Latest news with #NorthWestShelf
The Age
8 hours ago
- Politics
- The Age
The obscene priorities in education funding
Heartbreak high I am both heartbroken and furious to learn that the Labor Allan government is choosing to short-change Victorian state school students. The reality at the coalface of under-resourced schools is heartbreaking. Parents might be wondering why their child has a shared class or doesn't have a school nurse or librarian. This is the reality of schools working under a decade-long funding deficit. Teachers are pushed to teach their maximum face-to-face allotment (making up any extra time by moonlighting as a nurse, librarian or team teaching to ensure no minute is left idle). When these overworked teachers are sick, schools are routinely redistributing students to other teachers, pushing class sizes into the 30s. Teachers are being pressed to 'volunteer' to take extra classes to cover absences, anything, to reduce the school's spend on casual teachers. Jacinta Allan pointing to increases in capital funding is a furphy. The building of a hall (projects green lit to help COVID recovery) does nothing to help the tired teachers and undersupported students sitting down to Monday morning assembly. The added insult is watching students walk to the campuses of private schools carrying their full funding allocation to pre-class swimming training in an Olympic-sized pool. Kate Rose, teacher, Rosanna Electoral favours That the Victorian government will provide, as part of an extended drought package, a $5000 grant to Victorian farmers to help their family businesses pull through the temporary drought is laudable. I look forward to similar benevolence to the family-owned milk bars and local butcher businesses facing competition from their local mega-supermarket rivals; or the local family-owned hardware stores and nursery businesses facing challenges from the encroaching DIY megastores; or the family-owned gift shops, florists, clothing and toy shops facing devastation from the expanding big box chains. Why do farming small businesses get favourable government attention? I suspect it's all about electoral politics. Dennis Richards, Cockatoo What's the point? I wish to add my voice to the letters in The Age (30/5) despairing the decision to extend the North West Shelf project. So many of us are trying our hardest to reduce plastic, compost, save water, live sustainably in every way we can with future generations in mind, and it is a huge slap in the face that makes one feel 'what is the point?' Goodness knows what the despair of Indigenous communities is like. Libby Gillingham, Outtrim Yesterday's man It may have escaped Tony Abbott's notice that he is a ″yesterday's man″, which is a nice way of saying he is living in the past. Sussan Ley should ignore him. He is one of the cadre of Liberals, mostly ex-PMs, who are becoming more out of touch with ordinary Australians. Victoria is showing the effects of a poor opposition and listening to conservative Liberals won't improve matters. Adrian Tabor, Point Lonsdale Heed the regions Waleed Aly (Comment, 30/5) has a vision where the National Party becomes a bit teal, and therefore enables the Coalition to compete politically with Labor. It won't happen. Urban Australia needs regional Australia more than vice versa. They feed Australia's cities. They dig the coal and minerals that keep the economy ticking over and Australia's export income high. We repay them with second-rate healthcare, a food market that is stacked against producers, and a steady flow of city refugees who make regional housing unaffordable to locals. If we urbanites occupy their minds at all, what they would see is a bunch of hypocrites who ramble on about the post-carbon economy but in international terms are heavy carbon polluters. Maybe the teals and other city-driven politicians could pay a great deal more attention to regional Australia. Then they might listen to us. Alun Breward, Malvern East Changing Australia Waleed Aly is spot on, especially with the changing demographic of Melbourne's regions. George Megalogenis also noted in his Foreign Affairs essay 'Changing Face of Australia″ that the children of Chinese and Indian migrants are also better educated than those from an Anglo background and this has allowed them to be part of the middle class too. These skilled migrants are a dilemma for some in the major parties who don't acknowledge and understand the nation's changing identity and are still stuck in that Anglo past with a lack of diversity in their candidates. This class divide between the white working classes was reflected in voting patterns as well, especially in the outer suburbs. Mel Smith, Brighton Soul of humanity As a non-religious person, I was moved by Sunday's Faith column (25/5) by Warwick McFadyen where he discussed the virtues of the The Piano. I agree with everything he said and I congratulate the ABC for having produced it. My view, which I believe coincides well with McFadyen's, is 'that music is the soul of humanity'.
Sky News AU
18 hours ago
- Business
- Sky News AU
Gas to play significant role in renewables transition
Natural gas is expected to play a significant role in Australia's transition to clean energy as Labor advances plans for new gas-import terminals. It follows Labor approving a four-decade extension of the North West Shelf project in Western Australia. Some in the Coalition are welcoming Labor's move to prioritise fossil fuels as a backup to renewables. Environmental campaigners fear increasing gas supplies will make it harder to meet Australia's climate goals.
