Environmental Council of Central Queensland (ECoCEQ) and Environmental Justice Australia have lost their court challenge to Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek’s failure to act on the climate impacts of two huge coal projects.
This shameful decision will directly affect lives, livelihoods and ecosystems all around the world, and goes to show just how much Australia’s environmental laws are broken. Australians deserve strong environmental laws that protect our environment from the climate harm caused by new coal and gas projects.
This opens the door for the Albanese government to approve two new massive thermal coal mining projects in NSW - MACH energy’s Mount Pleasant coal mine expansion and Whitehaven Coal’s Narrabri coal mine expansion and potentially another 23 coal projects if Australia’s environmental laws continue to ignore the climate impacts of new coal and gas.
The ABC has obtained legal documents suggesting it’s likely the Labor government has already made secret promises to approve these two mines.
Court affidavits from MACH Energy and Whitehaven Coal show they had meetings with the federal environment department, in which they were led to believe they had "draft approvals" in place already. (ABC News, 11 Oct 2023.)
Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek has one job to do: to protect the environment. However, she can’t do her job if she continues to approve new coal and gas.
Find out more about the Living Wonders legal challenge.
Contact your MP and call on them to stop Labor from approving destructive new coal and gas!
