Decision is a gift to a movement under threat

The federal government has adopted a high-risk course to change the rules and limit the role of courts in testing public concerns about major projects.

The government says it is asserting control over the nation’s economic future, but the attack on “lawfare” is being projected to the millions signed up online to protect the Great Barrier Reef campaign as overreach.

Green groups are convinced the issue was a vote loser for the one-term Newman government — and it has certainly galvanised an environment movement already threatened with the loss of tax-deductible donations.

The green lobby believe they’ve found the ground on which to fight back.

The issue has brought the simmering ideological clash over the future of coalmining out into the open.

Rightly or wrongly, Environment Minister Greg Hunt is portrayed as a sore loser who is prepared to cut corners and put the reef back in danger.

Green claims of safeguarding the public good in court will play well in farm communities worried about water. Ultimately the government’s move will assist the environment lobby’s use of sophisticated online crowd funding tools to help build a war-chest for the renewables-friendly opposition.

The government is correct that court delay is a big new tactic in the green armoury.

The truth is less than 0.5 per cent of all approvals that are referred as controlled actions under the EPBC Act have been challenged.

The high moral ground is that watchdog groups including the Independent Commission Against Corruption say third party appeals are a safeguard against biased decision-making by consent authorities. The Adani furore that triggered the latest crackdown is ample proof that bureaucrats can make mistakes that fall outside the standard required by law.