The Coalition has re-announced almost $20m for fracking company Empire Energy, a firm with links to the Liberal party, just two months after a court ruled a previous issue of the grants was invalid.
The resources minister, Keith Pitt, announced on Wednesday that three grants worth $19.4m would be given to Empire Energy to incentivise exploratory drilling in the Northern Territory’s Beetaloo Basin, a region the Morrison government wants to open up as part of its gas-led recovery.
The decision has prompted anger among environmentalists and Indigenous groups, who have said fracking the Beetaloo Basin would drive up Australia’s emissions by 13%.
“This is a carbon bomb of extraordinary proportions that will scupper any chance of meeting the Paris targets,” Environment Centre NT co-director Dr Kirsty Howey told the Guardian.
“It’s completely unreasonable for the minister to be approving these grants.”
Pitt’s announcement follows a federal court ruling in December that previous grants given to Empire worth $21m – almost half the available funding from the $50m Beetaloo Cooperative Drilling Program – were invalid.
The court slammed the government for signing the final agreements while a legal challenge brought by the Environment Centre NT was under way, ruling the actions rendered the grants invalid. But the court dismissed the Environment Centre NT’s main argument that the minister should have considered the fracking plan’s impact on global heating before announcing the grants, leaving it open for the government to reissue the grants.
During the case, lawyers for the Environment Centre presented modelling evidence that fracking in the Beetaloo Basin could drive up Australia’s emissions by 13%, using up the rest of Australia’s carbon budget under the Paris Agreement.
The court’s decision paved the way for the money to be re-announced on Wednesday. Pitt said the government was “committed to a gas-led recovery” and opening up the Beetaloo.
“These grants will assist in that important process,” he said.
“Australian gas is in high demand domestically and internationally and it’s important that we work to get new gas production online.”
A Senate inquiry has previously probed Empire Energy’s links to the Liberal party.
The inquiry has heard Empire has donated to the NT’s Country Liberal party and flew a Liberal party fundraising chair to inspect its operations. Empire is chaired by Paul Espie, a frequent Liberal donor and director of the Menzies Research Centre, the inquiry has heard.
The company told the inquiry the links played “no role whatsoever” in its applications for the grants and that it followed “due and proper process at all times”.
Johnny Wilson, who chairs the Nurrdalinji Native Title Aboriginal Corporation, lives in Lightning Ridge, not far from Empire’s proposed wells.
He said in a statement that the $19.4m would be far better spent on “essential services our communities need, like housing, education, health and roads”.
“The government is doing the wrong thing backing fracking on our country, it is poisoning our water, our animals and upsetting the songlines that run across our land,” he said.
Pitt said activists opposed to fracking in the region “threaten future energy security both here in Australia and in countries around the world that rely on our LNG exports”.
“The Beetaloo sub-basin has the potential to be a world-class gas resource that could create thousands of jobs and bolster domestic and international gas supply,” he said.
“The taxes and royalties that are generated from the resources sector allow state and federal governments to provide the health, education and other essential services all Australians rely on.”
Pitt was the headline speaker at an Energy Club NT event on Tuesday evening, which cost almost $1,000 per table to attend. A positive Covid diagnosis forced him to give the speech remotely.
Activists, including those from the Protect Country Alliance, rallied outside the event.
Protect Country Alliance spokesperson Graeme Sawyer said the fracking plan would only benefit a “minuscule” number of people, saying the majority of the gas would be exported.
“Ninety-nine point nine per cent of Territorians won’t benefit from this industry - instead we will suffer as fracking pollutes our rivers and groundwater, and drives dangerous climate change that is already leading to never before seen heat records in the Top End,” he said.
