Peter Dutton to end federal funding to Environment Defenders Office if Coalition wins the next election

The under-fire Environment Defenders Office would be stripped of millions of dollars in federal funding if the Coalition wins the next election.

Liberal leader Peter Dutton will make the commitment in a major speech in Perth on Tuesday, kicking-off a two-day trip to WA with his shadow cabinet colleagues.

The election promise comes just weeks after a Federal Court judge found the legal service confected evidence during a failed legal challenge to Santos’ Barossa gas project.

In a scathing rebuke, Justice Natalie Charlesworth said one of the firm’s former lawyers – who helped prepare Tiwi Islander witnesses for the trial — had misrepresented their views.

The Albanese Government reinstated federal funding for the EDO after the 2022 election, allocating $8.2 million over four years.

In a speech to a Chamber of Minerals and Energy WA breakfast, Mr Dutton will promise to end federal funding of environmental “lawfare” that he claims is being waged to stymie projects and curtail investment.

“We will not allow activists to hold sway over our industries and our economy,” Mr Dutton will say in the speech.

WA Liberal leader Libby Mettam has also promised to cease State funding to the EDO – worth $150,000 this year alone – if her party forms Government after the 2025 election.

Premier Roger Cook is refusing to pull funding from the service, despite believing the use of legal action to disrupt resources projects was now a “modern reality”.

In the speech, Mr Dutton will accuse the Albanese Government of adopting “ideological” policies that were “lethal to the national economy”.

“The Government has adopted policies which are hostile to sectors like agriculture, mining, manufacturing, forestry and small businesses,” he will tell the event.

“And Western Australia’s economy is bearing many of the wounds.