The Law Council of Australia has told Australia’s upper house Senate that it has deep concerns with an attempt to prevent court challenges of environmental approvals granted by the Environment Minister to major development projects.
Fairfax newspaper The Age reports lawyers believe the conservative Liberal-National government is undermining the rule of law through retrospective legislation to prevent court challenges to the approval of mining projects where conservation advice is ignored.
At present it is possible for independent groups to challenge an environmental approval given by the government in the courts on the basis it is not consistent with the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Act.
As an example an approval given by the previous Labor government’s Environment Minister for an iron ore mine in Tasmania was overturned by the Federal Court because it did not give adequate consideration to threats it posed to the Tasmanian Devil.
The latest amendments are being proposed by the government in order to provide greater investment certainty for industry.
A Senate committee has given approval for Environment Minister Greg Hunt to introduce protections that would effectively protect him from legal action against all approvals he has made or will make.
This would include permission for mining magnate Clive Palmer’s giant coal mine in Queensland’s Galilee Basin that will ship its product through the Great Barrier Reef, the expansion of the Abbot Point coal terminal and a fourth coal-seam gas plant at Gladstone Harbour.
Environmental groups have already indicated they will launch a legal challenge to the Abbot Point approval by Mr Hunt.
The Age reports the Law Council of Australia has fought hard against the bill, which is expected to pass the Senate within a fortnight.
”
Our view is there is not sufficient justification for legislation in such broad terms,” said Greg McIntyre, SC, chairman of the council’s environment and planning law group.
“It goes against the general principle of not making laws retrospectively.
”If you introduce laws to protect the environment and put safeguards in place, there should be no reason to alter them retrospectively.”
Mr McIntyre told the Senate committee: ”Part of the operation of the rule of law is that you actually know what the law is and then you act in accordance with it. You cannot possibly know what a retrospectively operative law is and act in accordance with it.”
More than a dozen environmental and conservation groups submitted objections to the amendment.
Australian Greens Party senator Larissa Waters criticised the federal opposition Labor Party for supporting the bill and said it was a sign of the Liberal-National government’s ”anti-science, anti-environment agenda”.
