Documents released under New South Wales freedom of information laws suggest the oil and gas industry’s peak body was the sole stakeholder the state government met before it moved to reopen gas exploration approvals for the first time in more than a decade.
In April, the NSW minister for natural resources, Courtney Houssos, announced the government would accept applications for gas exploration across two areas in the far west, the Bancannia and Pondie Range troughs. It was the first time applications had been opened since a 2014 freeze on new licences in the state.
The move set aside the position of the former Coalition government, which in its 2021 gas industry statement ruled out new gas exploration in the far west after public consultation, saying it would support only limited extensions beyond Santos’ Narrabri gas project in north-west NSW. The Daily Telegraph reported last year that the Labor premier, Chris Minns, was being briefed on potential new gasfields.
Environmental organisations were taken by surprise by the April announcement. Lock the Gate lodged a request under NSW freedom of information laws asking Houssos’s office to provide records of all meetings and correspondence with third parties and external stakeholders in relation to the decision.
The request produced records of a single meeting, between the government and Australian Energy Producers (AEP), the peak body for the oil and gas industry, held in February.
In the days before the announcement, the minister’s office corresponded with AEP, the Australian Workers’ Union and Business NSW about providing statements in support of the decision in the government’s media release.
Houssos wrote to other stakeholders, among them Lock the Gate and NSW Farmers, on the morning of the announcement. NSW Farmers put out a statement calling on the government to “answer urgent questions about how it will protect groundwater, farm biosecurity, and landholders as it promotes new gas exploration”.
Lock the Gate told Guardian Australia the documents supplied under the freedom of information request showed “the gas industry lobby has obtained preferential access to development of the NSW government’s gas exploration policy”.
Karra Kinchela, a Gomeroi woman and Lock the Gate’s spokesperson, said the “backflip decision” by the NSW government in April had “completely blindsided communities, including the Barkandji Native Title group”.
“We now know that the gas lobby was inside the tent from the beginning,” Kinchela said.
In 2015, the Barkandji Native Title group was successful in a native title claim over a 128,000 sq km area in far western NSW, including parts of the Bancannia and Pondie Range troughs.
The NSW government did not engage with Guardian Australia’s question about whether it met with other stakeholders about the decision to open approvals for gas exploration licences in April.
In its gas industry statement, released last week, the government ruled out releasing new areas for exploration but reaffirmed the commitment to approvals in the far west and for Narrabri, and said it would honour existing licences.
A spokesperson for Houssos told Guardian Australia the government had “engaged in genuine consultation with a range of stakeholders as we prepared our NSW gas statement”.
“This included meetings with more than a dozen stakeholders, including energy producers, environmental advocacy groups, unions, landholders, First Nations groups, and business representatives. We have been clear that gas will continue to play an important role in electricity generation, firming the grid during infrequent periods when solar and wind output is low.”
After the release of the gas statement on Wednesday, the NSW Greens MLC Sue Higginson said that gas was “not a transition fuel, it’s just another fossil fuel”.
“New extraction locks in emissions and infrastructure for decades at precisely the point when NSW needs to be accelerating away from fossil fuels.”
The window for applications for exploration licences in the Bancannia and Pondie Range troughs, which are decided by the minister, closed in July. The government has received one application, which is currently going through the assessment process.
AEP did not respond to Guardian Australia’s request for comment.
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