Murray Watt's Climate Masterclass: How to Destroy the Planet While Pretending to Save It

The problem isn't denial. It's the illusion of progress.

Meet Murray Watt, Australia’s new Environment Minister. His first major act? Approving one of the most polluting fossil fuel projects in the nation’s history – shattering any pretence of climate leadership from a government elected, in part, on that very promise.  

Approving Woodside’s North West Shelf expansion doesn’t just undermine Labor’s climate commitments. It exposes the deeper dysfunction at the heart of Australian environmental governance – a system where the laws are weak, the incentives perverse, and real power lies with the fossil fuel lobby.  

Woodside’s own projections show the project will emit more than nine times Australia’s current annual carbon output across its lifetime. Imagine multiplying the emissions of every car, truck, aircraft, factory, and coal plant in Australia by nine, and then insisting we’re on track for net zero. There is no serious way to square this with Australia’s climate targets. To suggest otherwise is to insult the intelligence of the electorate. Physics, unlike politics, cannot be spun. Carbon dioxide molecules remain stubbornly immune to press releases.  

In 2022–23, Australia’s gas sector earned a bumper $92 billion. It paid $1.849 billion in petroleum resource rent tax – an effective rate of 2%. According to the Australia Institute, a fairer system could return billions more each year to the public purse. Instead, more than half these companies pay no royalties whatsoever. The Australian Taxation Office brands them “systemic non-payers”. Eighty percent of the gas extracted annually is exported, undermining the energy security of Australian homes. The nation is reduced to a glorified extraction zone – our wealth siphoned, our future sold.  

Norway taxed its resources and built a $1.4 trillion sovereign wealth fund – enough to fund free university education, world-class healthcare, and a social safety net envied across Europe. Qatar did the same, using gas wealth to modernise its infrastructure, invest globally, and seed industries of the future. Meanwhile, the Australian taxpayer tips $14.9 billion in subsidies to fossil fuel producers and major users every year. This equates to $28,381 per minute, or $548 per person.   

When history judges Australia’s failure to manage the gas boom in the public interest, Western Australia’s political class will deserve a chapter of its own. The state remains the epicentre of fossil fuel obstructionism, entrenched under Premier Roger Cook, who reflexively casts legitimate environmental concerns as threats to ‘jobs’ while offering no plan for a thriving post-transition economy.    

Cook’s influence extends well beyond state borders – he all but ensured Watt would take the path of least resistance on the North West Shelf. That bargain – shaped by political pressure and expedience – was Watt’s to make. And he made it. He possessed options: pause, review, demand genuine environmental assessment, or simply show the political courage to reject a project that shreds his government’s climate credibility. Instead, he rubber-stamped one of the most polluting developments ever conceived across the span of the Southern Hemisphere. More than seven out of ten Australians want a more ambitious emissions reduction target. What they got was spin.   

This is not to ignore the progress Labor has made. Policies like the Capacity Investment Scheme, mandatory climate disclosure, Rewiring the Nation, and the bid to host COP31 are all steps in the right direction. But that’s what makes this decision so damaging. Approving a carbon mega-project of this scale doesn’t just contradict those efforts – it actively undermines them. Australians deserve coherence. So does the climate. 

The greatest risk isn’t denial but the illusion of progress. When a Labor Government elected on promises of climate action approves one of the most polluting projects in Australian history, it reveals not a failure of intention, but a failure of integrity. Climate credibility must be earned through action, not assumed by comparison. 

Senator David Pocock has shown how modest reforms – taxing windfall profits, banning corporate donations, and restoring integrity to environmental oversight – could make the gas sector serve the public interest. These are not radical ideas. They are the bare minimum we should expect from any government. What’s missing isn’t a blueprint but a spine.  

Until Australians demand politicians who act as stewards of their commonwealth rather than auctioneers for foreign shareholders, they will keep getting environment ministers who protect everything but the environment.  

The tragedy isn’t that the solutions are hard. It’s that they are simple and deliberately ignored. Murray Watt’s decision is the logical outcome of a system that treats public resources as loot for the worst kind of vested interest. It is everything wrong with Australian politics distilled into a single, catastrophic decision.  

BWD Strategic does not work with fossil fuel companies unless they commit at board level to a serious, independently verified plan to transition away from high-emissions activities. We believe integrity matters – in consulting and in climate action.  

 Luke Heilbuth is CEO of sustainability strategy consultancy BWD Strategic, and a former Australian diplomat. Connect with Luke on LinkedIn or reach out to him at luke@bwdstrategic.com