FOI files reveal NT Government failed to act on doctors’ warnings of LNG cancer risk for nearly two years

A Climate Integrity investigation has uncovered a letter from senior doctors at Darwin’s largest hospitals, which shows the Northern Territory government was warned about serious health risks to the public from LNG plants near the city close to two years ago, but have only recently agreed to monitoring for cancer-causing toxins.

Correspondence obtained by Climate Integrity through Freedom of Information shows the Medical Advisory Committee (MAC) for the Royal Darwin Hospital and Palmerston Regional Hospital wrote to the newly elected Chief Minister Lia Finocchiaro, in September 2024. The committee warned that INPEX’s Ichthys LNG plant, which processes LNG for export (alongside Santos) at the Middle Arm peninsula in Darwin, was "emitting dangerous amounts of toxic pollution and are not being held accountable”, with no pollution limits imposed on LNG producers. 

The letter stated, “research shows that residents living near gas facilities have higher rates of asthma, pregnancy complications, birth defects, cancers, kidney and heart disease due to pollutant exposure,” and that "mounting scientific evidence" shows LNG and petrochemical production are particularly harmful to children, pregnant women and the elderly.

Despite the urgent warnings, the NT Government waited nearly two years before announcing a plan to begin continuous monitoring of volatile organic compounds (VOCs), including the known carcinogen benzene. The World Health Organisation advises “no safe level of [benzene] exposure can be recommended” to humans. Meanwhile, the government has continued to allow LNG processors Santos and INPEX to release cancer-causing air toxics into the atmosphere over a major population centre.

Claire Snyder, Executive Director of Climate Integrity says, "Darwin residents should be furious that it took close to two years for the Finocchiaro Government to respond to this urgent health warning and expand air quality monitoring.” She continues, “We need to see more transparency, more accountability and ultimately a plan from the government to get toxic gas processing out of the Darwin suburbs.” 

Darwin paediatrician and Chair of Community Healthy Air NT, Dr Louise Woodward, said the government’s two-year lag has compounded the risk to residents. “Many cancers associated with exposure to VOCs such as Benzene can take years to develop and can occur with exposure to very low levels (leukaemia),” she said. 

Dr Woodward says the government’s response is not strong enough, and restrictions must be put in place. “Measuring air toxics is not enough to keep people safe. The EPA and NT Government needs to put strict limits on pollution emissions…and enforce the use of pollution reduction technology such as thermal oxidisers, acid gas incinerators and vapour recovery systems.”

INPEX has faced ongoing public scrutiny for massively underestimating its VOC emissions and putting the public at further risk. In 2021-22, it emitted 11,000 tonnes of VOCs at the Ichthys LNG plant, more than 20 times the 500 tonnes per annum estimated in its Environmental Impact Statement. In October 2025, INPEX revised its 2023-24 benzene figures from 4 tonnes to 557 tonnes. And in February this year, an independent review found the company had systematically underestimated its emissions, with "fundamental inaccuracies" persisting since operations commenced in September 2018.

As part of its investigation, Climate Integrity questioned INPEX, which claimed its “modelling methods are technically sound”, and also offered the NT Government and Santos a right of reply, but did not receive a response.

“There is an accountability gap at the heart of the LNG industry’s operations in the Territory. We’ve seen a succession of scandals, from INPEX under-reporting its emissions, to Santos failing to disclose a fugitive methane gas leak from its LNG storage tank, and yet expansion plans funded by the Federal Government are still underway,” Ms Snyder says. 

Climate Integrity is calling on the Federal Government to reconsider its $1.5 billion equity commitment to the Middle Arm development. The NT Government has initiated a review of LNG producers' licence conditions, due mid-2026, but has yet to act on the MAC's recommendation to amend operating licences to limit VOC emissions and mandate pollution reduction technology.

"Instead of investing $1.5 billion in the Middle Arm gas hub at enormous risk to Darwin residents' health, the NT and Federal Governments need to invest that money in new green industries that will both protect residents from toxic emissions and set Darwin's economy up for prosperity into the future," said Ms Snyder.