Legal challenge launched for Narrabri underground mine extension

The extension of the Narrabri underground coal mine is facing a court challenge over its approval from the Independent Planning Commission earlier this year.

Bushfire Survivors for Climate Action recently announced it had launched legal action for the approved development which will see the mine’s life extended from 2031 to 2044.

The climate action group is being represented by the Environmental Defenders Office.

The group is challenging the approval as it says the IPC’s approval of the mine extension in April was unreasonable, irrational and illogical. It said the project is not in the public interest because of the project’s impacts in driving further climate change-fuelled extreme weather events such as the Black Summer bushfires and Sydney’s current flooding events.

“As bushfire survivors we stand shoulder to shoulder with all climate survivors, determined to fight for safer communities,” said spokesperson for Bushfire Survivors for Climate Action Fiona Lee, who lost her home in the Black Summer fires.

“We know what it is to lose everything in a climate-fuelled event. We have felt the weight of lives turned upside down as we rebuild only to see the next disaster roll towards us.”

EDO director of legal strategy Elaine Johnson said this case marks a line in the sand.

“The IPC has a duty to make legally reasonable and justifiable decisions. Our client says that it cannot be reasonable, rational, logical or in the public interest to approve a mine which will be a major new source of climate pollution in 2022,” she said.

“The IPC had before it indisputable scientific evidence on the impact emissions from this mine extension would have on our climate. This mine produces not just thermal coal, but significant amounts of fugitive methane as well.”

Whitehaven Coal, operator of the Narrabri underground coal mine, was granted approval for the mine’s stage three extension.

The Independent Planning Commission announced the project’s conditional development consent in April, however, said the project would be required to comply with strict performance measures. A three-member panel issued 152 conditions for the development’s approval.

“The commission finds that, on balance, the application is not inconsistent with [ecologically sustainable development] principles, and that the project would achieve an appropriate balance between relevant environmental, economic and social considerations,” the commission’s statement of reasons for decision reads.

After the project’s approval, Whitehaven said the IPC’s determination enables mining to continue until 2044 as well as $317 million of direct wages into the community.

“Big investments like Narrabri stage three are about lives and livelihoods and it’s no surprise the majority of submissions from the local area and wider region supported the proposal, as the IPC itself acknowledged,” Whitehaven Coal managing director and CEO Paul Flynn said in a statement following the approval in April.

Mr Flynn said the company had spent nearly $50 million with around 81 suppliers based in the Narrabri LGA in the 2020-21 financial year.