The Northern Territory government has been referred to the anti-corruption watchdog over its handling of a research contract examining environmental risks of fracking in the Beetaloo Basin.
Located about 500 kilometres south-east of Darwin, the Beetaloo Basin is a large shale gas field that has formed a critical part of the federal government's post-COVID "gas-led recovery".
Before fracking begins in the region, baseline studies of the local environment are required to take place.
But a NT government-appointed official has questioned the integrity of the tender process surrounding a research contract worth up to $287,991.
"The integrity of the procurement activity, and those involved in it, relies on properly documented defensible decision making, and its absence therefore leaves the outcome... open to question," Buy Local Advocate Denys Stedman wrote.
In his referral to the Independent Commissioner Against Corruption (ICAC), Mr Stedman said the NT's Environment Department approached researchers at Charles Darwin University (CDU) in 2020 to investigate shrimp-like ecosystems in the gas-rich region.
After about one year of "advanced" discussions, a draft contract was allegedly signed by CDU, before the project was awarded to an interstate company for nearly double the price, the referral claims.
Mr Stedman also claimed in the referral that one CDU scientist suspected the decision could be related to media coverage of a previous study that "perhaps did not support the NT government's position on fracking".
Interstate contract nearly double cost of local proposal
At the time of the negotiations with the NT government, the CDU team, together with the CSIRO, had published findings that showed groundwater samples in the area contained at least 11 new species of rare shrimp-like invertebrates known as stygofauna.
"The discovery of these new NT species has implications for all extractive industries affecting groundwater," the researchers wrote in The Conversation in February last year.
"It shows the importance of thorough assessment and monitoring before work begins, to ensure damage to groundwater and associated ecosystems is detected and mitigated."
Despite the preliminary work conducted by CDU, the NT government announced in September last year that it had awarded the contract for further stygofauna assessment to WA company Biota Environmental Sciences.
University spent 'considerable time' helping develop contract
According to Mr Stedman's referral, the Environment Department decided against the $149,600 contract with CDU in favour of Biota for nearly double the price, at $287,991.
Mr Stedman wrote that a CDU researcher had spent "considerable intellectual property, time and energy" helping to develop the scope of the contract.
He said they believed they would be awarded the work under the CDU partnership agreement "only to have the job cancelled at the last minute and awarded to someone from outside the NT at twice the price".
Mr Stedman wrote that he had a statutory obligation to refer to the ICAC matters of "unsatisfactory conduct", including conduct that results in "the inappropriate or inefficient use of public resources".
A spokesperson for the NT's Environment Department said it would not comment publicly given the matter had been referred to ICAC.
Independent Commissioner Against Corruption, Michael Riches, also would not comment publicly on the referral.
Graeme Sawyer from anti-fracking group, Protect Country Alliance, called the decision to award an interstate company with a contract at a higher price an "absolute farce".
"When you look at this in the context of the broader issues of an MOU (memorandum of understanding) to try and build the research capacity in the Northern Territory… it just smacks of a really crass attitude," he said.
