Court sends New Acland coalmine back to square one

One hundred and fifty coalminers could be redundant within days after a judge’s “extreme and irrational” feelings toward a mine expansion resulted in the project being sent back to square one after 12 years of legal battles.

ABOUT 150 coalmining jobs remain in limbo after Queensland’s highest court said a decision in a protracted legal battle had been “infected” by a judge’s “extreme and irrational” feelings towards the project.

The Court of Appeal today indicated it would send an application to expand the New Acland coalmine back to the Land Court, which originally recommended that a new mining lease be rejected.

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The court rebuked Land Court Member Paul Smith’s original decision, finding he was
“animated by an extreme and irrational animus” against the New Acland mine after media reports cited his holidays as one reason for a delay in his decision.

According to the decision, Mr Smith’s impartiality was compromised when he cited the movie The Castle when characterising the fight of a land owner as “little person” trying to protect his property from a “corporate giant”.

The court also found it was outside the Land Court’s jurisdiction to consider the effect of the mine’s activities on groundwater.

New Acland coalmine wash plant manger Andy Scouller is worried about the 150 redundancies likely to happen at the mine. Picture: Annette Dew

The parties — including New Hope Coal, which owns the Darling Downs mine, and the Oakey Coal Action Alliance, which had appealed a Supreme Court decision to set aside the original decision to reject the mine lease — have two weeks to make submissions to the court.

A New Hope spokesman said the company would still have to make 150 workers redundant, shut down half of its machinery and only operate days shifts while uncertainty about the expansion remained.

“Regardless of what’s happened today we don’t have the approvals from the State Government and until we have those we can’t go ahead with the expansion,” he said.

Oakey Coal Action Alliance secretary Paul King called for the Queensland Government to refuse a groundwater licence.

“This is a very difficult outcome for local farmers who have lived with this threat for 10 long years and now face more uncertainty due to this technicality, while they struggle with a worsening drought and reduced groundwater supply,” he said.

The Court of Appeal is likely to dismiss an appeal against the New Acland Coal mine but the decision was not strong enough to save 150 jobs from being lost next Monday unless the State Government steps in.

Court of Appeal president Justice Walter Sofronoff said: “The court has unanimously concluded that the Member’s decision should be set aside on the ground that it was infected by apprehended bias.”

The mine, which has produced coal for over a century, will run out of coal within about 18 months, unless the Stage 3 expansion is approved.

The Palaszczuk Government said it was reviewing the decision.

Queensland Resources Council chief executive Ian Macfarlane said the industry was examining the judgment, and would be “looking for clarity from the Queensland Government” for New Hope workers and the community.