WEBVTT - Woodside’s power in parliament 0:00:01.160 --> 0:00:05.800 I got fascinated by the Woodside story because of the 0:00:05.840 --> 0:00:15.400 emphasis really that the climate movement decided to put on Woodside. 0:00:15.480 --> 0:00:18.760 Marion Wilkinson has been reporting on climate and energy policy 0:00:18.840 --> 0:00:22.360 for decades and has recently turned her attention to Australia's 0:00:22.360 --> 0:00:26.720 fossil fuel giant Woodside. Last year, the government approved Woodside's 0:00:26.720 --> 0:00:29.920 plans to keep its Northwest Shelf project producing gas out 0:00:29.920 --> 0:00:31.560 to twenty seventy We've. 0:00:31.400 --> 0:00:36.080 Always said with Australia's fossil fuel exports, whether they're coal 0:00:36.440 --> 0:00:41.559 or liquid natural gas LNG, that that's the responsibility of 0:00:41.640 --> 0:00:44.800 our customers under the Paris Agreement, and in fact I 0:00:44.920 --> 0:00:48.559 heard Murray wat just talking on your podcast about that. 0:00:49.479 --> 0:00:52.320 I guess the way the world has approached dealing with 0:00:52.479 --> 0:00:56.680 climate change and greenhouse emissions, particularly through the Paris Agreement, 0:00:57.280 --> 0:00:59.800 is to say that every country who's a signatory to 0:00:59.840 --> 0:01:04.120 that agreement needs to reduce the emissions that it emits 0:01:04.520 --> 0:01:06.040 in their own country. 0:01:06.520 --> 0:01:10.800 But things are different now. The climate emergency is such 0:01:11.280 --> 0:01:16.000 that we actually need to seriously examine what we're doing 0:01:16.319 --> 0:01:21.720 about our customers emissions when we send out all these 0:01:22.520 --> 0:01:26.360 fossil fuels to the rest of the world. That's why 0:01:26.400 --> 0:01:31.440 I was interested in the Woodside story. 0:01:32.360 --> 0:01:36.720 I'm Ruby Jones and you're listening to seven AM today 0:01:36.880 --> 0:01:39.560 walk the award winning journalist and author of the quarterly 0:01:39.680 --> 0:01:43.800 essay Woodside Versus the Planet, Marion Wilkinson on how one 0:01:43.880 --> 0:01:47.080 company captured the country and convinced us that gas is 0:01:47.160 --> 0:01:55.280 necessary as the world transitions away from fossil fuels. It's Thursday, 0:01:55.440 --> 0:02:02.760 January eighth, and this episode was originally published in September. Marian, 0:02:02.920 --> 0:02:05.960 this is a pivotal moment for the energy giant Woodside, 0:02:05.960 --> 0:02:08.120 and I want to start by talking about the company's 0:02:08.680 --> 0:02:12.040 recent annual general meeting. You were there, so what happened? 0:02:12.440 --> 0:02:15.600 Well, it was it was a bit of surprise because 0:02:15.720 --> 0:02:19.880 I did know that the annual general meetings of Woodside 0:02:20.160 --> 0:02:22.920 had been quite fraud affairs for the last few years. 0:02:23.919 --> 0:02:27.960 The level of security really surprised me. Around the Crown 0:02:28.080 --> 0:02:32.880 Casino ballroom area in Perth, which is where it was 0:02:32.960 --> 0:02:37.520 being held, there was security guards absolutely everywhere. It was 0:02:37.560 --> 0:02:39.960 like going to the airport, you know, bags checked the 0:02:39.960 --> 0:02:44.360 whole box and dice. Nevertheless, the climate activists came in 0:02:44.400 --> 0:02:49.120 there no doubt on proxies from other shareholders blowing very 0:02:49.200 --> 0:02:52.320 loud whistles, which they later said was blowing the whistle 0:02:52.440 --> 0:02:55.359 on Meg O'Neil, the climate criminal. 0:02:55.840 --> 0:02:58.720 It's very childish to stand up and shout, but having 0:02:58.760 --> 0:03:01.079 a few people stand up and tackle and blow whistles 0:03:01.160 --> 0:03:04.400 doesn't change our resolve. It doesn't change our beliefs. 