituency office in Queensland to express their frustration. 

Isabella Blak, Australian Youth Climate Coalition, said: "We are calling on Minister Watt to use his powers to reject Woodside's North West Shelf gas expansion to protect young people's futures from climate catastrophe and preserve the rock art at Murujuga." 

Graham Sharp, Gold Coast Move Beyond Coal, added: "Approving this project would be a betrayal of communities already suffering from climate disasters: bushfires, floods, droughts and heatwaves. We need real climate leadership, not more handouts to coal and gas giants."