Activists have had a victory in the high court, which has upheld an appeal to have the expansion of the New Acland coalmine in Queensland’s Darling Downs reassessed by the state’s land court.
The Oakey Coal Action Alliance, represented by the Environmental Defenders Office, won its long-running legal case in a judgment handed down on Wednesday.
The alliance is made up of a group of landholders opposed to the mine. It had applied to the high court to have its whole case heard by a fresh hearing of Queensland’s land court.
The saga has had a long and complicated legal history.
In 2017, the land court recommended the mine be refused, a decision the developer, New Hope Group, appealed in the supreme court.
The supreme court found parts of the original recommendation were in error and ordered the case be sent back to the land court for a new hearing, but bound by most of the original findings.
In 2018, the land court recommended the project be approved and, in 2019, environmental approval was granted.
Further appeals of this decision found Judge Paul Smith’s original 2017 decision had been affected by apprehended bias but the court of appeal did not order a fresh hearing.
The Oakey Coal Action Alliance appealed to the high court last year and argued the matter should be sent back to the land court unconstrained by the 2017 decision that had been found to have been affected by bias.
Thursday’s judgment ordered a fresh hearing and that New Hope pay the alliance’s legal costs.
Sean Ryan, managing lawyer at the EDO, welcomed the decision.
“It is fundamental to the administration of justice that our client and the other objectors have access to an independent decision unclouded by apprehensions of bias or unfairness,” he said.
“Our client and the other objectors can now look forward to the opportunity to present their evidence to a fresh land court of the impacts of this coal mine on the local farming area and on the rest of Queensland through climate change.”
New Hope Group said in a statement it would seek an urgent meeting with the Queensland government to discuss the future of the mine’s expansion.
The company’s chief executive, Reinhold Schmidt, said the outcome in the case was disappointing but had nothing to do with the assessment and approvals process.
“What we need from the government is a roadmap for how we get the project up and running because more delays equates to more job losses,” he said.
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