0:03:04.760 --> 0:03:09.600 But what I was particularly interested in was whether, in 0:03:09.639 --> 0:03:15.480 a broader sense, the shareholders were still questioning the leadership 0:03:15.800 --> 0:03:21.520 of Woodside on their climate plan. And I think some 0:03:21.760 --> 0:03:26.560 of the heat has gone out of the shareholder concern 0:03:27.600 --> 0:03:31.960 about fossil fuel businesses. And I think there's a feeling, 0:03:32.200 --> 0:03:38.760 certainly in financial circles that the Trump administration has given 0:03:38.800 --> 0:03:42.920 the industry a big break, But I don't think that 0:03:43.000 --> 0:03:47.720 actually changes the long term outlook for companies like Woodside. 0:03:48.200 --> 0:03:51.080 I think they are still going to be under enormous 0:03:51.120 --> 0:03:55.440 pressure because at the end of the day, you cannot 0:03:55.440 --> 0:03:57.839 get around the science of climate change. 0:03:58.520 --> 0:04:01.400 You mentioned Meg O'Neill's, so she's been the CEO of 0:04:01.440 --> 0:04:05.000 Woodside for the past four years. During that time, the 0:04:05.040 --> 0:04:07.880 company got approval to expand its gas production out to 0:04:07.920 --> 0:04:11.080 twenty seventy so it seems like mag O'Neill is doing 0:04:11.560 --> 0:04:13.640 quite a good job of what she's being paid to do. 0:04:13.680 --> 0:04:16.120 Would you say, I think she's doing a very good 0:04:16.240 --> 0:04:19.520 job at the moment for what the board wants her 0:04:19.600 --> 0:04:22.320 to do. If we look at what's happened in the 0:04:22.360 --> 0:04:26.560 last four years. She's managed to ram through the Scarborough Project. 0:04:27.120 --> 0:04:31.040 It's meant expanding their Pluto gas processing plant on the 0:04:31.080 --> 0:04:36.040 Barrett Peninsula. She's got both the WA government and the 0:04:36.080 --> 0:04:41.840 federal government on side with the extension of the big 0:04:41.960 --> 0:04:45.839 gas plant up there, the Northwest Shelf plant, and she 0:04:46.120 --> 0:04:52.080 is now plowing on with trying to feed gas into 0:04:52.120 --> 0:04:57.039 that Northwest Shelf plant from an expansion with some new 0:04:57.080 --> 0:05:00.160 gas fields in what's called the Brows Basin up there. 0:05:00.839 --> 0:05:03.160 So I think you'd have to say in the short 0:05:03.240 --> 0:05:05.000 term she's been very successful. 0:05:05.160 --> 0:05:05.360 Yeah. 0:05:05.360 --> 0:05:07.200 Can you tell me a little bit more about her 0:05:07.320 --> 0:05:09.920 rise to that job or where did she come from? 0:05:09.920 --> 0:05:11.000 How did she become the CEO. 0:05:11.640 --> 0:05:17.160 Well, she's basically been an eggs On person all her life. 0:05:17.839 --> 0:05:20.760 But the part of her career that really interested me 0:05:21.279 --> 0:05:25.080 was that she went to headquarters around the time of 0:05:25.160 --> 0:05:30.680 the Paris Agreement, which was twenty fifteen twenty sixteen, to 0:05:30.880 --> 0:05:34.320 work for the eggs On Chief Executive and I think 0:05:34.360 --> 0:05:37.440 she would have been there right at the time of 0:05:37.480 --> 0:05:43.960 one of the biggest original shareholder revolts internally against eggs 0:05:44.040 --> 0:05:46.599 On by climate activists. 0:05:47.080 --> 0:05:50.680 A climate activist group has targeted Exon Mobile with a 0:05:50.720 --> 0:05:54.800 shareholder resolution calling for deeper cuts in its carbon emissions. 0:05:55.200 --> 0:05:58.599 Dutch group followed this has urged the US energy giant 0:05:58.680 --> 0:06:01.640 to publish targets for a gause in greenhouse gas emissions 0:06:01.920 --> 0:06:04.840 and the burning of fossil fuels sold to customers. 0:06:04.960 --> 0:06:10.440 So she really knows the mo of climate activism and 0:06:11.000 --> 0:06:12.960 climate shareholder activism. 