Court rules Morrison government grant to develop gas field in Beetaloo Basin invalid

A Northern Territory environmental group has won a court battle over a Morrison government grant to develop the Beetaloo basin onshore gas field.

The Environment Centre NT argued in the federal court that the $21m grant for exploration wells was legally unreasonable on multiple grounds.

Justice John Griffiths on Friday rejected arguments that the resources minister, Keith Pitt, should have considered the risks of increasing greenhouse gas emissions when he made the grants.

But the judge declared the grant agreements void because a delegate for the minister had signed them after the environmentalists had taken their case to the court, instead of waiting for the legal proceedings to end.

They failed on those grounds but the judge did agree the funding contract, which was signed on 9 September, just days after ECNT applied for an urgent court hearing over the matter, was legally unreasonable and there had been a jurisdictional error.

ECNT had lodged its legal case just days before Pitt awarded the grants to Empire Energy.

Johnson said the judge had made the three grants invalid because the minister had awarded them despite an active legal case surrounding them.

Kirsty Howey, a co-director of ECNT, said the judge had found the greenhouse gas emissions from the seven exploration wells were not significant.

The $21m contract between the government and the Empire Energy subsidiary is part of a $50m federal grants program.