Court finds Woodside's Scarborough gas development plan not leggally approved
Woodside's Scarborough gas development has been dealt a blow after the federal court found an environmental plan for part of the project was not legally approved and was therefore invalid.
Transcript
00:00 What this case is all about is a nearly 1200 page environmental plan submitted by Woodside
00:08 to be able to carry out a type of surveying known as seismic testing off WA's Pilbara
00:13 coast.
00:14 First Nations woman and traditional owner Raylene Cooper has been challenging the approval
00:19 of that plan in the federal court saying that she wasn't adequately consulted and hadn't
00:24 had a chance to explain to Woodside her concerns about that testing and particularly the impact
00:30 that it could have on sea life in the area.
00:34 What federal court judge Craig Colvin decided this morning is that the approval that was
00:39 given to the plan should never have been given.
00:42 That approval was conditional on Woodside continuing to consult and then updating the
00:47 plan based on those consultations.
00:50 What the federal court found is that that was not a valid approval.
00:54 For a project to be approved the consultation has to be basically complete so that everyone,
01:00 Woodside, the regulator and everyone being consulted knows exactly what's happening and
01:05 can put in place appropriate measures to manage the risks.
01:09 If that hasn't happened the plan cannot be approved.
01:13 What that means for Woodside is they will have to go back and continue consulting and
01:18 resubmit the plan and in a statement they've said that is exactly what they plan on doing.
01:25 It could mean a delay to some parts of the massive Scarborough project.
01:29 In documents filed in the court they explained that if this testing couldn't be done now
01:34 it may well have to wait until the start of 2025 and that will obviously have some flow
01:39 on impacts on the project.
01:41 As for Raylene, the woman who brought this case, she is understandably over the moon
01:47 with this result but is already starting to think about what comes next in her bid to
01:53 protect what she sees as some very valuable elements of her culture, the songlines, the
02:00 wales and in particular some rock art in this region.
02:04 So certainly a lot more still to come in what is already a very long running cycle.
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