Exmouth Gulf’s port has one day left to hear from the public, and Tim Winton says a kilometre of wharf has no place among the humpbacks

The window closes on Monday. After almost three months of public comment, WA’s Environmental Protection Authority will stop taking submissions on 16 November on the Gascoyne Gateway Marine Complex, a deep-water port proposed for the shore of Exmouth Gulf, about 1,230km north of Perth.

Tim Winton, the Perth-born novelist and patron of the Protect Ningaloo campaign, has stepped up his opposition in the final days, saying Exmouth Gulf is simply the wrong place for a port. He has called the gulf “one of the world’s most important humpback whale nurseries”.

The campaign says more than 74,000 people have signed its submission asking the EPA to reject the project.

What would actually be built?

Gascoyne Gateway Ltd, a start-up company, wants to build a single-jetty port about 10km south of the Exmouth township, opposite the town’s landfill site and north of the Wilderness Estate homes.

On the water: a wharf of about a kilometre, vessel berths, dredged channels and anchorages. On land: bulk fuel storage, a laydown area, a desalination plant, a solar farm and a corridor for access and utilities. The EPA’s summary says the port would serve cruise liners, ecotourism boats, Defence vessels and marine supply ships, and would not be used for livestock or iron ore.

Winton says the wharf could bring up to 600 vessels a year into the gulf. The company has not published a matching figure in its public summary.

Why do opponents care so much about this stretch of water?

Exmouth Gulf sits beside the World Heritage-listed Ningaloo Coast. Humpback whales rest and calve in its sheltered water on their migration, and its seagrass meadows feed dugongs. The Environmental Defenders Office lists turtles, dolphins, sharks and sea snakes among the animals at risk of vessel strike and entanglement, and blind cave fish living underground near the site.

Locals opposed to the port point to dredging, which could spread silt over seagrass, and to shipping noise in what they call the “humpback highway”. One Exmouth resident simply calls the gulf “my front yard”.

What does the company say?

Gascoyne Gateway chief executive Daniel Jackson says the company consulted widely and that most locals and businesses back the port, describing opponents as a “loud minority”. He says commercial vessels already use the gulf, that dredging would be carried out in a controlled way, and that some seasons would need extra steps to manage contact between ships and wildlife.

The company has long pitched the project as a renewable-powered “green” port that would diversify the town’s economy, which leans heavily on tourism.

The Exmouth Chamber of Commerce is behind it. Its president, David Gillespie, has called it an opportunity of a lifetime, pointing to jobs, roads, housing and population growth, while acknowledging local businesses are split.

Why does this decision matter beyond Exmouth?

The port is being assessed through a Public Environmental Review, the highest level of scrutiny under WA environmental law, and the review documents run to thousands of pages. The project was first referred to the EPA in 2021 and has faced opposition since it was first proposed in 2020.

The timing is the sharpest point of the fight. Exmouth Gulf is being assessed for the National Heritage List, which Winton says could open the way to World Heritage protection, but that decision is not expected until 2030. The WA government is also working towards a marine park covering the whole gulf. If the port is approved, construction would start in early 2029 and it could be operating by the end of that year: before either protection is settled.

That makes the EPA’s coming recommendation one of the most consequential environmental calls in the state this decade.