NT strips funding from green groups, boosts fossil fuels, in foretaste of Dutton administration

A move by the Northern Territory government to strip two environmental groups of funding and push through sweeping reforms to expand fossil fuel extraction is a sign of what’s to come under any future Dutton government, those groups say.

The NT Environment Centre (ECNT) and the Arid Lands Environment Centre (ALEC) were stripped of $100,000 each by the newly elected Country Liberal Party (CLP) after it sought to end the grant program that had distributed the money.

A letter sent on Monday on behalf of Minister for Lands, Planning and Environment, Joshua Burgoyne described the grant as providing a “policy capability to engage and contribute to the former government’s environmental reform program”.

It added: “There is a need to reprioritise the Department’s resources to ensuring timeliness of assessments and approvals under the relevant statutory authorities and to support key environmental projects.”

A follow-up termination notice sent on Wednesday said the decision was “effective immediately”. The letter sent to ECNT demanded the organisation repay any unspent funds, but the letter said to ALEC did not contain any such demand as it had already acquitted the grant.

The decision will mean both organisations will be forced to cut a staff position each, but would continue to exist.

Hannah Ekin, the head of the Arid Lands Environmental Council (ALEC), said the decision by the new CLP government was self-defeating as the previous Labor government was brought down, in part, by environmental concerns and frustration at its commitment to new gas developments.

“People in the community here are really pissed off by this decision to pull our funding,” Ekin said. “The new government have an environmentally ruinous agenda and defunding us is one part of that.”

“Our role has been to hold government to account around environmental policy and to support the community to have an active say around our environment and water. Those are not things the CLP wants.”

ECNT’s director Kirsty Howey described the decision as “tragically predictable” and said it comes as part of a wider push by the CLP to fast-track a massive expansion of fossil fuel extraction infrastructure in the Territory.

“It’s no wonder they want to kneecap us, but of course we’re not going anywhere,” Howey said. “You could say the gloves are off.”

The environmental watchdog role has meant both organisations have been at the heart of several controversies involving the previous Labor government. Work by ECNT helped expose industry lobbying to build the Middle Arm petrochemical hub and reveal government reports showing expansion of NT’s gas industry will grow its emissions by 150%.

The funding cuts come as the CLP has introduced a slew of legislation to parliament this week seeking to end the merits review judicial process that allowed groups to challenge the legality of decisions around large infrastructure projects in the courts, and to formally create the position of “NT Coordinator”.

Chief Minister Lia Finocchiaro announced the creation of the position in November last yearand appointed former general manager of Inpex, Stuart Knowles, to fill the position of “Interim Chief Coordinator” to work out of the Department of Chief Minister and Cabinet.

Once passed, the laws will allow the Chief Minister to exempt favoured projects from regulatory frameworks and approvals processes, and empower both the Chief Minister and the Chief Coordinator to “step in” to take over assessment processes managed by other approval bodies.

Examples provided in the explanatory memorandum for the bill say it will allow both the Chief Minister and Chief Coordinator to take decision making powers away from other ministers and agencies with delegated authority.

“If the relevant decision maker is a Minister, or if the Territory Coordinator is the proponent, the Minister for Territory Coordinator may issue the step-in notice and make the decision,” it says. “This requirement applies even if a Minister has delegated their decision-making authority to department officials.”

It adds that an “exemption notice” can “exclude the application of a law, or part of a law, to a significant project, Territory development area or program of works” but adds that this power is intended to be used “infrequently, in extenuating circumstances”.

There are several large fossil fuel projects currently planned for the Northern Territory. These include the massive $5.8 billion Barossa gas project, the Middle Arm petrochemical hub, applications to expand fracking in the Beetaloo Basin and a proposed pipeline to transport CO2 gas for carbon, capture and storage projects.

Howey said there were “parallels to be drawn to the US” where Donald Trump began his presidency with a raft of executive orders seeking to collapse key government departments and seize power.

She suggested that with a federal election imminent, what happens in the Northern Territory may foreshadow attempts by the federal Coalition to replicate aspects of the policy.

Opposition leader Peter Dutton has already acknowledge that his party’s signature nuclear power policy would mean longer-term reliance on gas and coal.

Speaking to the Institute of Public Affairs podcast last Thursday, former Prime Minister Tony Abbott suggested a future Dutton government should immediately open up the Beetaloo and approve “all” offshore gas fields in northern Western Australia and the Northern Territory.

“I would like to think the Coalition are likely to go into the election seeking a specific mandate for the rapid development of all of these gas fields,” he said.

The International Energy Agency has previously said limiting global heating to 1.5°C, included in the landmark 2015 Paris agreement, meant no new oil and gas fields or coal power plants should open beyond 2021.

“The NT is a vanguard jurisdiction, a testing ground for policy,” Howey said. “What happens to the NT comes to the rest of the country eventually. The decisions being made in our far-flung corner of the world are going to impact people in Sydney and Melbourne.”

“When you vote, you’re voting for the people of the Northern Territory as well.”