Stay application on Beetaloo Basin adjourned in Alice Springs NTCAT

An environmental group has brought its own heavyweight to a David and Goliath battle against a mining firm in the Red Centre. Find out what happened.

Northern Territory Civil and Administrative Tribunal, Westpoint Building, Alice Springs. Picture: Gera Kazakov NTCAT Alice Springs

A stay application is at the centre of a David and Goliath battle in a Territory tribunal – but the community group fighting a mining giant has brought in a heavyweight to help plead its case.

On Tuesday, the Environment Centre Northern Territory was in the NTCAT Westpoint Building in Alice Springs, pursuing an urgent stay application against Tamboran Resources’ Beetaloo Basin project.

Former New South Wales opposition climate change and energy minister Adam Searle, on behalf of Johnson Lawyers, represented Environment Centre NT in the hearing.

Mr Searle said the main focus of bringing the stay application was getting Tamboran’s Environment Management Plan reviewed by the Territory’s Environmental Protection Authority.

Former New South Wales opposition climate change and energy minister Adam Searle outside the Northern Territory Civil and Administrative Tribunal, Westpoint Building, Alice Springs, Tuesday November 5. Picture: Gera Kazakov

Mr Searle argued the stay application was in the public interest, and how two reports from Professor Matthew Currell showed a number of risks hydraulic fracking posed to groundwater in Beetaloo Basin.

The hearing heard the two reports were authored in September and October this year, and the previous government did not see them when a decision was made on the basin, Mr Searle said.

“They weren’t before the EPA, they weren’t before the minister and that’s the basis upon which the stay application is brought,” he said.

Mr Searle said by bringing the stay application ECNT was “not acting in its own interests, it’s acting in a broader representative interest to maintain the integrity of the registry scheme as well as environmental protection”.

H & P super-spec FlexRig on location at the SS2 well pad, as drilling begins on Tamboran Resources Shenandoah South Pilot Project in the Beetaloo Basin.

Mr Searle also sought no costs for ECNT.

The stay application was brought under the Petroleum Act 1994, with two members from ECNT making the trip the Red Centre to watch the hearing.

ECNT is seeking to use the stay application to pause Tamboran’s environmental management plan while the group seeks to overturn environmental approval granted for Tamboran to drill in Shenandoah South.

In June, Tamboran’s Beetaloo Basin was granted major project status by the then Lawler Labor government.

Representing Tamboran was Hamish Baddeley, who argued the stay application should be dismissed.

He said the NT EPA had already assessed the company’s proposal.

“We’ve got the NT EPA’s advice, and it’s at page 15 in section five (the EPA) assessed this and said ‘that at no stage in the life cycle, including post closure, would the activity (hydraulic fracking) on its own or cumulatively with other activities have a significant impact on the environment’,” he said.

Hamish Baddeley leaves the Northern Territory Civil and Administrative Tribunal, Westpoint Building, Alice Springs, Tuesday November 5. Picture: Gera Kazakov

Mr Baddeley also argued the environment management plan showed how the company would conduct operations in a safe manner and remediation works would be undertaken if necessary.

Mr Baddeley also sought much of the hearing to be closed due to a non publication order on third party contracts.

Presiding over the hearing was NTCAT president Mark O’Reilly, who closed the tribunal.

Once the hearing reopened, Lachlan Spargo-Peattie, representing the office of the environment minister, appeared via videolink and gave evidence.

Mr O’Reilly adjourned the matter to hand down a decision at a later date.