Greater Sunrise. Woodside decides to go off-shore.

Dear Editor,


The news that Woodside has decided to build a floating platform to process LNG from the Greater Sunrise field is a massive blow to the local economy and for the establishment of a future Petro-Chemical industry in Darwin.

However, who could really blame Woodside for making such a decision?


The option of building a processing plant in East Timor was never very likely, given the instability of the fledgling nation. And of course, let’s not forget the engineering nightmare of constructing a pipeline through the deep and hazardous undersea terrain between the field and East Timor. It was therefore inevitable that Woodside would be never agree to spend up to $5 Billion on an East Timor plant.


The other option was of course to build the $5Billion plant in Darwin. I believe this proposal was always highly likely, given the existing Conoco Phillips plant, plenty of available land for future gas trains, and a mostly pro-gas government and opposition.


So why did Woodside make the decision to build a floating platform?

I suspect there are two main reasons:


Firstly, since the election of the Rudd Labor Government in 2007, Industrial Relations in Australia have once again become an inflexible, union-controlled quagmire, where real workers are penalized, lazy workers are rewarded, and great Australian companies like Woodside are held to ransom by the disruptive tactics of union thugs.


Industrial strife would have been just about guaranteed during the construction period, and no doubt afterwards, once the plant was constructed.


Woodside obviously did not want a bar of this garbage, so chose wisely to stay out of Australia – off shore.

Secondly, and still to do with unions, and the NT Labor Government:

The increased union presence in Darwin since the Martin/Henderson Labor government came to power has quite likely provided a further disincentive for the building of a local plant. Many Henderson Government agencies are now intertwined with the various unions – in order to further entrench union power in the once almost “union-less, happy and free” Northern Territory. This cozy but dangerous alliance does not auger well for a harmonious construction period, let alone after the plant is up and running. Woodside would have been aware of this.


So there you have it. Yet another disaster to add to the 40+ that have been directly or indirectly caused by the Rudd Labor Government. This time with some “help” from the local Labor government and their union mates.


Woodside would of course deny it, but had a fairer system of industrial relations been in place, where individual contracts are the norm, then Darwin may well have a $5 Billion project about to get underway.


And finally, we now hear that Rudd and Swan aided and abetted by life-long Bureaucrat Ken Henry, are about to apply a resource rent tax to Australia’s “Golden Geese” mineral producers. No doubt so Rudd and his mob of drunken sailors can waste even more money on even more nonsense – until of course there are no more geese, golden or otherwise to tax.


Yours truly,


Dave Wane


2nd May, 2010




6 VRD Drive,


Woodleigh Gardens,


NT 0812

Phone: 0418894133