Greens Leader Urges Rejection of Woodside Gas Extension as Decision Deadline Looms

Photo by Martin Adams on Unsplash

Environment Minister Murray Watt faces a critical deadline this week to decide whether to approve Woodside Energy's gas production extension that would lock Australia into fossil fuel use until 2070, with Greens leader Larissa Waters calling the project a "mega carbon bomb" that contradicts the government's climate commitments.

Waters told ABC's afternoon briefing Tuesday the decision represents the "first climate test" for the re-elected Albanese government, urging Watt to reject what she described as "the country's biggest dirty gas project" despite Prime Minister Anthony Albanese's election promises to use gas as backup during the renewable energy transition.

"Call me an eternal optimist, but I'm still hoping, perhaps against hope, that the Environment Minister will knock this mega carbon bomb back," Waters said. "It is not, in my view, the role of an Environment Minister to tick off on the country's biggest dirty gas project that we've ever seen that would lock us into fossil fuel usage out to 2070."

The Woodside northwest gas shelf extension would extend operations far beyond the government's net zero emissions target of 2050. Waters argued the approval would trigger new gas field developments, including offshore drilling at Scott Reef and fracking operations in the Kimberley region.

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