Will Albo protect Scott Reef or cave to Woodside? A decision looms that could define his legacy — and Australia's climate future, writes David Ritter.
FEDERAL ENVIRONMENT MINISTER Senator Murray Watt has proposed to approve the extension of Woodside’s North West Shelf gas processing facility to 2070 — a decision that puts an urgent, immediate choice before the Albanese Government about the legacy it wants to leave.
Back in the day, when Prime Minister Anthony Albanese was still a little kid mucking around in the backyards of Camperdown, petrochemical corporations were lining up to drill for oil and gas on the Great Barrier Reef.
After an uproar by concerned citizens, in November 1974, Prime Minister Gough Whitlam announced that the Australian Government would create a marine park to protect the Great Barrier Reef from oil drilling. Today, every Australian has reason to be grateful for that intervention.
Today, there’s a very similar situation on Australia’s west coast; the proposed approval of the North West Shelf has set in motion a chain of events that will determine the fate of the incredible ecological jewel that is Scott Reef.
The Scott Reef complex is Australia’s largest freestanding oceanic reef atoll and is habitat to pygmy blue whales and green sea turtles, almost 1,000 species of fish, including sharks, sea snakes, rays, sawfish; extraordinary corals, bird life and a cornucopia of other sea creatures.
For those who have never had the good fortune to visit Scott Reef, you can see rare footage from a recent scientific research trip to the place that author Tim Winton has described as not only a ‘bank of biodiversity’ but a 'wild place that feeds our spirit'.
In short: Scott Reef is a national and global treasure. But, it also sits atop Australia’s largest untapped conventional gas reserve, Browse — where petrochemical giant Woodside Energy wants to drill for gas.
Woodside’s North West Shelf proposal is inextricably linked to the company’s endgame of drilling for gas at Scott Reef for overseas export. The main reason Woodside wants the North West Shelf facility extended to 2070 is to process gas from underneath Scott Reef. Its plans include drilling up to 57 gas wells — some as close as three kilometres to Scott Reef.
Minister Watt has effectively opened one of the gates to Scott Reef, bringing the drills one step closer to the reef.
The Albanese Government’s next decision on whether or not to approve Woodside’s Browse proposal will show Australians the true colours of the Government.
The prospect of allowing a corporation to drill for oil or gas on the Great Barrier Reef would be considered absolute madness today — but that is exactly the decision before the Albanese Government.
Woodside’s environmental history includes oil spills, abandoning decaying fossil fuel infrastructure in the ocean, a collision with a whale calf by a Woodside contractor and most recently, releasing 16,000 litres of hydrocarbons into the ocean during a "clean-up" operation north-east of Ningaloo Marine Park. Nothing in this record suggests that Woodside can be trusted with the future of Scott Reef.
All of this is, of course, compounded by the climate impacts of the project; the North West Shelf extension is the biggest new fossil fuel project in the Southern Hemisphere. The emissions from Woodside’s project will worsen climate change impacts like coral bleaching, as well as the floods, bushfires, and drought that are devastating communities across Australia.
Greenlighting Woodside’s plans to drill at Scott Reef would be profoundly at odds with the Albanese Government’s goal of halting and reversing biodiversity loss by 2030 and its international commitments, including the Global Ocean Alliance and the Ambition Coalition for Nature and People.
The Federal Election provided an overwhelming mandate for the country to take the path of renewable energy, rather than doubling down on polluting fossil fuels.
We Australians love our oceans. Labor’s election win was delivered by an electorate that cares deeply about nature, about our kids’ futures and overwhelmingly supports a rapid transition to cleaner energy. Western Australia’s potential to build an economy on renewable energy, clean industry and good green jobs is among the best in the world.
Any politician who allows the industrialisation of Scott Reef will be remembered as a vandal and a wrecker who gave in to the pressure of a multinational fossil fuel corporation. That shouldn’t be Albo’s legacy.
Just as Labor Prime Ministers stepped up to save the Great Barrier Reef and other ecological jewels like the Franklin River, the Daintree Rainforest and Antarctica — Albo now has a chance to save Scott Reef for West Australians, Australians and the world.
David Ritter is the chief executive officer of Greenpeace Australia Pacific. You can follow David on Twitter @David_Ritter.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Australia License
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