Australia\u2019s law that is supposed to protect the environment and cultural heritage doesn\u2019t work. There are few, if any, people who argue otherwise.<\/p>\n
A case study comes via environment minister Murray Watt\u2019s statement of reasons for his approval<\/a> of a 40-year life extension of the Woodside-operated North West Shelf<\/a> gas plant in Western Australia.<\/p>\n The 74-page statement is illuminating on a few fronts. It shows the federal environment department and Watt rejected claims by Woodside<\/a> and the WA government that acidic pollution from the plant \u2013 mainly nitrogen oxides and sulphur dioxide \u2013 had not damaged ancient Indigenous rock art found across the Murujuga cultural landscape that includes the peninsula.<\/p>\n Some of that rock art is estimated to be more than 50,000 years old. It includes what is believed to be the oldest known representation of a human face.<\/p>\n Watt also accepted department advice that future pollution from the North West Shelf could contribute to damaging or degrading this extraordinary cultural heritage. This conclusion raises plenty of questions about how the WA government is handling what is meant to be an independent rock art monitoring program. But from a federal point-of-view: so far, so good.<\/p>\n We now know Watt\u2019s initial response<\/a> was to approve the extension, but to require Woodside to reduce acidic pollution to below the \u201cdetectable limit\u201d that affects rock art.<\/p>\n Woodside\u2019s response was that this was \u201cnot technically feasible\u201d and would amount to an \u201ceffective refusal\u201d of its plans. In other words, the conditions would force it to stop operating the plant.<\/p>\n Sign up to get climate and environment editor Adam Morton\u2019s Clear Air column as a free newsletter<\/a><\/p>\n Here is where things get sticky. Woodside did not have to publicly appeal Watt\u2019s decision. It merely entered into private negotiations over the conditions.<\/p>\n The statement of reasons tells us the end result. Watt softened his initial position and instead imposed conditions that included acidic pollution having to fall 60% by 2030 and 90% by 2061.<\/p>\n The minister acknowledged his decision to require progressive, rather than immediate, cuts in acidic pollution meant there was a higher likelihood of Murujuga\u2019s natural heritage being affected \u201cin the short-term\u201d, but said any impact \u201cwould be small and therefore outweighed by the social or economic factors\u201d.<\/p>\n Woodside welcomed this change as providing \u201ccertainty for the ongoing operation of the North West Shelf Project, so it can continue to provide reliable energy supplies as it has for more than 40 years\u201d.<\/p>\n This is a pretty clear illustration of what some environmentalists have argued for years: that the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (EPBC) Act, introduced by the Howard government in 1999, is misnamed. Its main role is to allow developments to be approved.<\/p>\n Environmental and First Nations\u2019 cultural protection is weighed, but a secondary consideration to getting stuff built. Impact on the climate is basically not mentioned.<\/p>\n Only a couple of dozen proposals have been blocked outright in the law\u2019s 25-year history, and about half of those decisions were in the two years and nine months that Peter Garrett was environment minister. Otherwise, the act has mostly been used to reach a settlement with industry.<\/p>\n Watt said as much on Monday, arguing a company proposing a development is always consulted about conditions when a decision is made under federal environmental law. That\u2019s just how it works.<\/p>\n skip past newsletter promotion<\/a><\/p>\n Sign up to Clear Air Australia<\/p>\n Adam Morton brings you incisive analysis about the politics and impact of the climate crisis<\/p>\n Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com<\/a> to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy<\/a>. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy<\/a> and Terms of Service<\/a> apply.<\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n But should it be? The 2021 state of the environment report set out a pretty compelling case that the current approach is failing. Australia\u2019s wild and culturally important places, and its extraordinary array of unique species, were found to generally be in poor and deteriorating health.<\/p>\n Case-by-case bargaining to get developments up won\u2019t help fix that.<\/p>\n The final conditions on the North West Shelf extension are weaker than Watt initially proposed, but still stronger than those agreed with the WA government. It\u2019s possible the minister\u2019s starting position was only an ambit claim before negotiations with Woodside, and was always going to be stepped back.<\/p>\n It\u2019s also possible that the final conditions will still be difficult for the company to meet. Some analyses have suggested they could force Woodside to close two old and dirty LNG production lines after 2030, limiting its future production capacity.<\/p>\n That would be a significant change. But we don\u2019t know how strictly the conditions on the North West Shelf extension will be enforced by future governments. And, either way, the process remains opaque and flawed.<\/p>\n Conservationists such as Matt Roberts, from the Conservation Council of WA, says there is an obvious fix: strip \u201cpolitics and backroom negotiations\u201d from the development approval process by handing decisions to a genuinely independent Environment Protection Agency.<\/p>\n It seems a bigger change than Watt, who has promised legislation by November to fix the environment law, is contemplating. But the case is getting stronger.<\/p>\n Adam Morton is Guardian Australia\u2019s climate and environment editor<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Australia\u2019s law that is supposed to protect the environment and cultural heritage doesn\u2019t work. 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