ABC News
a day ago
- Business
- ABC News
Australia just approved Woodside's gas project until 2070. How could it happen?
Some weeks more than others, climate change really bears down on Australians. This week, the news carried images of eerie orange skies as dust storms whipped across landscapes dried from record-breaking droughts. Further north, homes were submerged in floods exacerbated by heavier rain from a warmer climate. And also this week, the Australian government approved the extension of one of the world's largest gas facilities until 2070. But this decision isn't about climate change. At least not under Australia's current laws, where the climate harm from fossil fuel projects doesn't have to be considered. How can Australia approve a fossil fuel mega-project that will run until 20 years after the world is meant to reach net zero emissions? "I think the average punter out there is basically saying, 'Hang on, this is about climate change and 2070, what are we doing? What in the hell are we doing?'" lamented Greg Bourne from the Climate Council. Environment Minister Murray Watt's first major decision in the new role was to give the green light for Woodside's North West Shelf gas plant to continue operating until 2070. The North West Shelf is already Australia's third-highest emitting facility in the country, producing about 6 million tonnes of greenhouse gas each year. That's just the direct emissions from extracting and processing the gas and doesn't count emissions after the gas is sold, shipped, and burnt at its final destination. Some estimates put the total lifetime emissions from this project at the equivalent of a decade of Australia's current emissions. A decade. Think of it as pushing out Australia's climate goals by another 10 years. When asked about the decision this week, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese claimed the gas was needed to boost Western Australia's renewables, with 15 per cent of the gas earmarked for the local market. Without the extension, the North West Shelf was due to close in 2030. "In order to get that investment in renewables, you do need firming capacity, whether it be batteries, hydro, or gas, and that is what will encourage that investment and the transition to occur," Mr Albanese said. "In Western Australia, they are closing their last coal-fired power station at Collie in 2027. They are moving to renewables backed by gas, and that will be a really important part of the transition that will occur." But Mr Bourne said the decision would "haunt" the government. Before working at the Climate Council, he worked for decades in the gas industry in Western Australia and internationally, including at the North West Shelf. "We've been talking about net zero by 2050, that number is in people's heads," he said. It's not just climate experts warning that the world needs to stop expanding fossil fuels: the International Energy Agency says there is enough existing coal, oil, and gas projects to supply the world and stay the course to net zero. "The world is awash in gas, primarily coming out from the Middle East, but lots coming out from America and so on like that. I think our Australian companies fool themselves into thinking that they're going to be the last company standing, pushing gas out there," Mr Bourne said. The Albanese government is focused on driving renewable investments to bring down emissions, but at the same time, the country's climate plans don't include emissions from our fossil fuel exports. Woodside Energy welcomed the news this week, emphasising the important role gas played in Western Australia and its heavy industry. "This proposed approval will secure the ongoing operation of the North West Shelf and the thousands of direct and indirect jobs that it supports," Woodside's statement read. Currently, the environment minister has veto power over major projects if they would impact "matters of national environmental significance", such as protected plants, animals, and ecosystems. In the case of the North West Shelf, the minister considered the impact on cultural heritage relating to the ancient rock art of Murujuga. But under these laws, in the Environment Protection Biodiversity Conservation (EPBC) Act, climate change is not a deciding factor. "The fact that our environment laws do not address the harms caused by climate change from coal and gas extraction is a really dangerous loophole," said Julia Dehm, an associate professor in the law school at La Trobe University and climate law expert. "There's long been calls for reform of the EPBC act to include a climate trigger." This concept was actually proposed back in 2005 by Mr Albanese, who, as shadow environment minister, wanted to fix this "glaring gap" in the laws. "The climate change trigger will enable major new projects to be assessed for their climate change impact," he told parliament in 2005. "Climate change is one of the most significant challenges facing the global community and one of the greatest threats to Australia's way of