ABC Afternoon Briefing: North West Shelf Approval - 19 March 2025

PK: Now, Peter Dutton says he'll make sure approval of the gas plant’s extension is arrived at within a month of securing office. Here he is. I don't think we have that grab from Peter Dutton. Well, let me bring you this. As part of Peter Dutton's pledge to extend the Northwest Gas Shelf, he took aim directly at the independent MP for Curtin in WA, Kate Chaney, who says scrutiny needs to be applied to the approval process of the gas plant.

Peter Dutton: I think people in Curtin were duped at the last election when they heard Kate Chaney say that she was a disaffected Liberal. Kate Chaney is a hardcore Green, and I don't believe that the people of Curtin want Kate Chaney to continue with this process of deception.

PK: Let's bring in Kate Chaney herself, who is only one half of our political panel today, along with Labor MP for Macquarie, Susan Templeman. Welcome to both of you.

Kate Chaney: Thank you.

Susan Templeman: Thanks very much.

PK: Well, Kate, I kind of have to start with you. Peter Dutton has singled you out here in relation to the Northwest Gas Shelf and the way you're representing your community. He says you're a hardcore Green—are you?

Kate Chaney: Well, I think we're going to get a lot of name-calling from Peter Dutton because that's really all he's got. He has shown today that he does not understand the WA economy and where its future lies, saying he's going to repeal the production tax credits. That means so much to our future prosperity.

And he’s also shown he doesn't understand how approval processes work. You can't do a process in 30 days. We need to actually look at the relevant information and make a decision on all the facts, not just rush it through.

PK: You had previously labelled the WA government's approval of the Northwest Shelf as a terrible decision and urged the federal Environment Minister, Tanya Plibersek, to knock it back. You've since changed your mind. So do you support the extension of this project?

Kate Chaney: I didn’t actually change my mind, although that's the way it was reported. What I said was these projects shouldn't go through unless we are fully accounting for carbon, we have a robust offsets programme, and we've addressed the environmental and heritage issues.

Now, we're still working through that process with the Northwest Shelf. The federal process looks at different issues to the state process, and we haven’t yet come to a conclusion as to whether or not there are environmental and heritage issues that would prevent this project from, on balance, being good for Australia. We need to see that process continue to roll through.

If it looks like a decision has been made before all the relevant information has been taken into account, it's just going to open it to legal challenge. So Peter Dutton is really doing himself no favours by questioning the approval process that we're currently working through.

PK: Susan, has the government allowed this to be an issue by pushing the deadline on this into possible caretaker mode?

Susan Templeman: I think the extension for consideration goes to just how complex this project is. And really, what this whole issue is showing is that the Liberals and Nationals are prepared to throw out the rules. They're prepared to give verbal approval for something before it's been through any process and then say, "Oh, in 30 days, we'll tick the box."

And that is, as Kate has said, a recipe for legal challenges. But it is also an appalling way to be in government. It’s what we saw from them in their last term—robodebt, let’s not follow the rules, let’s make them up. And I think it just goes to the heart of their attitude: say or do whatever it takes, particularly in this pre-election campaign.

But it’s a recipe for appalling environmental decisions, and we will obviously work through this as efficiently as possible so that the decision the minister makes—and remember, she’s not allowed to prejudge, the law says she can’t prejudge—follows those laws.

PK: I just want to ask you, just as a follow-up, the Coalition also, Susan, wants to introduce a national interest test for projects that are subject to environmental approvals. Would that be something that you could support?

Susan Templeman: I think it depends which bit of national interest they’re talking about. I mean, I'm very sceptical about people who had nearly a decade in government until fairly recently coming up with this sort of stuff as excuses to push things through that may not pass environmental standards—even past the existing environmental standards, let alone the improved environmental standards that we want to see.

So, you know, it all depends, doesn’t it? And to hear Bridget McKenzie trying to explain what it was just before us, I’m not any clearer about what it is, how it would work, and in whose interests it would work.

PK: Kate Chaney, just a final question to you on this. You've described this idea of fast-tracking and the timeframes as sort of from the Donald Trump playbook. How is it from the Donald Trump playbook? I mean, it seems kind of consistent with the general policy approach that I think we've heard from the Coalition for some time, isn’t it?

Kate Chaney: Well, for a start, I think it is policy on the fly, like we’re seeing from Donald Trump. I don’t think this is very well thought through—thinking about, you know, "Let’s just ignore the processes and say we’ll do it and get it done in 30 days."

Not only does it open that legal issue, but it also really undermines the fact that if you’re making decisions that have 50-year implications for our kids and our grandkids, it makes sense to look at all the information and make sure they’re informed decisions, not quick decisions.

This won’t affect any gas coming online before 2030. It’s not like this is holding things up. We need to make reasonable long-term decisions, not snap short-term decisions for political benefit.

So in that way, I think it's quite consistent with what we’re seeing coming out of the US at the moment. And we're seeing again and again Peter Dutton testing Donald Trump lines and seeing if each of them fly with the Australian public. But I think the Australian public wants to see sensible decisions made for the long term, not short-term political decisions.