The federal court has overturned the Abbott government’s approval of Australia’s largest proposed coal project, Adani’s Carmichael mine in north Queensland.
The court has ruled the environment minister, Greg Hunt, ignored his own department’s advice about the mine’s impact on two vulnerable species, the yakka skink and the ornamental snake.
The decision leaves Adani, which is yet to secure sufficient financial backing for Carmichael and recently slashed its workforce on the project, without legal authority to begin construction.
Sue Higginson, the principal solicitor at the Environmental Defenders Office NSW, which ran the case for the conservation group, said: “This kind of error in the decision-making process is legally fatal to the minister’s decision.
“The conservation advices were approved by the minister in April last year, and describe the threats to the survival of these threatened species, which are found only in Queensland,” she said.
“The law requires that the minister consider these conservation advices so that he understands the impacts of the decision that he is making on matters of national environmental significance, in this case the threatened species.”
Mackay Conservation Group co-ordinator Ellen Roberts said: “It is astonishing and deeply troubling that it has taken a legal case by a small community group to bring the approval process under proper public scrutiny, and expose minister Hunt’s dereliction of duty in fast-tracking the mine.”
She said the decision by the court in Sydney to throw out Hunt’s approval – made in July last year – was “a victory for land and water, biodiversity, the global climate and also for common sense”.
“We now call on minister Hunt to see sense, honour his obligations, and take the opportunity he has been handed by the federal court to reject this disastrous project once and for all.”
The court did not rule on the conservation group’s separate argument that Hunt failed to consider the impact of carbon emissions from burning of thermal coal from the Carmichael mine – which would exceed Australia’s annual emissions – or Adani’s “poor” environmental track record overseas.
Higginson said it was now up to Hunt to reassess the mine while “taking into account the conservation advices and any other information on the impacts of the project”.
Adani said in a statement it was “regrettable that a technical legal error from the federal environment department” had exposed the approval to an adverse decision.
It said the company would await the minister’s “timely reconsideration” of its approval application.
“Adani is confident the conditions imposed on the existing approval are robust and appropriate once the technicality is addressed,” it said.
But it hinted the decision might further delay work on the mine.
“As a result of changes to a range of approvals over [the past 12 months] it’s necessary our timelines and budget reflect those changes.”
In recent months Adani has halted engineering work on preparations for the mine and dissolved a 50-strong project management team, leading to speculation it was preparing to abandon its plans.
The Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF), which has lobbied investors not to back the mine, said Hunt could not make the same approval decision as before.
“This time he should reject the disastrous proposal,” said Kelly O’Shanassy, chief executive of ACF.
“If it went ahead this project would destroy wildlife habitat, damage precious artesian water and contribute to the global climate problem once the coal is burned.”
The federal court’s decision echoes a ruling by the same court in 2013 that Tony Burke, the then environment minister, had erred by failing to properly consult his department’s advice on the impact of the Shree Minerals mine on the Tasmanian devil.
Following a case lodged by activists, the mine in north-west Tasmania was blocked, only for Mark Butler, Burke’s successor, to reassess the development and allow it to go ahead with additional safeguards for the Tasmanian devil.