life. "It is time to act. It is time for procrastination to end … We cannot any longer afford to be complacent on this issue." Twenty years later, Australia has not closed that gap and the Albanese government just approved the type of project that he was targeting back in 2005. The minister isn't completely hamstrung and under the current laws, could still opt to consider the climate consequences from the project. According to Liz Hicks, a lecturer at the Melbourne Law School and former Greens candidate, the EPBC gives the minister significant leeway when making decisions. "It was enacted during the Howard era," Dr Hicks explained, "the act was designed to make these considerations very political and confer enormous discretion on the minister". Under the act, Mr Watt is required to consider economic and social matters of projects, which could include the well-documented evidence of how climate change is affecting Australian society. An explicit climate trigger, however, would mean the minister was required to weigh up the climate impacts. "The climate trigger would have a lot of advantages … they would have to think about those climate factors, which we know are probably going to be some of the biggest factors," Dr Hicks said. The federal government proposed changes to these laws in its last term in office, but the proposals were shelved after pushback from the industry and the West Australian government. Those changes did not include a climate trigger. Instead, environmental groups have been trying in the courts to force the environment minister to consider climate impacts associated with major-polluting projects. Last year, the Environmental Council of Central Queensland argued in the Federal Court that all of the important environmental sites under the minister's protection are affected by climate change, and coal and gas projects will add to that damage. The court ultimately rejected the appeal, but in its decision, the justices noted the "ill-suitedness" of the current scheme when assessing climate change. Another flaw that comes with the system is that projects are assessed individually; even in the case of the North West Shelf, the proposal for the drilling of the gas to supply the plant into the future is considered separately. "Because it's the product of cumulative impacts of all projects in multiple jurisdictions around the world, everyone's trying to hide behind that abrogation of responsibility. "We can no longer hide behind the impact that each project is small because we know that each project has a significant impact and it's a cumulative impact of all these projects that have led to what is a really dangerous climate situation." Australia does have a way to regulate emissions from projects once they're up and running. Some emissions from the North West Shelf will continue to be monitored under Australia's national climate policy, the safeguard mechanism, which sets an annual limit for each facility's emissions that gradually decreases over time. Currently, the gas plant is the third-largest emitter in the country and last year relied on buying offsets to reach its targets set under the scheme. But the safeguard mechanism doesn't deal with the majority of emissions from fossil fuel projects, which come after the gas is sold and consumed at its endpoint, known as scope 3 emissions. "Australia's biggest impact is our scope 3 emissions, and they're completely left out of that framework for reduction, and that's really the big gap in Australian environmental law," Dr Hicks said. "Our export footprint is significantly larger than our domestic emissions. And this really needs to be recognised as part of our sphere of responsibility." This decision has not gone unnoticed internationally, especially with Australia vying to host next year's UN climate conference. Already, the news was lamented by Pacific leaders, who are on the existential frontlines of a hotter world. The Climate Council's Mr Bourne believes it will hurt Australia's standing internationally. "It immediately brought back the image to me of, I think it's the minister of [Tuvalu], who's standing in water up to his waist, pleading with the world's nations to tackle climate change. Our standing, I think it's going to go down in a very big way. "We are going to have to stop the opening up of new oil and gas fields …They're going to have to take those powers if they want to have any credibility at all." Monash University's Dr Dehm said this is exactly the opposite direction of where we should be going. "Approving more coal and gas projects, such as the North West Shelf, really undercuts Australia's climate credentials and presents Australia internationally as not just a climate laggard, but really as a destructive player on climate change."
ABC News
2 days ago
- Business
- ABC News
Perth protesters rally against extending Australia's largest gas project
Protesters have gathered outside the Perth district court to express concerns over approved extensions to Woodside's North-West Shelf gas project.
