Marine & Coastal

13 November 2002

NT Government Ignores Community Concern and Condemns Darwin Harbour to Industrial Future

The Environment Centre NT is extremely disappointed by the Planning Minister's announcement today that he will grant an Exceptional Development Permit to Phillips Petroleum for their proposed gas plant at Wickham Point in Darwin Harbour. This is the second approval the Martin government has granted Phillips and constitutes the final green light for the siting of the project.

Environment Centre coordinator Mark Wakeham said today:
"Contrary to their claims that this project was approved by the previous government and it is too late to change anything, the Labor government has had two opportunities to reject this proposal- at the Public Environment Report stage earlier this year and today with the Exceptional Development Permit. The government has failed to act on both occasions and is hiding behind the bad planning decisions of the past rather than showing strong leadership and planning for the long term future of Darwin Harbour."

"In granting this approval, Minister Vatskalis has let the public down today. On the one hand, the Minister has said he wants long term planning and that he supports the development of a Management Plan for Darwin Harbour, but on the other he is completely undermining that process by approving yet more unwanted ad hoc development that will set the scene for further industrialisation of Darwin Harbour."

"It is now clear that as feared, the Minister's invitation for public involvement in this approval process was a complete sham. The outcome was pre-determined and the 1642 people who made submissions to the process in good faith have had their time wasted. Only one of these submissions supported the granting of the EDP. The planning Minister has failed a key test today, the question he must now answer is: why should the public have any faith in a planning process that completely ignores public submissions?" Mr Wakeham continued.

"In addition to the environmental and planning approvals the NT Government allocated $11 million of public funds in August's budget to build gas-related infrastructure for Phillips at Wickham Point. As well as paying the environmental costs the NT public is also footing the bill for gas development in the Harbour."

"Today will be remembered as the day when the NT Government ignored community opinion and served a multinational oil company instead of the public interest" Mr Wakeham concluded.

For further information contact ECNT on 8941 7461
Email: ecnt@octa4.net.au

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