0:06:13.560 --> 0:06:17.400 And you got an interview with her recently. How hard 0:06:17.520 --> 0:06:19.719 was it to secure that and how did it go? 0:06:20.600 --> 0:06:24.680 Look, she was quite forthcoming in the end, and I 0:06:24.720 --> 0:06:27.320 think she was very keen to put the line of 0:06:27.400 --> 0:06:33.360 the company. She is absolutely determined, I think, to press 0:06:33.440 --> 0:06:37.800 the case that the Wa Labor government and the federal 0:06:38.120 --> 0:06:43.080 Albanesi government are pressing that what Woodside is doing by 0:06:43.240 --> 0:06:50.960 exporting LNG is helping to decarbonize our Asian neighbors. 0:06:50.800 --> 0:06:53.800 And we should not be regressing. We should instead be 0:06:54.080 --> 0:06:57.720 extending access to electricity to the hundreds of millions of 0:06:57.760 --> 0:07:00.480 people in the developing world who still live about it. 0:07:01.560 --> 0:07:05.640 To do that. We need new supplies of affordable and 0:07:05.720 --> 0:07:09.440 reliable energy, but we also need to decarbonize. 0:07:10.320 --> 0:07:12.680 It's a claim that's been running for well over a 0:07:12.720 --> 0:07:16.920 decade since the Paris Agreement was struck, but it is 0:07:17.040 --> 0:07:22.800 now a claim that a lot of countries and companies 0:07:23.080 --> 0:07:24.360 are hanging their hats on. 0:07:26.080 --> 0:07:27.280 And so does it hold up. 0:07:27.600 --> 0:07:32.760 I think it's getting really questionable now. On the one hand, 0:07:32.800 --> 0:07:37.800 we're seeing this rise in renewables, and I think that 0:07:38.280 --> 0:07:42.560 the instinct of the company's like wood Side, will be 0:07:42.880 --> 0:07:47.160 to try their hardest to hold onto their market share 0:07:47.480 --> 0:07:52.080 and to hold on to their customers, and that means 0:07:52.080 --> 0:07:54.920 that they're going to be really pressuring governments like the 0:07:54.960 --> 0:07:59.880 Australian government to stand by this thesis that they're helping 0:08:00.160 --> 0:08:04.480 carbonize the world, when really we want to look at 0:08:04.560 --> 0:08:08.360 whether that amount of LNGG going into the market at 0:08:08.400 --> 0:08:12.080 the same time of the really rapid rise and renewables 0:08:12.440 --> 0:08:16.640 that actually the grab the market share by the gas 0:08:16.720 --> 0:08:21.720 companies will hinder the transition rather than help it. 0:08:25.880 --> 0:08:28.320 Coming up. What the government gets out of its friendship 0:08:28.360 --> 0:08:31.360 with Woodside. 0:08:35.120 --> 0:08:37.679 The Australian government has stated its support for the gas 0:08:37.720 --> 0:08:41.960 industry and it has provided strong reassurances that Australia is 0:08:41.960 --> 0:08:48.440 not quietly quitting its LNG industry. Woodside is certainly not 0:08:48.760 --> 0:08:52.800 quietly quitting. We are deliberately delivering. 0:08:54.320 --> 0:08:56.640 So Marian, I want to drill down a bit more 0:08:56.679 --> 0:08:59.920 on the relationship between Woodside and both the federal government 0:09:00.080 --> 0:09:05.160 and Wa state government, because it seems like the government's 0:09:05.200 --> 0:09:08.439 rhetoric on gas and the approvals that they're granting they 0:09:08.440 --> 0:09:11.840 are all in line with Woodsides ambitions as a company. 0:09:11.960 --> 0:09:15.880 So what did those governments get out of this relationship. 0:09:16.240 --> 0:09:21.120 I think the success of Woodside is inherently baked into 0:09:21.200 --> 0:09:27.400 the psyche of Australia's main political parties. I think it 0:09:27.679 --> 0:09:34.240 was an unbelievably ambitious, important project right at the beginning 0:09:34.480 --> 0:09:38.320 when it started in the nineteen eighties. I mean, it 0:09:38.600 --> 0:09:43.720 was Australia's first LNG plant. It opened the door for 0:09:43.800 --> 0:09:48.640 the other big LNG players to come to Australia. Certainly 0:09:48.840 --> 0:09:53.240 in its original thinking, the domestic gas it supplied for 0:09:53.600 --> 0:09:57.920 Wa was very important to that state, both the industry 0:09:58.120 --> 0:10:03.079 and for the public. So on a simple level, there 0:10:03.120 --> 0:10:07.200 is a bit of tax and export income. Critically for 0:10:07.360 --> 