The Age
2 days ago
- General
- The Age
A prince, traditional owners and a ‘carbon bomb': Inside Woodside's extension plans
When Prince Charles toured Murujuga on Western Australia's north-west tip with Ngarluma man David Daniel in 1994, he passed antiquities older than Stonehenge, the Great Pyramid of Giza and the Tower of Jericho combined. Home to more than 1 million petroglyphs, or carvings, Murujuga – which documents 47,000 years of human history – hosts the largest collection of rock art in the world. Among them are engravings of spirits, humans and animals including thylacines, extinct on the Australian mainland for more than 2000 years. Traditional owners describe Murujuga as a living library, which – for those who know how to read the rocks – tell stories about earthly and spiritual realms, men's and women's business, and even how to butcher a kangaroo. Less than 10 kilometres away, on the opposite edge of a vast flat that once served as a meeting place, is Woodside's vast Karratha gas processing plant. On Wednesday, newly minted Environment Minister Murray Watt gave preliminary approval to the Woodside Energy's bid to extend the life of its North West Shelf project – comprising a vast network of offshore oil and gas infrastructure and the onshore gas processing hub in Karratha – until 2070. The Climate Council said the decision locked in more than 4 billion tonnes of climate pollution – equivalent to a decade of Australia's annual emissions – and would 'haunt' the Albanese government. Hours before Watt announced he had given preliminary approval to Woodside's expansion plans, it was revealed the United Nations intends to deny an Australian bid for Murujuga's ancient art to be given World Heritage status, due to the impacts of Woodside's 'degrading acidic emissions' on the petroglyphs. UNESCO instead recommends the 'total removal' of emissions from the area and urged the Australian government to 'prevent any further industrial development adjacent to, and within, the Murujuga Cultural Landscape'. For its part, Woodside said the decision would allow the oil and gas giant to continue to produce LNP for domestic and export markets while markets 'decarbonise' from coal. The project, it maintains, is critical to securing jobs and gas supply. Executive vice president Liz Westcott said the North West Shelf project had paid more than $40 billion in royalties and taxes since the start of operations in 1984. 'This proposed approval will secure the ongoing operation of the North West Shelf and the thousands of direct and indirect jobs that it supports,' she said. 'This nationally significant infrastructure has supplied reliable and affordable energy to Western Australia for 40 years and international customers for 35 years and will be able to continue its contribution to energy security.' The project is a major employer in the state, supporting 900 direct jobs and about 1300 contractor positions. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has described gas as a 'firming capacity' to support the transition to renewables. But the project's extension has been staunchly opposed by conservationists, climate scientists and traditional owners. Climate councillor Greg Bourne, a former North West Shelf manager with BP, said 4 billion tonnes of greenhouse emissions would be generated by the project over its lifespan – equivalent to a decade of Australia's total emissions. 'Extending the North West Shelf will haunt the Albanese government,' he said. 'They've just approved one of the most polluting fossil fuel projects in a generation, fuelling climate chaos for decades to come.' Climate scientist Bill Hare described the government's decision as extreme, and said it underscored a disconnection between the federal government's efforts to curtail domestic emissions and its support for ongoing fossil fuel exports. 'I think it [sends] a destructive message, actually, because the world is trying to stop the warming, and then we go and make a huge decision as a country to continue adding to this problem for 50 years,' he said. 'Country is crying out' More than 30 years after Prince Charles walked through Murujuga's living library, David Daniel's daughters, Ngarluma/Yindjibarndi traditional owners Regina and Kaylene Daniel, are also speaking up for this sacred space. 'You can feel the Country hurting; you can sense it,' Regina said. 'Our mum would say Murujuga was like a big library for us. It is a library. It is our library, our stories. It's our next generation's story to pass on to the next generation. We don't want to destroy it. We want it protected.' Kaylene said the sisters had watched the destruction of sections of Murujuga, on the Burrup Peninsula, when Woodside's Karratha plant was constructed in the 1980s. 'We've seen the way the Country used to be … where the construction and the building is now, we used to get bush tucker, bush medicine ... you used to see kangaroos out there.' In the 1980s, when Woodside constructed its Karratha plant, thousands of petroglyphs were bulldozed to make way for the facility. It's a memory that pains Regina and Kaylene, who describe Woodside's promise of more jobs for the region as 'more jobs for more destruction'. 'When you get connected to Country ... Country tells you,' Regina said. 