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QRC calls on government to close legal loopholes

With the Alpha Coal Project plagued by the constant protesting of activists and green groups, the Queensland Resources Council is urging the government to close legal loopholes.

Seven years after the Queensland government declared the $10 billion Alpha Coal Mine a “significant project”, multiple appeals by activist groups have halted the remote Queensland project by up to another nine months.

This is the fourth court action by green activists to delay GVK Hancock projects, and QRC wants to stop enabling activists to disrupt and delay job-creating resource sector projects and potentially leaving taxpayers to foot the bill.

Chief executive Michael Roche said the time had expired for governments to sit on their hands and allow the blatant flaunting of the legal system by the activists to disrupt and delay important projects.

“The Queensland Government can no longer sit back and watch these important job-generating projects be bogged down by court appeal after court appeal on matters which the Land Court has previously ruled is outside of its jurisdiction,” Mr Roche said.

“The Land Court has ruled more than once that it has no jurisdiction over climate change (scope 3 emissions) and yet the legal system allows this tactic of disruption and delay to be rolled out again and again.

“Current flaws across the legal system enable activists to repeatedly launch vexatious litigation against industry projects, thus carrying out their ‘disrupt and delay’ strategy as identified in the activist handbook, ‘Stopping the Australian Coal Export Boom’.

Mr Roche said if the government does not act, this tactic will be deployed against every new resource project in Queensland.

“Success for the green activists is not measured by winning an appeal, rather success is measured in months and years of delay,” he said.

“Their objective is for project proponents to decide that investing in Queensland is too hard and will walk away.”

QRC will be launching a petition so people can have a say on the activists’ capitalisation on legal loopholes to hold up jobs and royalty revenue, while potentially making the taxpayer fork out for the court action.

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