Bob Brown court case ‘to impact Robbins Island wind farm, national projects’, adding to pressure on Tanya Plibersek’s environment law review

A Federal Court precedent bolstering protections for endangered species may be used to stymie one of the southern hemisphere’s largest wind farms, while potentially impacting projects nationally.

Robbins Island, Northwest Tasmania

A Federal Court precedent bolstering protections for endangered species may be used to stymie one of the southern hemisphere’s largest wind farms, while potentially affecting projects across the country.

UPC-AC Renewables plans a $1.6bn wind-farm on Robbins Island, off northwest Tasmania, with the company’s own assessments raising potential impacts on Tasmanian devils and orange- bellied parrots and the need for further tracking studies.

However, the company has not committed to undertaking these studies in time to be fully factored into the federal-state approval decision, due by October 11.

UPC’s additional information to Tasmania’s Environment Protection Authority, presented last month, says devils are “widespread throughout the project site”.

It says “there is uncertainty over location of natal dens” and foreshadows “further detailed survey work … using radio and GPS tracking of individual females” in September and October, to try to detect productive dens, with den destruction a “last resort”.

On the parrots, the company’s updated material says while none have been seen on the island since 2004, it is on the birds’ migration pathway “with confirmed and potential foraging habitat”.

“Robbins Island is considered essential for the survival of the species,” it says.

The Bob Brown Foundation believes UPC’s concessions about the need for further surveys means any federal approval for the 122-turbine wind farm will be vulnerable to legal challenge, unless delayed.

BBF campaigner Scott Jordan told The Australian this was in light of last month’s Federal Court ruling overturning approval for work on a Tasmanian mine tailings dam due to insufficient ­consideration of impacts on masked owls.

“They (federal and state governments) simply can’t be assessing this based on insufficient information, knowing that the company has more information to come,” Mr Jordan said.

“If they were to make an approval on the set of information they’ve got, then they are clearly setting it up for the court to follow precedent and overturn it.”

In the July 25 tailings dam decision, Justice Mark Moshinsky ruled it was insufficient for the federal environment minister to say they had applied the precautionary principle. He found ministers must demonstrate “active intellectual engagement” with the question of whether there were “threats of serious or irreversible environmental damage”.

Robbins Island.

UPC-AC chief executive (Australia) Anton Rohner said the precedent would not present any barrier to successful approval of the 900 megawatt wind farm.

“We have had a look at it (the judgment) but we’ve already been operating … at those higher levels of expectations,” Mr Rohner said. “We have positioned ourselves to manage that because we are highly aware of that – as in trying to do the right studies, the right ­science.”

UPC had taken “massive precautions” to reduce impacts and he did not believe all the further flagged studies needed to be completed before a decision.

“I’m not going to comment if they’re going to be done before or after,” he said. “We are confident that we’ve done the appropriate science and that those species will be well mitigated.”

Federal Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek declined to comment, or say whether she would consider legislating to reverse the precedent. She is reviewing environment law and promises to introduce new legislation next year.