. They have been fighting stage three since applications were lodged in 2007.
Following the Newman decision, NAC submitted a scaled-back stage three, which no longer included Acland. It was welcomed by the LNP government. But the Oakey Coal Action Alliance – the banner under which the landholder groups had loosely coalesced – pushed back again. Smith’s opinion did not trigger immediate investigations from the Queensland or federal governments. .
Insisting it had done nothing inappropriate, it did not answer why it had agreed to improve internal system and training as part of the enforceable undertaking. It refused to provide evidence of where and how it documented West Pit.The Department of Environment could have cleared up any ambiguity long ago, he says, “but they f---ed around for years and let them continue to mine it”.“It was awful, that’s the only word,” he says.
The department did not answer questions about what had changed in its internal decision-making between 2016 and its 2022 language of “alleged unauthorised disturbance”.