AgZero has slammed the decision by Federal Environment Minister Murray Watt giving conditional approval of an extension to the North West Shelf oil and gas project to 2070.
AgZero Chair, and Corrigin farmer, Simon Wallwork said "Western Australian farmers are on the frontline of a changing climate, and are already experiencing the direct impacts of climate change on productivity and profitability."
"AgZero has advocated a clear position that the externality costs posed to Western Australian agriculture and our rural communities through the extension of this polluting project are completely unacceptable.
"Western Australian farmers are adaptive innovators who are doing an extraordinary job leading the way in maintaining production in the face of the warming, drying and more extreme conditions we have experienced to date.
"Extending the life of fossil fuel projects is a slap in the face to the farmers and rural communities who are already experiencing so many direct impacts."
Speaking from the sprayer while working on the 2025 cropping program, Mr Wallwork said:
"AgZero sought a meeting with the new Federal Environment Minister during his recent visit to Perth, hoping to ensure that the voices of Western Australian farmers would be able to be heard on this critical issue. Our request to meet with the Minister was denied.
"The conditional approval of this project indicates the full extent to which our Federal Environment laws are broken. The ability of the Federal Minister to conditionally approve this project in the face of so much community concern and with such externality risks to our farming futures clearly shows that Australia's Environmental laws need to be dramatically improved.
"We look forward to being granted that opportunity to meet with the Federal Environment Minister, and to contributing to a legislative shift in which projects that pose a truly unacceptable risk to our industry are no longer able to be approved."
