Australia’s new environment minister faces a tight deadline to familiarize himself with a controversial and long-delayed application to run the nation’s oldest and biggest liquefied natural gas export plant for another four decades.

The first order of business for Murray Watt — a left-wing former lawyer tapped by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to lead the ministry on Monday — will be whether to allow Woodside Energy to operate its massive North West Shelf LNG facility in Western Australia until 2070. A decision on the application, first lodged in 2018, has been delayed three times, with the latest deadline set for May 31.

The ruling will be one of the biggest to be made by the new government, which won a resounding mandate at elections earlier this month on promises to realize an ambitious goal to cut emissions and is bidding to host the COP31 United Nations climate summit in 2026. However, as one of the world’s biggest exporters of coal and natural gas, fossil fuels also play a major role in the nation’s economy.

“It will be crucial for this government to stop approving new coal and gas if Australia is to be a credible host of a climate COP next year,” The Australian Conservation Foundation, a climate group, said in a statement. “Every single new coal and gas mine fuels climate change and catastrophic weather events.”

Watt had been agriculture and emergency-management minister — where he pushed to end live sheep exports and dealt with the impact of several cyclones that lashed Australia’s east coast — until he was moved to head the employment ministry in July. He comes from resource-rich Queensland, which could help introduce more pragmatism into environmental approvals, said Saul Kavonic, head of energy research at MST Marquee.

The incoming minister has not made his mind up on natural gas, or the North West Shelf project, according to a person familiar with Watt’s thinking, who asked not to be identified. His priority will be to combine job creation with environmental protection, the person said.

Watt succeeds Tanya Plibersek, who has been been moved to the social services ministry. Chris Bowen will remain climate and energy minister.