The Albanese government has come under pressure from the crossbench over its $1.5bn stake in a “sustainable” development precinct on Darwin harbour after documents revealed the project would benefit the gas industry.
In question time on Thursday, the independent MP for Warringah, Zali Steggall, asked the prime minister, Anthony Albanese, why his government had “backflipped” and blocked a Senate inquiry into the Middle Arm industrial precinct.
Steggall also asked why the public was “funding key infrastructure for a private gas company to make record profits from exports” after Tamboran Resources, which plans to frack for gas in the Beetaloo basin, announced it was one of the site’s anchor tenants.
In a separate debate in the Senate on Wednesday night, the independent senator for the ACT, David Pocock, called out “a new government that continues to back the fossil fuel subsidies of the Morrison government”.
“The most problematic of these decisions is the $1.5bn for what they are now trying to call the Middle Arm sustainable development precinct,” he said.
The Middle Arm sustainable development precinct will be a major manufacturing centre for gas, petrochemicals, blue and green hydrogen and critical minerals.
In addition to Tamboran, the Northern Territory government has announced it has commitments for parcels of land at the site with Fortescue Future Industries and energy company Total Eren – which will pursue green hydrogen projects – and critical minerals firms Tivan and Avenira.
Both the federal and territory governments have branded the project as a “sustainable” precinct, but documents released to Guardian Australia under freedom of information laws show the Albanese government was told the development was seen as a “key enabler” for the export of gas from the Beetaloo basin between Katherine and Tennant Creek.
Separate documents show several of the wharves that would be funded by the commonwealth would be used for the export of gas and petrochemicals.
The government previously indicated its support for recommendations by a Senate committee examining the expansion of gas in the Beetaloo basin. One of those recommendations was for a separate inquiry into the proposed Middle Arm precinct.
But it voted with the Coalition to block the inquiry when it was put to the Senate by the Greens last week.
Albanese directed Steggall’s questions on Thursday to the resources minister, Madeleine King, who said: “I think the member was trying to impute that there is a subsidy for fossil fuels on the Middle Arm.
“That is not the case, and we’ve made that very clear that that is not the case and it will continue to be the case,” she said.
“We will continue to work with the Northern Territory government on the development of the sustainable development project there in the Northern Territory on Middle Arm. It is very important for the Northern Territory to diversify its economy.”
Steggall told Guardian Australia the response was “at its best greenwashing”.
In Wednesday’s urgency motion in the Senate, Pocock said the process that led to the decision to support the project with federal money had been “shrouded in secrecy, and some of what has happened is truly bizarre”.
The government senator Anthony Chisholm told the Senate the $1.5bn, and a further $440m that would be spent on “regional logistics hubs” along key transport routes in the territory, was a commitment “the government made prior to the election last year, so we very much see this as delivering on an election commitment that we made to the Australian people”.
He said the Middle Arm project would have significant economic benefits and it was “deeply disingenuous to ignore the facts, as some people have continued to do, and claim that this is an investment in fracking – it isn’t”.
“It is also disappointing that those people fail to engage in the detail of the proposition that the Australian government has put to the Northern Territory government,” he said.
The Greens also tried to move an amendment on Thursday to the Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility to prevent its funds being used for new coal and gas projects.
The government has twice supported a similar amendment to other funds but on Thursday voted with the Coalition to block the proposal.
The Greens senator Penny Allman-Payne said: “Labor needs to explain why they won’t similarly apply this to the NAIF. The only reason they would want this is to deliver public funding to get the Beetaloo and Middle Arm gas and petrochemical projects up and running.”
