Law change to head off anti-mine activists

Mackay Conservation Group, along with Environment Minister Greg Hunt and the Adani group, resolved to not consider the federal environmental approval given to the company on its project after the government’s attitude towards protection of environment has been successfully challenged in court. “The activists themselves have declared that that is their objective – to use the courts not for the proper goal of resolving a dispute between citizens, but for a collateral political goal of bringing developments to a standstill, and sacrificing the jobs of tens of thousands of Australians in the process”.

Yesterday Prime Minister Tony Abbott said the blocking of major projects like the Adani mine was a “serious issue”.

“Farming and agriculture – with a lower exchange rate and with the Free Trade Agreements – has a bright future so it’s important that the government sticks to a plan instead of just coming up with this random piece of legislation when they’re under a lot of pressure”. “They have been accepted by governments of all walks as being a necessary component to the system of environmental law”, Ms Higginson said. There are now 11 major financial institutions, including the Commonwealth Bank, that have stated they no longer wish to be associated with Adani’s Carmichael project, which would carry coal across the Great Barrier Reef and has been estimated to increase carbon emissions by up to 128 million tonnes per year – making it one of the largest coal mines in the world.

“If we get to the stage where the rules are such that projects like this can be endlessly frustrated, that’s unsafe for our country and it’s tragic for the wider world”, he said.

Brandis plans to repeal section 487(2) of the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Act and “return (it) to the common law”.

The Palaszczuk government, which is technically the proponent for the Abbot Point project, wants the waste to be dumped near the proposed new terminal on a disused industrial site once slated for a BHP jetty.

Prime Minister Tony Abbott has painted the changes as a defence of jobs, despite repeating now-debunked claims of 10,000 jobs linked to the mine, when the actual figure was fewer than 2000 jobs. Asked to identify this so-called parade, or even a single example other than the Carmichael decision, Macfarlane was unable to provide one.

To legally challenge poor government decisions about the environment is suddenly described as the work of “vigilantes” and to seek to protect endangered species from ill-considered government approvals is an act of “lawfare”.

But Mr Laird said “a law has been written and it needs to be upheld”.

Queensland State Development Minister Anthony Lynham flew to Bowen in North Queensland on Thursday to release the draft environmental impact statement on dredging at the port.

But the planned changes appear doomed without crossbench support in the Senate.

“Public enforcement of laws is a crucial tenet of our democracy and Senator Brandis has become the first ever Attorney General who wants less enforcement of the law”.

Now that’s just fundamentally wrong.

In representing the interests of miners, loggers and big polluters, the Abbott government is trying to amend these laws to silence voices that have a different view to its own. “And it’s good for the environment because Australia coal burns cleaner than the alternatives”, Abbott said.

The changes are expected to remove a provision allowing environmental organisations to initiate legal challenges, although the government said locals directly affected by projects could still question the approvals process. “It’s not lawfare, it’s fair law”, he told ABC radio.