Thursday 29 May 2025, Sydney

For six years, Woodside Energy’s proposal to extend the lifetime of Australia’s largest oil and gas project, the North West Shelf gas project, to 2070, sat waiting for the assessment of the Australian government. Yesterday, the government’s new Labor Environment Minister Murray Watt approved the extension of the gas project for another 45 years.

For ‘Alopi Latukefu, the Director of the Global Centre for Social Justice Advocacy and Leadership, this is a disappointing decision for future generations, for whom we have a duty of care, and for Australia’s Pacific family: “If we take our starting position of listening to the Pacific Island leaders and their call to address the existential threat of climate change, and work back on what are the ways to achieve real policy and systems shift, it starts and ends with decisions on the use of fossil fuels and their availability in the world.”

“When arguments are made in relation to the supply of gas as a development issue, or energy security concerns, or even the cost of energy in Australia, we need to always ask ourselves at what cost will this come, and who will bear the brunt of the impacts of these decisions.” 

“The Minister should be making a decision based on the need to take responsibility - for the environment, to protect Murujuga’s ancient rock carvings, but also for future generations in Australia, and, more immediately, for our neighbours throughout the Blue Pacific whose choices tomorrow will hinge on decisions we make today.”

According to Australia’s Climate Council, Woodside Energy’s North West Shelf gas project will release “4.4 billion tonnes of climate pollution over its lifetime, twice as much as the Coalition’s now-abandoned nuclear scheme, and equivalent to more than a decade of Australia’s annual emissions”.

‘Alopi Latukefu said: “This is not a decision made in the interest of our region, the world or in fact the long-term interest of Australia. Reducing our own emissions while exporting billions of tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions to the rest of the world is not being a responsible family member and friend to the Pacific. As our Prime Minister said in response to President Trump’s Liberation Day announcement on tariffs, during the last Federal election campaign: ‘This is not the act of a friend’.”

For more information, please contact:

‘Alopi Latukefu

Director, The Global Centre for Social Justice Advocacy and Leadership

(formerly the Edmund Rice Centre for Justice and Community Education)

Email:  [email protected]

Mob:   +61 4 66 028 196