Rock art expert says WA government doctored elements of Murujuga rock art report

Australia Broadcast Center

27-05-2025

One of the world's leading rock art specialists has accused the WA government of producing "propaganda" to support its view that Woodside's controversial North West Shelf gas project should be allowed to extend, labelling government-produced documents a "disgrace to Australian science".
On Friday the WA government released a report into one of the world's most significant and dense collections of ancient petroglyphs, on the Burrup Peninsula (Murujuga) near Karratha, which are thought to be thousands of years old.
University of Western Australia professor of archaeology Benjamin Smith said the 800-page report found rock art closest to industry had been most degraded and recent industry was to blame — details he said the executive summary, which he claims was produced by the government — failed to mention.
Instead, Professor Smith said the summary claimed degradation to the world-renowned art had been caused by industrial emissions from the 1970s, distancing the damage from Woodside's recent activities in the area.
Despite having had the report since June last year, the government only released it on Friday, days before federal Environment Minister Murray Watt is expected to make a decision on whether to grant an extension of Woodside's North West Shelf Karratha Gas Plant to 2070.
"The minister cannot make a decision on the expansion of the North West Shelf on the basis of this propaganda document," Professor Smith told reporters on the steps of parliament on Tuesday.
"This document is not worth the paper it is written on, it's a disgrace," he said.
"A disgrace to Australian science, and my colleagues at Curtin University, who I'm sure are as angry as I am."
Professor Smith said the government had tried to hide key findings of the report.
"This report contains very serious evidence that industrial emissions are currently damaging the rock art of Murujuga," he said on the steps of parliament.
Professor Smith said the report found key pollutants had damaged the rock art, even when they were present in the atmosphere at low levels.
He said when rock from Murujuga was subjected to pollutants, it appeared to resemble Swiss cheese — meaning it was full of holes.
But WA Premier Roger Cook continues to deny the rock art has been harmed by recent industrial activity in the area.
"The science has said that modern industrial developments do not have a long term impact in terms of the quality of the rock art," he said on Tuesday.
"There was one incidence back in the 1970s associated with an old generation power plant, that is what people have pointed to as being the most damaging period during the age of the rock art."
Professor Smith said this was an attempt by the government to shift the blame from the present to the past, when the Dampier Power Plant, in operation in the 1970s and 80s, produced about 4,000 tonnes per year of key pollutants nitrogen and sulfur oxide.
"Current emissions from industry at Murujuga, the total of those pollutants is 20,000 tonnes ... so five times higher now than it was in the 70s and 80s," he said.
He said a rock sample from 1994 showed none of the Swiss-cheese like damage was evident now and could be considered a "smoking gun".
Curtin University scientists worked on the report, and Professor Smith said they had been told not to talk about it.
"The curtain scientists are under sort of lockdown, they're not allowed to speak to people," he said.
"But of course, academics, you know we believe in transparency."
Professor Smith said strict conditions should apply if Minister Watt decided to approve the North West Shelf project extension.
"There are conditions that could be set that would allow those plants to operate with close to zero [emissions of the key pollutants].
"This decision is perhaps the most important environmental decision of our lifetime.
"What will be approved here is the biggest carbon bomb in the southern hemisphere and the extension of a plant that is actively damaging the most important rock art site in the southern hemisphere if not the world."