The Queensland Labor government has been urged to embrace legal advice that it has the power to kill off a coalmine proposal controversially pushed through by its Liberal National party predecessor.
Activist group Lock the Gate claims to have found the “out” Labor had been looking for on the Acland mine expansion, which was thought to have been approved by the LNP government a month before its demise.
The activists on Wednesday met with mining minister Anthony Lynham to hand over legal advice it had commissioned from interstate environmental legislation experts which revealed final approval had not actually been given.
Lock the Gate spokesman Drew Hutton said the revelation that New Hope Coal was yet to obtain an amended “environmental authority” as required by law meant the government now had the discretion to shelve the project.
Acland, on the Darling Downs west of Brisbane, became a key issue during the state election campaign in January after broadcaster Alan Jones accused the LNP of improperly reversing its opposition to the mine after owner New Hope Coal was linked to almost $1m in donations to the federal Liberal party.
Three senior members of the former LNP government including premier Campbell Newman, along with senior bureaucrat Jon Grayson, rejected Jones’ allegations and sued him for defamation. The suits have since been either dropped or not progressed beyond an initial statement of claim.
During the campaign, Lynham said he would love to reverse the LNP’s approval but would have to look at the legal ramifications.
“We don’t know what sort of contract this lot’s [the LNP] got us into,” he told the ABC.
“[But] we’re not going to sell our farmers out to the interests of mining like they [the LNP] have done.”
The federal environment minister, Greg Hunt, postponed making his decision on Acland until after the election so as to “clarify the incoming government’s future intentions”.
Lynham is the second Labor government minister to be handed the advice by Lock the Gate representatives, who also met with state environment minister Steven Miles last week.
Hutton said Lynham “as mines minister will have a big part to play – but not the only part to play”.
The decision about whether to approve an amended environmental authority for New Hope’s new mining operation, as required by the Environmental Protection Act, rested solely with environmental department assessors.
Lock the Gate’s legal advice said these assessors could either reject or effectively ignore New Hope’s application, shelving the project even though the former coordinator general had recommended its approval.
“As the opinion pointed out, the Department of Environment and Heritage can either not accept it or simply leave it on the shelf,” Hutton said.
Hutton said while environmental bureaucrats had the legal ability – even the obligation – to refuse a project outright, “culturally, they’ve never done it”.
“Because mining rules in Queensland politically. [Miners] are powerful.
“But [the department] don’t even have to go that far. They can say nothing, just leave it.”
The project should be rejected, he said, because of its impact on key farmland, surface and underground water, and nearby residents including those in the town of Oakey.
He said there was also an urgent need for the government to follow through on its election promise to run a public inquiry into political donations and their connections to government approvals, contracts and tenders.
The lawyers note a rejection in either form would be likely to trigger a legal challenge in the land court by New Hope, whose existing mining operations would not be affected.
However, the project’s impact on cropping land would also require separate approval under regional planning laws introduced last year to protect “strategic cropping land”.
A spokeswoman for Lynham said the government was “currently meeting
its election commitment to scrutinise the approval processes and the
impact of the mine on the local community”.
“Our priority is jobs but we will always balance economic development
with environmental sustainability, the need to protect prime
agricultural land and the public interest,” she said.
“The project has a range of approval steps ahead yet, as well as
meeting the 137 conditions set by the coordinator-general.”