'Country is crying out for help.' Woodside has long harboured ambitions to expand its gas operations in the resource-rich north-west of the state, seeking for years to develop the Calliance, Brecknock and Torosa gasfields in the Browse Basin, 425 kilometres north of Broome, and pipe gas to an onshore hub for processing. In 2013, a Woodside-led consortium was forced to abandon ambitious plans for a gas hub at James Price Point in the Kimberley region to produce gas from the Browse Basin, after the Supreme Court of WA upheld a legal challenge by Goolarabooloo traditional custodian Richard Hunter and the Wilderness Society. After the James Price Point proposal collapsed, Woodside turned its sights to Karratha – about 900 kilometres from the Browse Basin – to process the untapped reserves. The North West Shelf extension approval paves the way for this to happen. In December, West Australian Premier Roger Cook's government gave its approval to the North West Shelf extension, subject to a raft of conditions, including that Woodside review its measures to curb greenhouse gas emissions within 12 months of the approval, and then on a five-yearly basis. The oil and gas giant would also be required to lodge a new marine management plan before 2026, document its environmental performance, monitor air quality and consult Murujuga traditional landowners. Watt's preliminary approval of the project is also subject to what he described as 'strict conditions'. But the precise conditions will not be revealed until the post-approval statutory 10-day time frame for Woodside to make comment on the conditions has run its course. Critics say the 45 additional years the project is set to operate threaten to undermine Australia's commitments under the Paris Agreement to limit dangerous climate change. The Climate Council points out the forecast emissions from the North West Shelf project (90 million tonnes per year) would be higher than New Zealand's annual output in 2023 of 76.4 million tonnes. Emeritus Professor Alex Gardner, an environmental law expert with the University of Western Australia, said about 90 per cent of emissions emanating from the project would be sent offshore. Australia could not absolve itself of responsibility for these emissions, he said. 'Every tonne of CO2 emitted, regardless of when or where, leads to the same warming,' he said. The most recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report, released in 2023, showed the existing 'carbon budget' – before the world reached 1.5 degrees of global warming above pre-industrial levels – had already been spent. 'Projected CO2 emissions from existing fossil fuel infrastructure without additional abatement ...would exceed the remaining carbon budget for 1.5 [degrees],' he said. 'All the things that are in place now, if you burn all that fossil fuel, will exceed 1.5 … the world's authority on climate change science has said we don't need any new gas fields.' As the deadline for Watt's decision neared, environment groups and advocates launched desperate attempts to slow the process. On May 23, traditional custodian Raelene Cooper lodged legal action in the Federal Court seeking to compel Watt to decide on her application for a cultural heritage assessment for Murujuga, under section 10 of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Heritage Protection Act. Her application had been sitting with the federal government for more than three years. 'I am furious that the minister would make a decision to lock in ongoing and irreversible damage to my country before addressing my application,' Cooper said before Watt's announcement on Wednesday. '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. 'The minister does not even have the respect to come and see for himself what he will be allowing Woodside to destroy.' Speaking after the decision, Cooper said: 'See you in court.' 'Degrading acidic emissions' The federal government formally nominated Murujuga National Park for World Heritage status in 2023, in recognition of the 5000-hectare site's cultural significance. Loading But that nomination was dashed this week, when the agenda for UNESCO's July meeting went online, revealing the United Nations is poised to knock back Australia's application for World Heritage listing for the Murujuga rock art. Instead, the body recommended Australia attend to the 'total removal of degrading acidic emissions' that are affecting the rock carvings, or petroglyphs. The largest source of emissions is Woodside's North West Shelf gas processing facility, which is less than 10 kilometres from between 1 million and 2 million petroglyphs. 'The current system isn't delivering' Karratha, like so many other towns in the far reaches of Western Australia, is a mining centre. To get here from Perth means walking past airport gate after airport gate filled with a sea of high-vis-wearing workers. On the early morning flight, about 90 per cent of the passengers are men, and most wear the fluoro yellow or orange uniforms of the major companies running west coast industries. Watt's decision on Woodside's future here has been welcomed by the oil and gas industry, which describes the North West Shelf as a critical economic driver in the region. But in nearby Roebourne, home to many traditional owners, the economic benefits of this juggernaut are thin on the ground. In 2013-17, the median age of death in West Pilbara was just 55 years compared with 80 across Western Australia. At the 2021 census, 28.5 per cent of residents in Roebourne were in the labour force, compared with 63.9 per cent of West Australians. 'The data highlights a stark contrast between the substantial wealth generated by industry in the Pilbara and the continued socio-economic challenges faced by Ngarda-Ngarli [Aboriginal] communities,' Ngarluma Yindjibarndi Foundation chief executive Sean-Paul Stephens said. 'While industry is thriving, too many of our members are still grappling with the basics – life expectancy remains alarmingly low, and families often rely on food rescue programs to get by. This tells us that the current system isn't delivering equitable outcomes.' Watt spent much of his second week in WA dealing with the two biggest issues of his portfolio: Woodside's expansion plans and the government's nature positive laws. Loading He told ABC radio in Perth last week that he saw his role as serving a dual purpose. 'The way I see my role is ... to be the guardian of the environment and to oversee the regulation of our environmental laws when it comes to projects,' he said. 'But also part of my job is to help facilitate sustainable economic development going forwards. We know that WA in particular relies very heavily on the mining and resources sector. And we do want to see projects go ahead but in a way that doesn't irretrievably damage our environment.'
