Pembroke Resources in court over coal mine’s $125m cattle breeding impact

An attempt by a former rich lister to have Queensland legislation amended through the Land Court has revealed a flaw detrimental to farmers, schools, hospitals and other entities. FULL STORY

James Gorman file image

An attempt by a former rich lister to have Queensland legislation amended through the Land Court has revealed a flaw that is detrimental to farmers, schools, hospitals, dams and other entities.

Two of James ‘Jim’ Gorman’s companies are taking on Pembroke Resources over its Olive Downs coal mine, about 40km south-west of Moranbah, in the Land Court of Queensland for $125 million compensation for the impact on 16 cattle breeding properties.

Mr Gorman, who was number 45 on the 2013 Queensland Rich List, is the sole director and shareholder of two companies listed in the court case – Balanced Property Pty Ltd and Namrog Investments Pty Ltd.

As part of the ongoing court battle, Mr Gorman’s legal team recently partially won an appeal where the court was asked, essentially, to define what is “restricted land” as per the Mineral and Energy Resources (Common Provisions) Act 2014.

James Gorman

Mr Gorman’s barrister Sandy Thompson outlined the legislative history of restricted land in Queensland law during submissions during a two-hour hearing in Rockhampton in July 2024.

He talked about why there needed to be definitions for “restricted land” in terms of what is a dam under the MERCPA.

He said when the Labor Party made amendments in 2016 to the MERCP Act, they made changes to the restricted land framework including: “allow the Minister to extinguish restrictive land, providing leases and the ability to grant mining leases over restrictive land where no consent or compensation has been agreed. And then amended the definition of restrictive land, then the new act to include land within 50 metres of prinicipal stockyards, dams, bores, artesian wells and artifical water storage connected to a water supply.

“Dams under section 68 (of MERCPA) are not limited just to farming... includes dams of every description, every capacity, including those which are water supply for communities, which contain water for irrigation, which provide flood mitigation,” Mr Thompson said.

He said the interpretation of restricted land in a decision handed down on September 29 in 2023 by the Land Court’s acting president Peta Stilgoe backed Pembroke’s interpretation that the restricted land provisions were directed to protecting and preserving the infrastructure, not the operational function.

“What was submitted essentially was that a stockyard is restricted land under Section 68 and the area around the stockyard is not restricted land,” Mr Thompson said.

“An open cut mine could completely surround the stockyard 50 metres away all around making it impossible for cattle to access the stockyard.... would be operationally useless.

“So the interpretation advanced by Pembroke would mean that 50m behind the dam wall in the middle of the dam, whether it be Wivenhoe, Somerset or a dam of the Burrum River, a mining company can drill a hole in the bottom of the dam and essentially render the construction of the dam wall a futile exercise.”

Under Section 68, restricted land within 200m laterally from a residence, childcare centre, hospital, library, busines, school, community centre, sporting centre or place of worship: along with land prescribed with environmentally relevant activities (ERAs) under the Environmental Protection Act for aquaculture, intensive animal feedlotting, pig keeping or poultry farming.

It is also land within 50m laterally used for artesian well, bore, dam or water storage facility, a principal stockyard, a cemetery or burial place.

Mr Thompson said this appeal was separate to the main compensation lawsuit, but would play a role in it by way of experts have been called by both sides to determine what area constitutes as being the area of the dam.

He said there was another hearing for the main lawsuit in September.

The appeal decision handed down on Friday by Justice Graeme Crow, acting member Judge Jeff Clarke and member William Isdale determined that for the purpose of section 68 of the Act, the words “an area used for (the purpose of a) dam” do include the dam wall and the necessary works required to support the dam wall; the area of land over which water is impounded by the dam wall when the dam is at maximum capacity and the water impounded by the dam.

They also determined it does not include an area of land over the surface of which water flows and supplies water to a dam or a watercourse along which water flows and supplies water to a dam.

Mr Gorman is not the only landowner impacted by Pembroke’s Olive Downs Mine leases that has fought the lease approvals in the Land Court.

One of the entities affected by the leases is Sunland Cattle Co Pty Ltd which owns Bombandy Station, a 110 kmsq cattle property which is downstream from the proposed mine site and fronts the Isaac River.

The river runs through or along the boundaries of the proposed leases.

Sunland objected to the leases on the grounds the operation would adversely affect its property and operations at Old Bombandy Station.

Sunland was unsuccessful in an application to the Supreme Court of Queensland in 2021 to have decisions by the Land Court and Natural Resources, Mines and Energy Minister regarding the approval of leases be set aside and the matter be sent back to the Land Court for reconsideration.

Originally published as Pembroke Resources in court over coal mine’s $125m cattle breeding impact