0:10:13.480 both governments, there's jobs and that is a huge issue 0:10:13.559 --> 0:10:20.240 in WA. That means seats, electoral seats, that means political 0:10:20.320 --> 0:10:24.440 support in the Labor Party in the unions. That is 0:10:24.480 --> 0:10:30.880 a really big deal. It's backed by Kerry Stokes, who's 0:10:31.040 --> 0:10:37.360 the most important media proprietor in WA. So on so 0:10:37.559 --> 0:10:41.679 many different levels, both the state and federal governments, whether 0:10:41.679 --> 0:10:47.320 they're Liberal or Labor, they are intimately tied up with 0:10:47.360 --> 0:10:55.040 the future of Woodside. But neither the company nor the 0:10:55.080 --> 0:10:59.240 governments want to look ahead to what is actually happening 0:10:59.320 --> 0:11:04.400 in the energy transition. So we hear about the vital 0:11:04.480 --> 0:11:07.880 critical minerals industry all the time. These are the minerals 0:11:07.920 --> 0:11:12.679 that are going to help build the energy transition. And 0:11:12.720 --> 0:11:17.000 there's been a sleight of hand that somehow these critical 0:11:17.240 --> 0:11:21.120 minerals projects are going to be fueled by green energy. 0:11:22.000 --> 0:11:25.680 But if you spend any time in Western Australia, people 0:11:25.920 --> 0:11:31.240 talk largely about gas fueling that industry. And this is 0:11:31.400 --> 0:11:36.280 why Western Australia's emissions should be allowed to go up, 0:11:36.679 --> 0:11:41.360 so they can help with the critical minerals industry and 0:11:41.440 --> 0:11:44.719 so they can help decarbonize the world. Even though that 0:11:44.800 --> 0:11:48.920 state's emissions are going up. To me both the government 0:11:49.320 --> 0:11:54.000 and the gas companies in Wa. They're a million miles 0:11:54.200 --> 0:11:58.880 away from what the climate movement is thinking, and that gap, 0:11:59.600 --> 0:12:01.360 I think is untenable. 0:12:02.720 --> 0:12:04.559 Yeah, do you think that is a problem for the 0:12:04.600 --> 0:12:08.480 federal government because it seems like staking its reputation and 0:12:08.559 --> 0:12:11.880 being a gas export and also investing in things like 0:12:11.920 --> 0:12:15.720 critical minerals is one thing. But is that enough of 0:12:15.760 --> 0:12:18.840 a benefit for the federal government to justify continuing to 0:12:18.840 --> 0:12:20.760 support woodside in the way that it does. 0:12:21.320 --> 0:12:26.400 I think that's the really critical question, And I think 0:12:26.440 --> 0:12:29.720 the problem is we're trying to answer that question without 0:12:29.880 --> 0:12:35.000 realistic data about what is going on in the decarbonization 0:12:35.120 --> 0:12:39.280 of Asia. So I keep hearing this mantra from the 0:12:39.360 --> 0:12:43.920 companies and from the governments that we're decarbonizing Asia, therefore 0:12:43.960 --> 0:12:48.400 we're helping decarbonize the world. Once you start picking this apart, 0:12:48.880 --> 0:12:52.120 the arguments become a lot more complicated. If you look 0:12:52.160 --> 0:12:56.640 at a country like Japan. Japan is and has been 0:12:57.240 --> 0:12:59.880 since more or less the time of the Paris Agreement 0:13:00.320 --> 0:13:04.840 building its own gas endpire to re export gas around 0:13:04.920 --> 0:13:09.280 the world and to trade gas around the world. So 0:13:09.400 --> 0:13:12.280 I think a lot of Australians believe we're exporting to 0:13:12.440 --> 0:13:16.960 Japan so they can keep the lights on in Tokyo 0:13:17.080 --> 0:13:23.880 and keep Japanese people warm. But actually Japan is also 0:13:24.480 --> 0:13:29.520 becoming a major global gas trader. And also if we're saying, well, 0:13:29.559 --> 0:13:33.120 we're going to let our customers deal with the emissions 0:13:33.160 --> 0:13:38.400 from burning our gas, Japan might have a net zero 0:13:38.520 --> 0:13:43.439 by twenty fifty target, But does Cambodia, does the Philippines, 0:13:43.559 --> 0:13:48.440 does Vietnam. So the minute you start opening up this question, 0:13:48.600 --> 0:13:53.120 it becomes quite messy and quite complicated. And I guess 0:13:53.400 --> 0:13:56.920 if this is going to be the rationale, let's get 0:13:57.080 --> 0:14:01.040 some real information on it that is not just the 0:14:01.080 --> 0:14:03.520 information put out by the gas companies. 