Coalition may change environment laws after Carmichael mine setback

The federal government is considering changing national environment laws in the wake of an embarrassing federal court setback that overturned its approval of what would be Australia’s largest mine. The approval of the $16bn Carmichael mine, to be located in Queensland’s Galilee Basin region, was set aside on Wednesday following a legal challenge by the Mackay Conservation Group. The federal environment department has said it will take six to eight weeks to reassess the project after it emerged the environment minister, Greg Hunt, had not properly considered the mine’s impact on two vulnerable species – the yakka skink and the ornamental snake. The Queensland Resources Council said the situation was “preposterous” and called on the government to “step up and close the loopholes” that allowed activists to stymie large mining projects. It is understood the Coalition is looking at how it can avoid a repeat of the “technical” error that led to the halting of the mine. A change that would give Hunt immunity from future legal challenges is being considered, with Labor’s in-principle support. But no deal has yet been made between the parties. It appeared that the Coalition and Labor had agreed retrospective legal immunity measures at the start of last year, only for the legislation to be dropped. The changes would have made the environment minister immune from legal challenges if he or she ignored conservation advice provided by the department. A spokeswoman for Mark Butler, Labor’s environment spokesman, said: “Labor would have supported the government’s amendments to the EPBC Act, as they were drafted in 2013, had they been presented to the Senate.” A spokesman for Hunt said: “Labor was not willing to support changes that would have provided ongoing certainty for projects, while still protecting the environment. “If they are now willing to do so, then we welcome their change of position and would be happy to talk.” These measures were put forward following a similar embarrassment for Labor in 2013, when the federal court overturned an approval for a Shree Minerals mine in Tasmania because conservation advice relating to the Tasmanian devil had not been properly assessed. “We tried when we came into government to fix this and Labor said no,” Hunt told 2GB on Wednesday. “We put forward legislation which Labor rejected to deal with what was called the Shree Minerals issue relating to conservation advices. “We’ve cleared about a trillion dollars worth of resource and backlogged decisions that were just in the ‘too hard’ baskets of the previous government. They stopped the legislative change. They’re against the one-stop shop. “And fortunately, we’ve been able to implement one-stop shops with every state and territory, half the approval time and clear a billion – a trillion, a trillion dollars worth of backlog.” Hunt has said all the evidence of the mine’s impact was examined in “microscopic detail” and the reassessment of the approval was the most “prudent” thing to do. The case against the Carmichael mine, which is to be operated by Indian mining giant Adani, was also based around Adani’s overseas record and the impact of the mine upon climate change. The mine would, at capacity, extract 60m tonnes of coal a year, to be transferred via a new rail line and port to overseas markets such as India. The coal, when burned, will produce about 120m tonnes of carbon dioxide a year – more than double the emissions bought by the Australian government in its first Direct Action auction. Opposition to the mine has also focused upon its impact upon groundwater – it will use a maximum of 12.5m litres of water a year – and the habitat loss to be suffered by the skink, snake and the black-throated finch. BirdLife Australia has written to Hunt warning that the mine will push the finch “to the brink of extinction”, urging him to reconsider his approval of the project. The Australian Conservation Foundation, which has lobbied investors to reject the mine, has also written to Hunt with what it says is evidence that Adani has been misleading over the mine’s economic benefits. Jo-Anne Bragg, a solicitor at Environmental Defenders Office, which took on Mackay’s case, said the law around approvals should not be changed. “We don’t need the law to be changed, we just need the minister to do his job,” she said. “It’s embarrassing for minister Hunt to have made this error. Failing to consider conservation advice is an important breach of commonwealth law. “The focus should be on the merits of this mining proposal. It’s not a glitch – they just didn’t comply with well-established law. It may be embarrassing, but it’s not a glitch.” Coalition MP George Christensen has said Adani is keen on “sticking it out” to ensure the Carmichael project is completed, despite it taking five years so far to start work on the development. “Many other companies would have said enough’s enough,” Christensen, who said he had spoken to Adani, told the ABC. “But they’re still interested in investing.”