WA government put ‘very rosy spin’ on report into Woodside emissions at Murujuga, scientist’s private email says

An email from Prof Ben Mullins to Melinda Fitzgerald released to the ABC under freedom of information. Photograph: ABC

The Western Australia government “put a very rosy spin” on a summary report of a project checking if pollutants from Woodside were damaging 50,000-year-old rock art, according to a private email sent by the lead scientist.

In an email released to the ABC, Murujuga Rock Art Monitoring Project lead scientist Prof Ben Mullins, of Curtin University, said the WA government had “insisted” on writing the summary report, despite a contract saying that Curtin should write it.