May 21, 2026 — 5:21pmConservation groups have lined up to give Premier Roger Cook brickbats after he remarked that WA could be forced to start fracking the Kimberley region if Woodside’s Browse gas project was not developed.In an interview with the Australian Financial Review, Cook warned WA could be forced to start fracking in the Kimberley region if Woodside’s $30 billion offshore Browse project was not developed and the state was left short of gas as a result.WA Premier Roger Cook.Holly ThompsonCook told the AFR that WA had a “Browse-sized hole” in its future energy needs, and no ramp-up of renewables can replace the gas needed to meet demand from households and heavy industry“We all need to be realistic about the idea that you can just somehow reject Browse,” Cook said.“We have other onshore gas basins, such as the Canning Basin in the Kimberley, which has been subject to a lot of public debate as well. But the question for Western Australia is not whether we can, but how we do it.”But WA Greens MP Sophie McNeill said Cook’s comments were an indictment on his leadership that said everything about the government’s attitude to the climate and environment.“The premier has resorted to environmental blackmail,” she said.“It’s a complete lie that either one of these beautiful places needs to be destroyed just because the gas industry wants to make massive profits.“If the premier wants to fill an energy hole, he could start by ensuring that gas producers in this state stop flaunting the loopholes in our gas reservation policy to continue sending all our gas offshore.”McNeill said West Australians were not willing to surrender neither the Kimberley nor Scott Reef to Cook and his “corporate gas mates”.Greenpeace Australia Pacific WA campaign lead Geoff Bice said the state did not need Browse gas in order to prosper.“It needs a government to show leadership by championing renewables for WA’s future,” he said.“If there is a near-term gas crunch, Premier Cook should demand that multinational companies like Woodside contribute the 15 per cent domestic supply they owe rather than the pitiful 3.4 per cent that the Woodside Pluto facility has provided since 2017.“As Woodside’s own modelling shows, Browse would delay the renewable energy build out in WA. More gas puts billions of dollars of renewable investments at risk.“Whether it’s fracking the Kimberley or drilling at Scott Reef, Western Australians are short-changed if gas companies like Woodside are permitted to damage our environment, displace renewable development and flout their domestic gas supply obligations.”Meanwhile, Environs Kimberley executive director Martin Pritchard called the premier’s comments “outrageous”“The government has to understand that the social licence around gas extraction is evaporating, last year’s election result in Fremantle showed that,” he said.“They don’t have social licence for Browse and they certainly don’t have it for fracking the iconic Kimberley.”At a doorstop at the Australian Energy Producers conference in Adelaide, federal Opposition Leader Angus Taylor said he supported getting more oil and gas out from under the ground.“But I also support … letting state governments make the decisions on local projects,” he said.“This federal government has decided it’s going to impose a whole series of environmental standards and other standards on state governments. We want federal governments to get out and let state governments get on with the job.“Now, state governments have to get on with the job. But let me tell you this, there is a huge amount of oil and gas in Australia which can be drilled, which we can extract now in the Beetaloo, in the Taroom Trough, in the Browse Basin.“All of these are areas where we want to see drilling and production happening as fast as we possibly can.“We’ll leave it to the state governments to get on with that, but they need to make those decisions in a speedy way so that people are given certainty.”From our partners