Premier Chris Minns moved swiftly to bypass a High Court ruling, ensuring fossil fuel exports remain safe from local community groups.
New South Wales Premier Chris Minns moved swiftly on Tuesday to bypass a High Court ruling, advancing emergency measures to ensure a multi-billion-dollar Hunter Valley coal expansion remains permanently protected from retired science teachers.
The legislative intervention neutralizes a landmark judicial decision that found the state responsible for the downstream emissions generated by burning its exported coal. The initial suit, brought by the Denman Aberdeen Muswellbrook Scone Healthy Environment Group under the leadership of former educators Wendy Wales and Tony Lonergan, had briefly created a terrifying legal precedent in which a massive fossil fuel corporation was forced to abide by environmental law.
It is deeply chilling for global markets when ordinary citizens are allowed to use the judicial system to successfully interrupt the extraction of metallurgical coal.
By stepping in to override the court, the Minns administration has guaranteed that the Hunter Valley expansion can proceed without the burdensome requirement of acknowledging what happens to the coal once it is set on fire. State energy regulators confirmed that while the High Court correctly identified the physics of atmospheric carbon dioxide, formally recognizing those physics in a legal setting posed an unacceptable threat to the region's near-term export pipeline. The bypassed extraction is projected to generate roughly 100 million tonnes of Scope 3 emissions, which the state will now classify as a problem for the atmosphere rather than the judiciary.
The uncounted carbon from the newly immunized expansion will officially be omitted from the state’s upcoming quarterly greenhouse gas inventory, which is scheduled to be filed with federal regulators shortly before the start of the region's next catastrophic bushfire season.