Bulga Milbrodale Progress Association’s appeal to the Land and Environment Court over last year’s Planning and Assessment Commission’s (PAC) review that approved Rio Tinto’s Warkworth mine’s extension has been dropped.
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The appeal was to be heard early next month.
The residents of Bulga have been left with no choice but to drop their latest court challenge against the approval of the Warkworth coal mine expansion, Lock The Gate Alliance says merits appeal rights for coal mine approvals must urgently be restored.
The former Planning Minister, Prue Goward took away the opportunity for anyone to challenge the approval of the Warkworth expansion project on its merits in November 2014. After the project was approved in November last year, the Bulga Milbodale Progress Association launched a judicial review case, which only allows for review of procedure, rather than examining whether the approval was the right decision.
In a release this morning Lock the Gate say “We're devastated by this news. This community has fought for over six years to save their village from the Warkworth coal mine. They twice beat Rio Tinto and the Government in court, twice showed that on merits, this project will do more harm than good. But their victories were cruelly snatched away from them by a government that seems more intent on appeasing the whims of a coal industry in its death throes, than on protecting the health and livelihoods of Hunter communities.”
We're devastated by this news
- Lock the Gate
"Bulga is an icon for everything that is wrong with the way NSW deals with coal mines. The system is unjust and perverse. It is breaking Hunter communities, who are never now allowed the right to challenge the merits of mining approvals in court. Bad decisions are being made and there is no recourse to justice.
"Planning Minister Rob Stokes must ensure that the terrible injustice inflicted on the people of Bulga can never happen again. Two more villages in the Hunter, Bylong and Wollar, are facing extinction by the Bylong and Wilpinjong coal mines. We need Minister Stokes’ assurance they will be allowed their legal rights.
"Minister Stokes must restore the right of local communities to appeal the merits of coal mine approvals in court. This basic legal right is denied with almost every mine approval in NSW, and it was denied to Bulga people in this case.”