The Australian Greens have labelled the federal government weak after revelations the Environment Minister bowed to pressure from Woodside to weaken proposed protections for rock art from Woodside\u2019s North West Shelf project, and relied on dodgy state government documentation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The \u201cstatement of reasons\u201d document shows the Cook Western Australian government misrepresented the damage that the gas plant caused, and will continue to cause, the World Heritage listed Murujuga rock art.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It also found that conditions imposed on Woodside by the WA Labor government were \u201cnot sufficient to prevent harm\u201d to rock art, yet federal Labor still caved to gas industry pressure by approving the 40-year extension.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Greens Leader Senator Larissa Waters:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThis incredibly incriminating document shows just how weak the Labor government is in letting Woodside write their own rules at the expense of ancient rock art and the climate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cLabor has again conceded to their corporate donors letting them dictate the conditions on the approval of a carbon bomb.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWoodside should not have had any say on the conditions, but when Woodside CEO Meg O\u2019Neill asks for them to be watered down to protect their profits, Murray Watt delivers for her. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe statement of reasons document proves that Minister Watt knew about the risk to the World Heritage Murujuga ancient rock art, yet he approved Woodside\u2019s 40-year extension anyway.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIf our environmental laws allow the destruction of Murujuga\u2019s irreplaceable cultural heritage and the climate, it is clear they are broken. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cPassing the buck onto state governments is not working, WA Labor time and time again prove to be working on behalf of Woodside\u2019s interests over that of Country, the community, and our climate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt is disgraceful that Minister Watt sided with WA Labor and Woodside over the protection of irreplaceable cultural heritage and a climate safe future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cUntil we have strong federal environmental laws and a genuinely independent EPA, decisions will keep being made to protect industry and political careers, not to protect the environment or heritage.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Australian Greens have labelled the federal government weak after revelations the Environment Minister bowed to pressure from Woodside to weaken proposed protections for rock art from Woodside\u2019s North West Shelf project, and relied on dodgy state government documentation. The \u201cstatement of reasons\u201d document shows the Cook Western Australian government misrepresented the damage that the … Continue reading “Weak Watt concedes to Woodside on North West Shelf conditions, allows ancient rock art and climate to be destroyed”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-35166","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-aussie"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35166","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35166"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35166\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35167,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35166\/revisions\/35167"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35166"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35166"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35166"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}