The man in charge of the Northern Territory government's handling of a major methane leak at a Santos gas plant was working with a lobbyist for the project's co-owner.
NT Environment Protection Authority chair Paul Vogel was involved in key decisions around the Darwin Liquefied Natural Gas plant (DLNG) without disclosing his paid role with the lobbying firm representing DLNG shareholder INPEX.
Mr Vogel has denied any conflict of interest, saying he never provided advice to any of the firm's clients who are regulated by the NT EPA.
Last week, the ABC revealed a major methane leak at DLNG was kept secret from the public for almost 20 years, in what environmentalists and federal crossbenchers say is a national scandal.
Santos has been cleared to use the plant for its controversial new Barossa gas project without fixing the leak or measuring its estimated emissions, which are the equivalent of adding 7,000 new cars to the road every year until 2050.
Barrister Geoffrey Watson said Mr Vogel's involvement in decision-making about the plant's future was "one of the most obvious instances of a conflict of interest that I've ever seen", and raised questions about whether his position was "tenable".
Mr Vogel has said his agency "did not report the leak to the public because at these levels [the emissions] do not pose any risk of explosion and negligible risk to human health or the environment".
The NT opposition leader has said the leak was not even flagged with the then-Labor government, despite being reported to the NT EPA in 2020, which was "quite phenomenal" and a "huge concern".
The EPA has said fixing the leak was now a "commercial decision for Santos", which independent federal senator David Pocock said "seems a pretty ridiculous statement from a regulator".
"This is one of the worst methane leaks in the country's history and it needs to be fixed," Senator Pocock said.
Paid 'hourly rate' by lobbyists
The plant's former operator, ConocoPhillips, was in the process of selling control to Santos when it reported the leak to the NT EPA in May 2020.
Despite an eight-month delay in the company reporting the leak as a breach of its environmental licence, it faced no action from the EPA.
It reported the leak several hours after Mr Vogel signed off on extending the life of the plant without a full environmental impact assessment.
He did so without disclosing his role as a "special counsel" to Purple, a lobbying outfit that paid him for strategic advice to its clients, touting his "unsurpassed knowledge in the areas of environmental issues, regulatory assessment and approvals".
Purple's clients at the time — and up until last year — included INPEX, the Japanese gas company with an 11 per cent stake in the Darwin plant, making it a minority partner of ConocoPhillips and now Santos.
INPEX also owns another nearby LNG plant.
Mr Vogel told a federal senate inquiry in June last year that he was still working "on an hourly rate" for Purple, providing it and its clients "strategic advice around environment approvals and assessment processes".
At the inquiry, Mr Pocock suggested Mr Vogel had a "huge conflict of interest" given his regulatory oversight of INPEX.
"If the head of the [Therapeutic Goods Administration] were found to be working part-time for a firm that lobbies for pharmaceutical clients, they would be out of a job. How do you explain this?"
Mr Vogel said he had "no commercial arrangement and do not provide advice to INPEX whatsoever".
Purple had declared INPEX as a client on the publicly available lobbyist register in Western Australia, where Mr Vogel lives.
However, Mr Vogel said he was "unaware that Purple provided any sort of advice to INPEX, so this is news to me".
He said he had never disclosed his work with the lobbying firm to the NT EPA because "it is not a conflict — this is the first time I have been made aware of it".
Purple no longer lists INPEX as a client.
But it acts for two other resource companies operating in the NT: Core Lithium and the Australian Gas Infrastructure Group.
Mr Vogel declined to be interviewed by the ABC.
In a statement, he said that "in the past I have provided specialist consulting services to Western Australian firm Purple on an ad hoc basis".
"I have never provided advice to any of Purple's clients that the NT EPA regulates in the NT, nor have I been requested to do so," he said.
"Furthermore, I have not done any commercial work with Purple for the past 18 months.
"There is no conflict of interest, perceived or actual."
'Uniquely obvious problem'
Barrister Geoffrey Watson, a director at the Centre for Public Integrity, said the situation with the NT's top environmental regulator was "such an obvious problem that I regard it as unique".
He said it was "never appropriate" for regulators to work on the side for industry lobbyists.
The NT EPA had a "quasi-police position, yet the head of it has taken on a consultancy, the full content of which he doesn't seem to be aware", Mr Watson said.
"I'm going to put it down to his inability, by the looks of it, to work out where his responsibilities lay, that he must have been confused about what he was required to do by his principal job."
Mr Watson said the decision to extend the plant's operations without a full environmental impact assessment should be "set aside immediately", given Mr Vogel's involvement.
He described it as a "clear-cut case of a perception of bias, which needs to be corrected as soon as possible, because it's a very important matter, for the environment, for the people of the Northern Territory".
NT EPA officials are legally required to disclose any "direct or indirect financial interest" or "personal, professional, commercial or other relationship" which can "reasonably be regarded as likely to inhibit or prevent… independent judgement about the matter".
Failure to disclose can result in termination.
Mr Watson said any calls for Mr Vogel's removal from any decisions about DLNG were "obviously reasonable".
"I think you could go a lot further than that, frankly, and say whether or not the gentleman's job is tenable."
'You can't brush it off'
Senator Pocock said even if Mr Vogel had nothing to do with the lobbying firm's work for the gas company, "I think he should have still declared that conflict of interest".
He said it was a matter for the NT government to enforce.
"I think it kind of points to some of the issues we have in Australia when it comes to environmental regulation, where often there is a lack of teeth, a lack of real independence," he said.
"I've been pretty surprised and appalled at times by the lack of care about conflicts of interest or even perceived conflicts of interest at a federal level, and clearly I think that's an issue at a territory level as well.
"And I think at a time when we desperately need to be rebuilding trust in governments, this stuff really matters; you can't brush it off."
NT Opposition Leader Selena Uibo said the community was "right to be concerned — a methane leak of this scale should have been raised when it was discovered and dealt with transparently".
"Mr Vogel's undisclosed consultancy and involvement in decisions affecting Darwin LNG raise serious concerns about conflicts of interest and transparency in government," she said.
"Territorians deserve confidence that environmental regulation is strong, independent and transparent. It is up to the government to ensure that confidence is restored and matters of public interest are communicated."
A spokeswoman for the NT Country Liberal Party government said the NT EPA was "an independent authority that applies its own judgement to its regulatory role and the advice it provides to the environment minister".
She said the matters raised "pre-date the election of the current government [and] questions about Dr Vogel's relationship with Purple should be directed to Dr Vogel".
Senator Pocock said the NT EPA made the wrong call not to tell the public about the leak.
"We now know that not just the NT EPA but multiple regulators knew and none of them told the public," he said.
"And it seems like the leak was actually hidden to help get approval for Santos' Barossa gas project, which is now going to supply gas to the same leaking facility.
"This is frankly ridiculous — in 2025 — that we allow gas companies to have leaking infrastructure."
Santos's environmental licence for the Darwin LNG plant is due for renewal on September 18.
In his statement, Mr Vogel did not say whether he would be involved in the decision.
"Prior to making a decision on the renewal, the licence decision package is provided to the full NT EPA board to consider all the required matters under the Waste Management and Pollution Control Act," he said.
