Watt under fire in Burrup listing row - The Australian
Watt under fire in Burrup listing row (The Australian)
Paul Garvey reports on a UNESCO complaint lodged by Johnson Legal on behalf of client and Mardathoonera woman Raelene Cooper against the Australian Government.
Murujuga is the world’s most extensive and oldest collection of rock art, with over a million petroglyphs dating back 50,000 years. It holds the first known depiction of the human face.
At the world heritage listing event in Paris in July 2025, Australia’s Environment Minister told UNESCO that Australia’s Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (EPBC Act) would provide “immediate” protections for Murujuga.
Yet the Minister also knew the EPBC Act explicitly required him to ignore the listing event when considering Woodside’s North West Shelf gas extension project that sits in the middle of Murujuga, and is causing harm to the ancient rock art through industrial emissions.
Two months later, in September 2025, the Minister approved the gas extension out to 2070, ignoring Murujuga’s world heritage status, and permitting immediate and future harms to Murujuga.
Ms Cooper intends to lodge a human rights complaint alongside her UNESCO complaint.
