Josh Wilson, the Albanese government's assistant minister for climate change and energy, has been photographed wearing a Fremantle Dockers guernsey with red tape covering the Woodside Energy logo. The image, taken from a family member's social media account and published by The Australian, lands days before the Dockers face Brisbane in Saturday's AFL grand final — the club's first since its inaugural 1995 season and only its second ever. Wilson is the latest figure to join the Get Off My Chest campaign, which has distributed hundreds of patches to supporters since launching in May. Tame Impala frontman Kevin Parker covered the logo on a Fremantle t-shirt ahead of a performance in Colorado last week. Australian novelist Tim Winton and independent senator David Pocock are also public supporters. Campaigner Clare Lagan spray-painted over the Woodside logo on a mural of former Dockers players Michael Walters and Nat Fyfe outside Fremantle markets. The campaign targets Woodside Energy, Australia's largest oil and gas company, which has sponsored the Fremantle Dockers for more than 15 years under a deal running until at least the end of 2027. Campaign spokesperson Clare Lagan called Woodside "one of Australia's most controversial companies and one of sport's most controversial sponsors," linking the protest to broader public support for a gas export tax and the argument that companies like Woodside are not paying their fair share for publicly owned resources. The Conservation Council of WA's Gerard Mazza connected the campaign to opposition to the Browse to North West Shelf gas export project, which Woodside describes as "Australia's biggest undeveloped offshore gas resource." Mazza argued WA already produces enough gas for the energy transition and has no need for "destructive new projects like Browse." Woodside's response was corporate boilerplate: proud of the partnership, looking forward to continuing. The company's framing treats the sponsorship as a mutual celebration of sporting success — deliberately ignoring that the campaign is about whether fossil fuel money should buy cultural legitimacy in an era of accelerating climate targets. Wilson's position is structurally awkward. As assistant minister for climate change and energy, he sits inside a government that has approved major gas projects while simultaneously claiming climate ambition. Taping over a logo is low-cost dissent that avoids confronting the policy architecture. The campaign itself is more culturally significant than politically consequential — Woodside's deal runs to 2027 regardless of how many patches are distributed. What makes this interesting is the timing and the venue. Grand finals are peak cultural visibility in Australian sport. Every covered logo on Saturday will reach millions of viewers. The campaign understands that cultural delegitimization of fossil fuel sponsorship may move faster than regulatory action — and that sport is the arena where that battle is most visible.