0:14:04.160 --> 0:14:09.439 And so, given the international energy market, the changes you're 0:14:09.480 --> 0:14:15.760 describing there, and the growing climate protest movement here in 0:14:15.800 --> 0:14:20.240 Australia that is becoming more focused on Woodside, how secure 0:14:20.320 --> 0:14:22.280 do you think the company's future is. 0:14:22.760 --> 0:14:27.520 I think in the short term, mego'neil's future is very secure, 0:14:27.560 --> 0:14:30.400 and I think the board is backing her. I think 0:14:30.440 --> 0:14:36.280 while the climate movement's actions against Woodside have pretty much 0:14:36.360 --> 0:14:42.360 been unsuccessful in actually stopping the projects to date, I 0:14:42.400 --> 0:14:46.600 think a far bigger question is the global pressures that 0:14:46.680 --> 0:14:51.680 will be on Australia one from the speed of the 0:14:51.840 --> 0:14:57.320 energy transition, but I think probably more importantly it's going 0:14:57.400 --> 0:15:01.920 to be the pressure of the pact of climate change 0:15:02.000 --> 0:15:06.960 on Australia itself. From the current global emissions. We are 0:15:07.120 --> 0:15:12.680 now looking at serious problems for the great barrier of 0:15:13.000 --> 0:15:19.720 survival in our lifetime, and I think in the shorter 0:15:19.880 --> 0:15:24.720 term there is a serious campaign that will happen around 0:15:24.800 --> 0:15:29.600 the overhaul of Australia's environmental laws. I think a lot 0:15:29.760 --> 0:15:33.440 of people in the climate movement are saying there has 0:15:33.520 --> 0:15:37.320 to be a climate trigger in those laws, and I 0:15:37.360 --> 0:15:39.960 think the reason they have to be on the table 0:15:40.280 --> 0:15:44.720 is that Australians know that it's not just the emissions 0:15:44.720 --> 0:15:50.840 at home that impact their lives with climate change. They 0:15:50.920 --> 0:15:54.840 know what is impacting their life is the global emissions. 0:15:55.760 --> 0:16:00.960 You can't just deal with your emissions at home and 0:16:01.080 --> 0:16:04.640 say that you're a responsible climate actor if at the 0:16:04.720 --> 0:16:11.280 same time you are trying to have your industry's profit 0:16:11.680 --> 0:16:16.000 from fossil fuel exports without saying we're going to take 0:16:16.040 --> 0:16:21.120 on the hard yards, which is how we provide affordable 0:16:21.400 --> 0:16:24.600 renewable energy for industry that works. 0:16:28.320 --> 0:16:28.480 Well. 0:16:28.520 --> 0:16:33.960 Marion, thank you so much for your time Thanks Ruby. 0:16:34.200 --> 0:16:37.480 You can read Marion Wilkinson's quarterly essay Woodside Versus the 0:16:37.480 --> 0:16:53.520 Planet at Quarterlyessay dot com dot au. Thanks for listening. Tomorrow, 0:16:53.560 --> 0:16:56.960 I'm bringing you a two part series about crocs. Darwin's 0:16:56.960 --> 0:17:00.600 crocodile farms supply some of the world's most exclusive fashion houses, 0:17:00.920 --> 0:17:04.080 but what's behind this booming, one hundred million dollar industry 0:17:04.280 --> 0:17:07.760 is shocking animals being kept in cramped conditions and being 0:17:07.840 --> 0:17:11.480 killed in drawn out processes, Indigenous people who say they're 0:17:11.480 --> 0:17:14.720 being ripped off for dangerous work, and claims of conservation 0:17:14.840 --> 0:17:18.960 by a scientist with assorted criminal history. It's a story 0:17:18.960 --> 0:17:20.840 that has stayed with me since we first published it 0:17:20.920 --> 0:17:24.200 last year. I'm Ruby Jones. This is seven am. Thanks 0:17:24.200 --> 0:17:24.679 for listening.