The lead scientist on a key study into how air pollution is impacting Murujuga rock art, has accused a government department of putting a "rosy spin" on the findings. Documents obtained under freedom of information laws, raise new questions about government interference. But the WA premier has rejected concerns.
00:00This rock art is among the oldest in the world.
00:05Scientists have been trying to understand if it's being damaged by emissions from nearby industry,
00:10including Woodside's North West Shelf gas plant.
00:13We wanted to find out for ourselves the impact, the long-term impact, if there was any.
00:19A series of reports were released in May before the Federal Government gave the North West Shelf extension provisional approval.
00:25But documents released under freedom of information laws have raised questions about one of them.
00:30One concern was the green dotted line on this chart in a detailed report,
00:35which showed five monitoring sites were experiencing pollutant levels above the interim guideline.
00:40It was removed from a summary report, which showed only two sites exceeding the threshold.
00:46I do regard it as concerning the indication we have of apparent government pressure on the scientists to change the message for the purposes of the summary.
00:59The summary was meant to be drafted by Curtin scientists, but was instead written by the state government.
01:04The department did get us to review it once or twice, lead scientist Ben Mullins wrote in an email.
01:10However, they did put a very rosy spin on the results, and I think hoped everyone would only read the summary and not the full report.
01:17In a statement, he said after initially advocating for the line to remain, scientists acknowledged the position taken by the government and traditional owners to remove it.
01:26It's very clear that the government fiddled with the science to try and make this look rosier for the gas companies than it really was.
01:33This report was led by scientists, it was peer reviewed by the scientific community.
01:38There was no attempt to put spin or in any way to interfere with that process.
01:44The Premier's keen for the North West Shelf extension to be locked in, but that's currently in the hands of the federal government.
01:50It's also subject to two legal challenges against both state and federal approvals currently making their way through the cause.
01:58One brought by traditional owner Raylene Cooper is due to be heard in Sydney on Wednesday.
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