Our environmental laws work in the favour of mining interests – even when the industry itself claims otherwise.
- Adjunct Associate Professor in the School of the Environment, The University of Queensland
New research reveals how governments ignored decades’ worth of scientific advice on how the Adani mine threatened to damage precious water supplies.
Federal environment minister Greg Hunt has claimed that he had no choice but to approve Shenhua’s controversial Watermark Coal Mine near Gunnedah in New South Wales. But the legislation suggests otherwise.
The Greens have secured a deal with the Palmer United Party (PUP) and Labor that effectively kills the federal government’s plan to hand its environmental approval powers to the states under its “one-stop…
The Queensland government has recently removed long-standing public rights to object to mines. In shades of the Bjelke-Petersen era, Queensland mines minister Andrew Cripps made fundamental changes one…
The Palmer United Party (PUP) has added to the Coalition’s headaches in the Senate by announcing this week it would seek to remove the so-called “water trigger” from the government’s “one-stop shop” for…
The new Federal Government has approved a broad framework for achieving a “one-stop-shop” that will hand to state and territory governments the final decisions on projects assessed under Australia’s main…
The Commonwealth will not delegate to the states decisions under its national environmental laws in which the states have a “conflict of interest”. Federal Environment Minister Greg Hunt confirmed this…
A very different approach is emerging between Australia and China’s treatment of jobs and industries providing goods and services for environmental protection. In Australia, major investors are reported…
While the political focus in Australia was on the Labor Party leadership challenge, the Opposition released its policy for “a one-stop-shop for environmental approvals”. The policy claims that handing…
The release of a Senate report into a Commonwealth water trigger marks another chapter in a debate that has simmered and bubbled for 30 years in Australia. The report recommends that the main Commonwealth…
Australia has delivered an updated report on the state of conservation in the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) that tip-toes around the politically charged issue of constraining major port expansions on the Queensland…
The story of dioxin contamination of Sydney Harbour shows us the great value of the green safety net of environmental law. The laws that form this green safety net, particularly federal laws, have recently…
Logical minds like to think of the different levels of government like a neatly layered cake, but the reality is more like scrambled eggs. Nowhere is that more true than in relation to protecting and managing…
Burn it all. That is the plan in Australia’s new Energy White Paper. Released yesterday by Resources and Energy Minister Martin Ferguson, it talks about responding to climate change while planning the…
The cost of litigation is a barbed wire fence that stops many people using our court system. This fence becomes a towering barrier when people are trying to protect not their private interests, but something…
Around the clock solar power could be a reality for Australians in the foreseeable future, but experts say a hostile state government stands in the way of Queensland becoming the solar power leader suggested…
Picking who is right in political disputes is often hard but this one is different. Queensland Premier Campbell Newman was clearly wrong in stating that the Federal Environment Minister Tony Burke is standing…
The dispute between the Queensland and Commonwealth Governments over the approval of Gina Rinehart’s Alpha Coal Mine continues to escalate with the Prime Minister now backing her Environment Minister…
Amid the hullabaloo about the carbon tax and Clean Energy Future plan, few seem to spot its critical discrepancy. It recognises that maintaining a safe climate requires stabilising carbon pollution in…
When it comes to obtaining research data, Canadian academic Steve Easterbrook said it best: “Any fool knows you don’t get data from a scientist by using FOI requests, you do it by stroking their ego a…
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