Chris Minns has urged activists not to get “overexcited” about a high court judgment that invalidated the approval of a coalmine expansion in the New South Wales Hunter region.
The premier said the government had no intention of altering NSW laws or regulations in response to the ruling, warning that doing so would risk “jettisoning” the state mining industry’s environmental standing.
The nation’s highest court ruled on Wednesday that the approval of MACH Energy’s Mount Pleasant coalmine expansion at Muswellbrook was invalid.
A majority of the court found the Independent Planning Commission (IPC) had failed to consider conditions aimed at minimising, to the “greatest extent practicable,” all emissions produced by the coal once it was sold and burnt overseas.
“I don’t think everyone should overreact to the decision, and I also don’t think that activists considering court actions should get overexcited,” Minns told media on Thursday.
“It was a very narrow, technical decision about a consideration for the IPC.
“I understand that the [natural resources] minister Courtney Houssos has spoken to the CEO of the mine. They’re looking to continue an application through the IPC.”
Minns said state regulation would not be changed in response to the judgment. He described the state’s mining industry as having a “world class reputation” for safety and standards, and as “a mining industry that takes into consideration environmental factors”.
“I don’t think we should just be jettisoning that reputation when we can have both a vibrant, growing mining industry while protecting the hard-fought reputation for the mining sector in Australia,” he said.
Elaine Johnson, director of Johnson Legal, which represented the Denman Aberdeen Muswellbrook Scone Healthy Environment Group (Dams Heg) in the proceedings, welcomed the outcome.
“It’s the right decision from the government to respect the result and not to seek a kneejerk legislative response to such a significant decision from Australia’s highest court,” she said.
Minns also played down commentary that the ruling could create legal problems for other coalmine expansions in the state, including the recently approved Hunter Valley Operations (HVO) extension, the state’s biggest coal project.
He said he believed the court’s “technical decision about a narrow aspect of the law” had already been addressed through the government’s coal statement and the commission’s conditions for the HVO project, which required that coal be exported only to jurisdictions that had signed, or had policies consistent with, the goals of the Paris agreement.
“I don’t think it’ll be the end for both investment and expansion for mining in New South Wales,” he said, adding that the Mount Pleasant decision “can be remade in the IPC consistent with the HVO decision, which was made less than seven days ago”.
NSW Greens climate spokesperson Sue Higginson, an environmental lawyer, said the ruling “upends the legal reality facing the Hunter Valley Operations project” and that its approval could face “significant legal difficulty”.
“Labor premier Chris Minns has either received bad advice or he’s in denial and is failing to reckon with the groundbreaking new paradigm imposed by the high court decision,” she said.
“Surprisingly, the premier is waving around his new coal policy, and in doing so has drawn attention to his own coal policy’s achilles heel.
“The coal policy explicitly rules out consideration of downstream emissions, the exact same emissions the high court have now said must be considered under law.”
Higginson said the judgment required “a genuine and thorough assessment of the actual impacts that will be caused by the burning of coal mined in NSW, no matter where that burning takes place”.
“The high court has found NSW planning authorities failed to consider the impacts of, and the mitigation options for, 98% of the Mount Pleasant coalmine’s emissions,” she said.
“In exactly the same circumstances, the Independent Planning Commission failed to assess 98% of the climate impacts of the Hunter Valley Operations coal development.”
Johnson said Wednesday’s decision aligned with a growing body of cases worldwide.
“That body of case law is clearly stating that corporations and governments are responsible for emissions generated by their fossil fuel exports,” she said.
“The decision yesterday confirms that while the Paris Agreement provides a global accounting mechanism for emissions, it does not displace accountability for exported emissions, which lies with corporations and governments still seeking to expand fossil fuel production in 2026.”
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