High Court stomps on Adani coal monster

ENVIRONMENTALISTS have had a big win in their case against Australia’s largest coal mine after the Federal Court overturned federal environmental approval granted to Adani.

Adani is seeking to open up a massive new coal province in Queensland’s Galilee Basin, even as coal prices languish and environmental groups oppose the project.

The project would involve the construction of a 300 kilometre rail line linking the mine with the Abbot Point coal terminal, north of Bowen.

The Environment Department said the decision to set aside the approval was done with the consent of all parties, saying it will take six to eight weeks to provide update advice to the minister.

“This Federal Court decision to throw out Minister Hunt’s approval is a victory for land and water, biodiversity, the global climate and also for common sense”, MCG’s co-ordinator Ellen Roberts said.

“This kind of error in the decision making process is legally fatal to the Minister’s decision”.

“It should be noted the approval did include appropriate conditions to manage the species protection of the yakka skink and ornamental snake”, the statement said.

Queensland’s mining minister, Anthony Lynham, said he was “very disappointed” at the court’s decision and called on Hunt to “sort this out as quickly as possible”.

“The conservation advices were approved by the Minister in April last year, and describe the threats to the survival of these threatened species, which are found only in Queensland”, Ms Higginson says. At a time when Barack Obama is looking to close down the worst-polluting mines in the US, we have a federal government actively promoting and subsidising new coalmines.

“We’ve just won a huge battle, but the war’s not over yet”.

Cousins, who has been lobbying potential investors to reject the project, said the government should do more to move Australia towards clean energy.

Queensland Resources Council Chief Executive Michael Roche said the delaying tactics being used by the activists were straight out of their playbook, Stopping the Australian Coal Export Boom.

“We’d like to see not much of a delay”, he said.

The Mackay Conservation Group launched its legal challenge in the Federal Court in January, alleging that greenhouse gas emissions from the mine, vulnerable species and Adani’s environmental track record had not been taken into account.

Roche said opening the Galilee hinged on the success of a “first mover” such as Adani, without which crucial rail and port links would not be built.

Adani blamed the court’s decision on an error by the environment department.

She said without the intervention of community groups, this project would be proceeding, and that this highlights once again the importance of independent voices for the environment and the weakness of national laws that are supposed to protect the environment.